Girl Und Modern Warfare
by Chittatos
Summary: When Miho Nishizumi's life changed place into another universe of the modern year of 2016 where there's no such thing as Sensha-Do in that universe. What past have Miho Gone through after a year of modern war and how will she holding up as a field officer of Task Force 141. ( before & after MW2-3, in MW in flashbacks). I'm Indonesian so please be tolerate a little. GUP set in 1960s
1. Chapter 1 - The Dream (Edited)

Alright then, here it goes.

Have a good time reading

* * *

 _Miho Nishizumi, the second daughter of Shiho Nishizumi._

 _The second daughter of the leader of the Japanese Panzerfahren organization._

 _The second daughter of the heritance of the Nishizumi Style of Japanese Sensha-dō._

 _Since she was old enough to go to Kuromorimine Girls Academy, right after entering she had joined up Panzerfahren and become Vice-Commander of her sister, Maho Nishizumi, she was the great pride to the academy despite becoming a vice-commander on her first day of school._

 _Miho has a personality of being cheerful and polite demeanor, occasional shyness, and as a highly talented Sensha-dō commander while in battle she became a calm, serious and decisive tank commander and can even sense of the incoming shells or tanks in the area without seeing them it was just her sixth sense to have a natural talent for it._

 _Despite that, Miho had felt a negative effect on Sensha-dō but wasn't sure what was it. But sometimes in her life, she ever wondered about one thing. What if things didn't go well as she hoped for? What if things go very wrong than she had avoided? What if this style of Sensha-dō does not suit her well one day? What if the world has a way to change her life?_

 _And that time happened inside, deep inside her mind._

 _Like a clock ticking away the seconds of the minute, Miho woke up with her heart beating irregularly and opened her eyes. She thought that her alarm was going off again, but then there was something wrong, very wrong. She was lying down on the ground, a concrete ground. Her face was facing the concrete and she was quite shocked to notice that she wasn't in her room in the Nishizumi residence anymore, no. She then stood up from the ground and looked around. She couldn't see anything, besides the fog was thick enough that it made her ability to see anything practically to zero meaning she can't see anything 1 foot in front of her._

 _There was nothing out there. Nothing was out there besides the grey thick fog that had the smell of oil, iron, gunpowder, fire and smoke. She just kept turning around over and over and over again to get a good look to her surroundings but it didn't work. Then she decided to call out to her surroundings._

 _"Hello?! Is anyone there?" Miho shouted then paused to listen if anyone answered her._

 _"Maho? Mother? Erika?" Miho shouted again, this time much louder as she turned her head around her but only silence answered her._

 _"Can anyone hear me?" Miho shouted for the last time very loud, worried if she was here all alone._

 _There was no response for her reply. She only decided to wait for a moment and not to panic. She then heard faint noises moving towards her, Miho quickly smiled upon that. But then her smile vanished just as fast after she identified what the noise was._

 _*BRA-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT*_

 _Miho quickly dived down into a prone position to the ground in fright and panic. The bullets suddenly flying above her head made her glad that she followed her survival instincts. But now, the next thing she needed to worry about is what just happened. Why someone was suddenly go and shoot at Miho out from nowhere?_

 _Miho wasn't sure what was happening right now, but she could say everything around her was different, very different from what she was seeing before. Bullets were flying around her as she kept moving and lie down on the ground into a prone as the fog was slowly clearing up. Every time she tried to look up, a couple of bullets flew above her in high speed and she ducked down again. Her heart kept beating faster to avoid the incoming bullets._

 _*DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG*_

 _Her heart started to beat even faster as the intense sounds of gunfire from all around her was starting to get louder and louder. She wasn't sure what the hell was going on right now and now she couldn´t even move one part of her body from the ground almost as if she had become the permanent statue on the ground. She then raised her head to see what was going on around her. But then, there was a loud blast…._

 _*DUAAAR* *SIIIING*_

 _"AAAAAHHH!" Miho screamed at the top of her lungs as her face dug to the ground with her eyes closed and pressed her hands on of her both ears as strong as she can to avoid hearing the loud blast again and stopping the loud screeching sound in her ears._

 _She was fucking terrified on what the hell is going on here. Her damn trauma and anxiety of what was going on was starting to increase as the firing from all direction won't cease and was getting louder with the blasting sound that was firing right next to her. To make it much worse, she already realized that she wasn't even inside a tank her Tiger tank was nowhere to be seen in the area. She feared for the worst of what was going to happen to her as she grinded her teeth in fright and kept her face to the ground with her hands covering the back of her head, tears coming to her eyes. She was going to lose her mental health soon enough of this kept up._

 _She then encouraged herself to lift her head up and see what was going on. It was out of her expectation that she could actually see the area around her position. She was inside a city, a destroyed city. She could describe the city she was in had a lot of destroyed skyscrapers and high buildings up top. She was currently lying down on a road, an intersection to be exact. There were a lot of wreckage from the buildings and destroyed cars amongst the road, including the armored car which she had never seen this kind of vehicle before. Beyond that it was only fog that blocked the visibility of her surroundings._

 _Looking at herself by rolling her whole body to the right, she was pretty shocked on what was she was wearing. She was wearing some sort of combat uniform, a grey combat jacket and snow pattern combat pants with a knee pad on the right knee which made her smile on her favorite snowy pattern. There was also a vest, a combat vest on top of her jacket that she had never seen that contains pockets of ammo and other miscellaneous items, and oddly enough a UK flag on her chest. The uniform doesn't even fit the uniforms some schools used, or even the uniforms in the Second World War. Other than that, she realized she had a black balaclava covering her face and a weird type of transparent glasses or goggles on her eyes_

 _Next to her, she recognized a rifle, a weapon. But there was something odd with the rifle, she never seen a kind of it as well. The whole rifle was colored black, it had a strange square scope when seeing it from the stock of the weapon, there was a fore grip underneath the cylinder barrel rifle, the stock seems to be collapsed in a way, and it doesn't match with the STG44 because the look of the weapon was, how could she say, much more modern than the 1950s. The next thing was the pistol strapped on her chest, the pistol was colored in dark cream-colored while the upper side of the pistol barrel was black, it had a square shape trigger, and what was bizarre to her was the size of the magazine for the gun was quite long in ammo counts (extended ammo magazine) and it didn't match the accurate size of the pistol magazine slot compartment but somehow stilled looked okay._

 _She then proceeds to look around her to get more knowledge on what was happening. And there it was, there was a tank right next to her, firing machine guns at an unknown target. But the tank was quite odd to her it was something new to her as well. The tank was in green urban camouflage, had a width of 12 feet and a height of 8 feet, the hull was quite flat on the surface, the turret was large like most of the tanks but this one was larger and nearly reached the back end of the tank and took notice the bars on the sides of turret for holding-hands was something new for her. It also had a machine gun on top to fight or hold off infantry, but the commander of the tank was nowhere to be seen_

 _After a tense moment of gun fire, the tank fired a shell that send a booming noise into Miho's ears. Deafening her for a while as her hands closed her ears quickly but she still yelped in pain. The booming sound was a little louder than the Tiger 1 and she was just sick of it. Moments later as the tank was firing its machine gun, it moved forward and the tank was nowhere to be seen except for the constant flying bullets above her. She then slowly in dizziness stood up from the ground, taking the strange rifle next to her and then stood right there, limping and shaking and confused on what was going around her. Miho then heard a noise, a noise of figures coming running out from her left from where the tank was positioned. She could see the figures through the smoke, not bothering to dodge bullets flying around her. In anxiety, pain, and confusion, she was able to see figures that looked like soldiers running through the fog and kept shooting whatever was ahead of them in formation, which makes her wonder if she was in another kind of The Second World War._

 _Then she saw there were a few soldiers running towards Miho's position whilst firing at the unknown enemy ahead of them in the fog. She could hear them screaming orders to other soldiers, before they stopped behind a cover and two of those soldiers run up to Miho. Miho starting to fear if these soldiers were coming to kill her, she then slowly aimed her rifle towards the unknown soldiers in the fog. When the two soldiers reached Miho, she tensed up and gripped her riffle even harder, to which the two soldiers ordered Miho to hold her fire as they raised their hands up along with their rifles. Miho felt doubt on the soldiers intent, but then she noticed their appearance._

 _The first one was a white man who looked like a Scottish-British man. His black hair was cut into a Mohawk, had blue eyes, had a straight scar on his left eye, and had a thin-shaved beard. He was wearing black combat shirt, jeans with knee protections along with a pistol holster, and a Kevlar vest just like Miho his weapon was another kind of rifle she had never seen before._

 _The other one on the other hand was a veteran white old man who looked like a British man. His features were brown hair along with his brown beards above and underneath his mouth, blue eyes, he is as old as a 40-50 years old man, and he wears a desert-camo fedora hat. He was wearing his dark green shirt along with the straps of ammo pouches on his sides and on his belt with desert brown combat pants with right knee-padded protection, and unlike the man with the Mohawk hair he doesn't wear any Kevlar vest, and he was holding the same rifle that Miho had in her hands right now._

 _"Lower the gun now, we're friendly's!" The old man shouted, to which Miho finally obeyed and lowered her gun slowly in anxiety and staggered breath._

 _Seeing Miho wasn't quite well about what was going on, the two men approached her and the old man holds her shoulder. "You okay there?"_

 _"No, I'm…." Miho stopped in shock, before continuing fearfully. "What is going on here? Who are you?"_

 _Acknowledged to the girl's statement, the old man says his name to her. "My name is Captain John Price. This man with me is Captain John "Soap" Mactavish. Who are you, soldier?"_

 _Miho paused a little on why he called her, 'soldier'. Since when had she been drafted into a military campaign? Unless of course the Japanese government somehow had started another war in another country. That thought vanished as Soap flicked his fingers in front of her face._

 _"Eh, mate? You okay?" Soap asked after he flicked his fingers on her frozen face._

 _"Oh, sorry, I-" Miho paused as they quickly ducked from the incoming bullets. "Miho… Miho Nishizumi."_

 _"Alright, listen Miho," Price said, but as Miho noticed with wide eyes there were dark figures slowly coming out the fog behind them and ready to attack. "We need you to fol-"_

 _"Look out, behind you!" Miho shouted, startling both soldiers and quickly aimed their rifles at the enemies behind them._

 _Miho was the first to react after she shouted. She quickly pushed Soap away to the right in front of her and carelessly aimed the rifle by the hip and pulled the trigger to which she nearly fell back by the sudden recoil of her M4A1 rifle. She still was able to kill around two of them in one burst, before Soap and Price reacted to do the same as Miho but with steady aim and aiming from their shoulders. They just keep shooting, shooting and killing the unknown enemies that are coming for them. Miho cursed "Jama suru" under her breath as she tried to reload her empty-magazine of her rifle in despair._

 _It took her a few moments and a few orders from them both to quickly shoot them back, before she began shooting them again from the hip this time she was using recoil control. But the more they killed, the more they came in. They had to fall back from their current position because there was no cover near them. They were in the fucking open area._

 _"Price! Miho! Fall back!" Soap ordered, as the three slowly started moving back._

 _As they stepped backward and kept firing at their targets, something unexpected happened to Miho. Miho was hit by 3 shots on the front of her body and that was enough to incapacitate and drop her down to the ground. Taking those shots, she was quickly reminded about World War 2, how much pain those soldiers had took from this and she was feeling the same pain. She groaned and grinded her teeth in pain as she lifted her head up to see her shot-up body and holds back the pain. Price quickly crouched down and looked at Miho. "Aaargh, it hurts…." Miho cried out, after she saw that there was blood coming out from her wounds._

 _"Don't worry, I gotcha!" Price shouted, then he quickly walked behind Miho's head and began dragging her by the shoulders to safety. "Just hold them off!"_

 _In despair, she aimed her rifle aimlessly and just pulled the trigger upon them. As Soap was trying to protect Price and Miho while in the same time killing the bastards that were coming for them. The only least thing they can do is only shoot and fall back. Everything was slowing down in Miho's vision as she was aiming and shooting the enemy a little quick and accurate, which she was glad to be alive this far. Miho's instinct was only keep telling her to shoot them…. Shoot them….. just shoot them as Miho got dragged by Price and leave a trail of blood from her wounds._

 _This…. This was so very different than Sensha-dō. The only thing you do in Sensha-dō was drive tanks and use tactics to eliminate other tanks. This one…. No…. this was very horrible to her. What was she was doing right now was killing people….. killing real people. But what other choice did she have right now? Whoever these people were, either they were soldiers or not, they were trying to kill both of these soldiers and also Miho herself._

 _After a moment of falling back and fending off the enemies, they three reached a building and took cover behind the walls of that building. Soap was at the window on the left side of the door while Price took cover on the other window along with Miho sitting down at the wall in pain on the right side of the door. Price and Soap were shooting at the enemies with Miho closing her ears in pain of the sound of gunfire at the wall near the window where Price was taking cover. As Soap and Price kept shooting the enemies back, a miracle happened._

 _*DUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAARRRRR*_

 _Suddenly a bombardment by the allied air force consisting of A-10 planes fired at the whole enemy force on the road and in the fog beyond. Killing them all and left nothing else on the road except for the corpses scattered around the whole road. The loud bombardment had made Miho reach the peak of her sanity and screamed at the top of the lungs in pain and fear. Leaving Miho to close her ears with her hands as strong as she can and closed her eyes shut as she screamed as loud as she could._

 _After the bombardment has stopped, both Soap and Price sighed as they looked out through the window in relief that the A-10s had relieved them from their sticky situation. After they both made sure the area was clear (with a confirmed clear from the A-10s by radio), they both then looked over to Miho to see how she was doing so far. They felt very sad on what happened to Miho, she was shaking terribly in trauma and anxiety, hoping that the events they were having right now was finally over. Miho slowly opened her eyes and slowly lowered down her hands from her ears, this was too much so deferent than Panzerfahren, this was so much like World War 2. She had taken too much of this._

 _They both crouched down and Soap grabbed her hands and lowered them down to her sides. "Ssssshh, calm down ok. We're alright," Soap assured her, Miho sighed many times trying to calm down._

 _"Is it-is it over?" Miho asked terrified and shakily. "You-you sure?"_

 _"It's over, little lady," Price replied softly, he then holds her left cheek to make sure she's still alright. "Just stay with me."_

 _"I-I just want to sleep…." Miho said at last, before she let her head fall to her right and starting to lose conscious because she was succumbing to her wounds and losing blood._

 _"Miho! Miho!" Soap shouted trying to wake her up but to no avail. "Mihoo!" Price shouted at last._

 _As Miho listens to their shouts, she fell to sleep and everything went black for her as the voices faded away as well._

* * *

"AAAAAAHH!"

Miho screamed at the top of her lungs as she launched her upper body off her bed with widened eyes. But then realized something that was off from the things she saw before. She was inside her bedroom, her bedroom full of her favorite teddy bears, Boko. More than that, plates hanged above her bed, shelves filled with a couple of Bokos and tanks, the rest of them are only furniture. Glad to know she was still in her bedroom she took a couple of deep breaths as she calmed down.

Miho then turned her body around to the left so she can sit on her bed for the moment. She rubbed her forehead in a little dizzy after that little nightmare. Well, wouldn't say that had been just a 'little nightmare' but that's what she thought. What made her interested with this one dream was this is the first time she had a dream like this. The dreams she had the most of the time was about the school, Panzerfahren, her sister and mother, and of course something stupid that Maho would do in case she felt naughty on something (It's not like what you are thinking). Because this is the first time she had a dream that showed her something different, she had decided to remember that dream as an important part of her memory.

Well, who knows, someone might want to ask that. Or perhaps there will be something happening that is going to relate to that dream.

And then someone burst through Miho's door, Miho yelped in surprise and taken back of the action. Turns out, Maho, her sister was the one who burst through door in worried. She must've heard Miho's scream. Maho then quickly looked over to Miho and walked over to in front of her.

"Are you okay, sister?" Maho asked quickly and worriedly, her eyebrows raised in concern.

"No-nothing, I'm fine," Miho replied awkwardly, with a shook of her head. "It's just… I had a nightmare."

"A nightmare? About what?" Maho asked curiously, tilting her head to the right as she crouched down in front of Miho. "Something about Erika?"

"No, not that…. Well….." Miho paused for a moment with her eyes looking behind her, she knew Maho wouldn't understand about what nightmare she was having. "I don't know how to tell you about this. Maybe other time".

Maho paused for a moment to her reply. "Alright then, let's get some breakfast shall we?"

"Oh uhm sure why not?"

* * *

Be advised, help of an editor is working now ;).


	2. Chapter 2 - The Bad Day (Edited little)

After both Maho and Miho ate their breakfast and a little small talk about how there were going, they both changed clothes to their Kuromorimine school uniforms and packed up their bags. They both said their goodbyes to their mother and headed out towards the school. Today was actually a special event for the Kuromorimine Academy because it was the day of the final match of the 62nd National High School Sensha-Dō Tournament, in which they will be fighting against Pravda Girls High School. The students in Kuromorimine Girls Academy were highly sure that they'll be winning this was because they have become famous because of the 9-year victory streak and thanks to Miho for her superiority of commanding tanks in battle. Maho was very sure they'll be winning this, but Miho on the other hand doubted if they will get through this just like that.

They both walked towards the school in silence, though it was because Miho told Maho to not talk to her because she doesn't want to talk about anything at the moment. They both only kept walking, and walking down the road in silence. The atmosphere on the road was as calm as ever. Children were playing around, adult people doing their jobs happily as ever, cars and bikes driving down the street, and the birds chirping up in the air. They both smiled at the sight.

They both looked up towards the clear blue sky and watched the beautiful snowy white clouds blowing away slowly towards the east. Miho smiled to see a cloud that had the shape almost like Boko the teddy bear (which gives the question to Maho on why she loved Boko, knowing that the teddy bear she got had a fucked up physic and attitude). On Maho's perspective, she could see a cloud that was forming into a tank. The tank was the Panzer 3 tank from the shape of the cloud. After a moment looking up to cloud gaze, they lowered their heads to look forward and kept walking towards the school.

Moments later, they both suddenly smelled something, something fresh and delicious. And of course they really liked the smell of bread that was just been baked in the morning. They smiled as their mouths left open in joy and…. somehow in ecstasy. They both quickly walked over to the nearest bread shop and looked inside. Oh boy, they can't stand and really eager to buy those breads for lunch at the school. They both quickly went in and got straight to the owner of the bread store.

"Ah, The Nishizumis," the man who owns the store said in greet. "What can I get for you two, today?"

"Can you get me macaroons, please?" Miho begged happily, very eager to get her hands on them as her hands gripped into fists and hold them in the air in front of her chest.

"Okay, okay, I'll get you those," the man said happily as he took some macaroons and put them in a small brown bag. "What about you, Ms. Maho Nishizumi?"

"Umm….. Can I get the bagels, please?" Maho asked politely.

"Sure, one moment," the man then put in the bagels Maho requested in the small brown bag and gave them to them both. "That would be 200 yen."

Miho gave the money to him with her eyes closed with a small smile. "Thank you, sir!"

"You're welcome," The Nishizumi sisters then went out of the store and waved their goodbyes to the man. "Be careful out there!"

Maho and Miho continued on walking down the road and looked around them to meet and greet the people of Kumamoto. As they walked on, they both meet someone who is also from the Kuromorimine School. Someone that Miho doesn't like at all, Erika Itsumi. Ever since Miho suddenly became a vice-commander in the first day of school, Erika had a grudge against her about it and one day Miho knew that if Erika continued like this she would do something that she might regret.

Once they both greeted her, Erika then turned her eyes to Miho. "Well, well, if isn't this the Vice-Commander."

"Erm, how are you doing?" Miho asked nervously, afraid of Erika.

"Same as always, Miho-san," Erika replied coldly. "What about you? I believe your part as a Vice-Commander doing pretty….. well…."

"Erika!" Maho hissed at her angrily Erika looked over to Maho with a startled glance. "Don't you bother her" Maho warned her

"Al-alright, commander," Erika obeyed. "But I don't have faith in your sister, Maho."

Miho frowned at Erika's statement. Erika could be right about it, what if Miho had to fuck things up? Miho rolled her eyes to behind her, being not confident about herself. But then her sister defended her.

"Erika, she would do anything to win this tournament," Maho said to Erika. "Trust me."

"I hope so, because I don't really trust her on this," Erika added with a nod. "Even if she's a part of your family Maho"

"You better make sure that you're going win this for us?" Erika asked in concern. "Because I don't believe you're going to win it."

"I'll try…" Miho replied, which she received a scoff from Erika.

"Trying is not enough," Erika added, before she turned around and headed to the school leaving Maho and Miho behind.

Miho frowned as she looked down to the ground in doubt. "Don't listen to her, Miho. I'm sure you can do it," Maho assured her, as she holds her right shoulder.

"You-you sure about this?" Miho asked in doubt and agitation, as her head turned to Maho and shows an expression of fear. "What if I-?"

"You've been doing alright so far, sister," Maho assured her as she patted her shoulder. "I know you can do it."

"O-okay, if you say so," Miho said at last in relieve, before they both continued walking up to the school.

* * *

Miho was inside her Tiger 1 tank, acting as the flag tank for the Kuromorimine Girls Academy. Their objective for this tournament was very clear for them and for Miho, that was to protect the flag tank at all cost as Miho was the one who lead the flag tank will lead the armored army through the battlefield. Because the leading commanders were Miho and Maho themselves, known to have Sensha-Dō martial arts of the Nishizumi style they have a good advantage of winning this battle against Pravda. But Miho was not this confident like the previous battles she had been in. And she knew all of this will go wrong because of her.

She was leading a column of tanks through a dangerous dirt path on the cliff in which they had to drive through in one line due to the narrow road. Even though the flag tank was the one who will lead the other tanks into the fight, the one who is in the very front of the column of tanks was a known teammate of Miho, driving in their Panzer III tank and defending Miho's front flank while the rest the tanks followed up behind Miho's tank. They had to drive slow on that part of the cliff because it was bloody treacherous from up to the bottom. On their right side was the face of the cliff they're in while on their left, to the bottom of the cliff is a goddamn deep river. With the bad luck of having thunderstorms and dark clouds above their heads, the situation was getting worse for Miho. If a tank fell down there it's either be a matter of time to see who will die down the cliff or not.

And that is exactly what has happened in the 62rd tournament.

As they traversed down the path of the dirt road of the cliff, an enemy tank came out from the top of the cliff fired a shell and hit the Panzer III on their right side of the turret. Miho was very shocked about the incoming attack because she didn't see that coming. The impact of another incoming shell hit the Panzer III tank on the front it was damaging and made the tank to fling of the dirt track. Which made the tank to be eliminated from the Kuromorimine team. But then there was something wrong at the cliff.

They had to go through the dirt path under the heavy rain and thunderstorm because they had no choice to go above ground to attack the enemy because the opponent gained a good advantage on the high ground this was the reason on why they took the dirt path at the cliff. Miho was of course against it because it will be fucking dangerous for the whole team to go there. But Maho and Erika insisted for her to go through there despite the fact that Miho has made up a plan up above the ground. Miho's plan was disapproved by Maho and Erika, implying that would be a 'stupid' idea to flank the enemies through the forest and they know that Pravdas have locked up that flank in the forest which gained superiority in shooting range even though Pravda only had 6 tanks left. Miho had another plan after they got through the forest and deal the flanking Pravda tanks but since her sister and Erika gone mad and disapproved her tactics, Miho had no choice but to go through the cliff.

The Panzer III, after it got shot, it slipped off the dirt path on the cliff and fell down into the river. Once that tank was already in the river, it began to sink into the river. This had Miho panicked and shocked to see the Panzer slip down the cliff in which, she had to left the Tiger that holds the flag in absence and undefended as she jumped down from the tank and ran straight down to the river.

She can't let them die.

*DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG*

Her heart is starting to beat faster the longer she watched the crew of Panzer III to drown.

"HANG ON!" Miho shouted, as she was desperate to reach the drowning crew of the Panzer III

*DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG*

She only kept running, running, and running. As she watched the crew already sink down into the river.

She has to act fast, or it will be too late.

*DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG* *DAG-DUG*

As she runs, she slipped on the bottom of the cliff. Sending her tumbling on the cliff, but then she got up quickly and kept running to the river.

She then jumps…

And then she dives down deep into the river…

Without any hesitation and ignored the pressure she had taken from diving and the short air she breathes in, she just keeps swimming down. Swimming down until she reached the Panzer.

 _"Please, be alive,"_ Miho thought

She was starting to get closer to the door of the tank turret.

Nearly there….. she reached out her hand to the turret door to reach it.

"Just keep trying…."

Her hands were able to reach the turret door… and opened them. She has saved the tank crew.

One by one and quickly, the crew girls of the tank came out and followed Miho. They all kept swimming up and up and up. And then they burst out through the surface of the water, gasping for air as they kept themselves above the water. All crew of 5 girls have survived the disaster thanks to Miho.

"Mi-Miho?!" the commander of the Panzer III shouted in shock and relieve. "Tha-thank you for saving us"

"It's alright, you're alive," Miho assured them as they were floating on the river. "You'll be alright…"

But then the Panzer III commander quickly realized something after seeing Miho was with them. "Miho….. the flag tank?"

Miho eyes widened as she came to the realization, she had abandon the Tiger that carries the flag. Miho turned around from the crew and looked up to the cliff. Miho was quiet shocked and felt disappointed at herself that, the flag tank was destroyed. The smoke of the Tiger could be seen from the river, rising up to the cloud like a volcano.

She let Pravda win. She destroyed Kuromorimine's 9-years streak victory. She has brought the shame to the Nishizumi School and name for throwing away their victory.

Miho was very afraid of what would happen next.

* * *

"You damn stupid girl! Why did you do it?"

After the match, Pravda was declared the winner of the match and they were celebrating their victory in their own tank garage. For the Kuromorimine team however, the morale was at an all time low and they were devastated for their defeat to Pravda. Maho couldn't believe they were defeated because Miho abandoned the flag tank and leave it open for the opponent. Erika on the other hand, went to rage to hear what Miho had done to get themselves defeated by Pravda. Erika was talking mad to Miho along with Maho and the rescued tank crew who were sad for this and the rest of the team who were disappointed and disgusted by Miho's act as they were rounded up near their own tanks.

"Tell me why the hell did you do it!" Erika shouted angrily as Miho yelped and leaned back in a moment from Erika.

"I had to leave the tank!" Miho reasoned in fear and panic as she was being honest. "I had to save the crew of the Panzer III from drowning in that river!"

"Saving?! This fight has nothing to do about saving people!" Erika retorted as she sternly pointed her finger at Miho. "All we care about is to win this tournament and get a 10-years streak victory! And you throw that away!"

"Erika, I got no choi-"

*SLAP*

Then there's the pain, a very harsh pain on her left cheek. She can't believe it… Erika just slapped her. Erika was very careless of her reasons, reasons why she left the flag tank undefended and rescue the drowning teammate. The harsh slap from Erika has left Miho speechless and her body shaking in fear as her face was still facing to her right after she was slapped. Maho was shocked to see Erika did that to her own sister.

"I don't care about that!" Erika shouted in rage, leaning her head to Miho. "All I and the rest of us care about is to win this battle."

They all paused for a moment in this tense situation, before Erika spoke out the only last words that will haunt Miho. "You're a shame to the Nishizumi family!"

Erika quickly left the field, along with the rest of the disgusted students along with the rescued tank crew who felt pity on what have Erika did to Miho. Miho only sat there wordlessly, slowly turning her head towards the leaving group as Maho stood beside her in shock and mental pain towards her little sister. Maho slowly holds her sister shoulder as Miho starting to break down into tears as she watched the group leave. Miho didn't know what to do.

"I'm sorry." Miho whispered but it was unheard due to the heavy rain.

* * *

Miho was now in her house, currently facing the most feared person she had to talk with. Her mother Shiho Nishizumi, a leader of the Japan Sensha-Dō Federation. Miho was sitting in front of her mother by a table, facing each other. While Maho was sitting right next to her mother and was giving a little distance between her mother and herself. It was an intense moment for Miho, because Shiho felt outrage for her daughter's defeat.

Miho was to afraid to look at her mother's face, she did not want to have eye contact with her mother. Her mother on the other hand sternly gazed at Miho for her shame of her defeat. While Maho only bowed her head down wordlessly, only to listen to the conversation between her younger sister and her mother. Miho then lifted her head and made eye contact with her mother, willing to listen what her mother was going to say.

"You Inherit the Nishizumi name too," her mother said firmly. "We teach that no matter what befalls us, we must advance."

Miho could only continue to listen to her mother until she was done. "It is our tradition to value the strength and merit above all."

"But…. Mother…." Miho interrupted to reason, but then her mother continued.

"No great victory comes without sacrifices," this caused Maho to lift her head to look at Miho in pity, while Miho on the other hand, felt taken aback on what she just said.

They all paused for a while, until her mother continued again. "The Nishizumi-style is your inheritance, Miho. I am very disappointed in you due to the fact that you abandoned and have thrown away your victory when you had the chance. You are a shame and disappointment to the Nishizumi family. You dishonored the Nishizumi-style of Sensha-Dō"

"But Mother… wait!" Miho begged, but her mother didn't care.

"No but! Get back to your room, now!" Shiho ordered Miho angrily, Miho taken back by her mother reaction.

Cannot say anything else to her, she slowly stood up and obeyed her mother's order to go back to her room. Now, Miho feels so distressed and frustrated for dishonoring the Nishizumi heritance because of her actions in the tournament. She doesn't know anymore to choose which is right from wrong. After all the things she had gone through at the academy, this is what she gets. She can't take this Sensha-Dō anymore.

She quickly entered her room and locked the door, she then quickly jumps onto her bed and covered her face with her pillow tightly. She can't believe of what she was hearing. She was a shame, she was a disappointment, She was a dishonored Nishizumi. Now all she wanted to do right now was to cry for what she had gone through with a trauma. She knew, it was time for her to change schools and get away from the Tankwandos shit!

And she knew the only place for that.

"I can't take this any longer I'm going to change schools and attend Ooarai High School." Miho thought.


	3. Chapter 3 - Oorai (Edited)

_"Miho, get down!"_

 _Soap, Price, Miho, and a new man alongside them, Nikolai, were taking very heavy fire from the enemy rifles on the other side of the road. They four had to take cover at the debris near a building and a crashed helicopter that was piloted by Nikolai. Miho again, didn't know how the hell she ended up here again and had no goal in mind except following the orders of the captains and Nikolai and fend off the enemies at that other side of the road. What was really surprised Miho was the fact that the location they are in is an enemy compound in the middle of the desert, at least the enemy compound located near the coast of south east of Africa. What was worst was that they were about to get overrun by a massive number of the enemies._

 _To make their bad luck even worse was the fact that the entire compound was already covered with the thick fog of a raging sandstorm. The sandstorm was strong enough to blow down a foundation of a construction building and bloody hell Miho barely could see anything through the sandstorm. The only way to see through the sandstorm clearly is the source of light. But that source of light has given Miho and the rest of the soldiers in risk._

 _The downed helicopter they're at was illuminating their surroundings as a huge fire burned around it they can see where those soldiers were taking cover and going to kill them outright. An even better fucking day for Miho to try and fight them off. To make the situation even worse was the fact that Nikolai was wounded and needed a lift. Seeing the enemies starting to increase in numbers, they knew they had to retreat._

 _"Гавно! There are a lot of them!" Nikolai shouted as he shoots at the enemy with his pistol one handed as he sits behind cover. "We can't hold them off much longer!"_

 _"We need to get out from here!" Soap then gives a hand to Nikolai and picked him up by his shoulder. "Price, Miho! Let's get out from here, GO!"_

 _As Soap made a run with Nikolai on his shoulder to the clear path behind them, Miho and Price started suppressing the enemy before retreating into a run from the cover of the debris. They both managed to catch up with Soap and Nikolai, before incoming bullets came from the enemy's right behind them. Miho and Price had to duck and shoot back while Soap just kept running on to the EVAC point._

 _"Come on! Keep running!" Price shouted as they ran relentlessly and he shoots back at the damn enemy._

 _"What do you think I'm doing?!" Miho shouted in panic as she runs beside him, if taking a hit by bullets wasn't good enough, getting run over by the enemies behind them is really a nightmare for her._

 _As they run, they turned into a corner to the left. "Come on! We're almost there!" Soap shouted as they run after turning a corner._

 _They then got fired on again by another barrage of bullets behind them, making them all duck down. "We're not going to make it!" Miho shouted in trauma and fear of death_

 _"We're gone make it, Miho!" Price shouted as a reply. "Just keep running, we're nearly there!"_

 _Then suddenly out of nowhere, an RPG was launched from the rooftops by one of the enemies and it was flying straight to where Miho was. To be exact right behind her._

 _*BUUUM*_

 _A massive explosion is heard as the warhead hits the ground right behind her and it sent her flying in the air to the front. She felt everything around her was slowing down as her M4 rifle was thrown away from her hands and soon she will land on the ground, heads down first. Followed up by the huge ball of fire behind her, she can feel the hard pain on her back that maybe caused by the shrapnel of the RPG or the shockwave the RPG sends her flying. It was a very hard blast that it barely made Miho fall unconscious._

 _Then Miho's vision quickly changed everything that was going slow started moving back at normal. She quickly crashed to the ground into a prone, feeling the sore striking her whole front body. She groaned in pain a little before she slowly lifted her head up to see where Price, Soap and Nikolai were. She was shocked with wide eyes to see what's wrong._

 _They weren't there. She was on her own._

 _They must have been moving too quickly to have realized that they left Miho behind. Miho let a tear fall from her eyes to this shock. She was crying, she was about to meet her demise. Then she tasted something in her mouth._

 _The copper like taste of her own blood,_

 _She then became dizzy and started to lose conscious. She let her head drop to the ground, her face still looking towards where the soldiers had escaped. This is it, she was on her own. The only thing left for her to do, was to close her eyes as the bullets of the approaching enemies behind her were flying above her._

 _The only thing she knew was darkness as her vision was only able to see the pitch dark void of death._

* * *

"AAAAHHH!"

Miho screamed at the top of her lungs as she launched her upper body off her bed with wide eyes. She then quickly opened her eyes and looked to her surroundings as her cold sweats poured down from her forehead. She was inside her bedroom of the apartment, full of her favorite teddy bears, Boko. And the whole wall of the bedroom was colored in blue, one of her favorite colors. She is still safe and sound. Safe and sound in her home.

She then took a couple of deep breathes to calm herself down. That was just another nightmare thankfully it was not about that fucked-up tournament last year. But then, it just keep disturbing her, it's not the second time she got this, since she had this nightmare occasionally after that tournament. Man, what is going on in her mind? After what happened last year, she was able to change sequence to this odd kind of nightmare.

And then there was the question, why did she even have those nightmares?

There's nothing so… relevant with her. Is there something that she should be worried about here? If so, what is it?

Though, she decided to let that thought go away. She got off from her bed, but then startled to hear a ringing noise. That was her alarm clock that was going off telling her it was her time to go to school. She turned off her alarm just pressing its button on the top. When she turned around, she suddenly blushed to the thought that her body wasn't cover with her pajama coat. Implying that she was naked after she got off the bed.

But then that thought vanished again after remembered where she was living right now. After that incident in the 62nd tournament, she had moved in to an apartment in Ooarai. Right now, she has changed Schools as a student in Ooarai High School. Not in her old home anymore, she felt glad to part ways with her family. And she realized that she was wearing her pink tank top which made her stop blushing, sighing in relieve with her eyes closed.

She looked over to her cabinet, taking a hanged Ooarai school uniform from the cabinet and putting it on her bed. Miho then turned around and headed for the bathroom bringing her towel with her. She undone her clothes, turned the water tap for the shower, and she started to wash herself. Taking the soap to soak her whole body as her mind drifted off thinking of something else. Ah hell, she was thinking about that odd nightmare yet again.

The nightmares she kept seeing the most of the time was when she was about to die, some of them were when she was alive and fell to sleep with heavy trauma. She also kept wondering, just who are these men she was seeing? Mainly about who is Soap and Price, Nikolai on the other hand she felt a little interested in them. She knows they were soldiers, but really who are they?

She drove out that thought again and turned off the tap, the shower stopped raining water to Miho. She took her towel and dried herself off as she walks out the bathroom, towel covering her naked body. Miho walked over to the bed where her white-green uniforms were laid down, and then she starts to put them on. After wearing her underclothes, she wears on her shirt and then her green skirt and tidied up her clothes so she looked better to everyone. Last but not least, wears on her green bow along her collar neck of her shirt as she was looking at the mirror in her bedroom.

After everything was done, she packs up her bag and headed out of her apartment. But then she quickly remembered that she forgot to lock the door. She turned around and pulled out the key from her pocket and locked the door. She then headed out for the school, but not before checking that the door was properly locked to make sure it did not budge. Miho walked down the road in calm and silent, smiling a little that she is away from her family.

Though at the same time, Maho felt a little sad to know that Miho has changed school and part ways from her family. God sake, Miho just can't keep doing this Panzerfahren activity. Since that tournament, Panzerfahren did nothing but having a negative effect on Miho and she had to get away from it. Now, it won't disturb her no more.

As Miho was walking down the street in the new town of Ooarai, she observed the environment around her. Everything was the same thing as ever back in Kumamoto. Children playing around, cars and bikes driving on the roads, people doing their daily activities in the morning. Huh, she wondered what would their reactions to see a girl with a tank driving down the road be. She kept walking until she smelled an unmistakable smell of bread.

She walked onto the bread store nearby and she peeked into the inside of the store by the glass door. Yes of course she liked the smell of the bread. But then again, she doesn't want to eat any of them for now because she hasn't got the mood to eat them, especially after that incident in the tournament. She stood away from the glass door and turned right to the sidewalk, to just keep walking to the school.

Miho just kept walking on until she noticed a store that she had never seen at her old home before, her eyes can't get off from that store. "We don't have Sunkus stores at home."

Without any sense and realization nor even looking at where she was walking, she suddenly bumps into a metal power pole and yelped in pain. "Enggh!"

Miho then turned her head at the power pole and noticed the warning sign of a weird kind of ducks on it. "It looks both ugly and cute!"

She then quickly heard a few noises coming up from behind her. Turns out, there were a few schoolgirls that just walked past her while discussing about what they should eat at school. Seeing those girls walking far from her, she could smile to know that she would make some good friends in this school.

* * *

It was break time for the students and they all headed down into the cafeteria. Miho was still present in her class as the students from the class she's in are slowly heading to the cafeteria group by group. Miho is collecting her books and pens to put them in her bag right now. Miho tidied up her books before taking up her pencil case. The next thing that happen, the pencil case accidentally hit a pen that was put near it and fell down from the table. Miho surprised by that crouched down underneath the table to pick it up.

As she was trying to grab her pen, her head knocked onto the table above her and made her ruler and her eraser drop from the table on her left. As she looked at them and try to grab them, her hip knocked the table above her again and made her pencil case tumbling down, bouncing on her butt before at last landing on the floor behind her. She surprised a little that the pencil case fell behind her, and she just sighed for her clumsiness.

After picking up her fallen writing tools, she put them all on the table and on her book. She also noticed that all the students in the class were already gone, leaving herself as the only person in the class. She only stared forward at the wall of the class from the mid-section of the chairs, and then bowed her head down with a sigh. Such a bad thing to not have any friends yet during her first day at a new school.

"Hey there, miss!" a voice called from behind her, Miho in surprise and confusion lifted her head facing forward. "Wanna eat together?"

She then turned her head to her left and then to her right. She then turned her head to behind her, where she saw two girls from her class. One girl was a long-black haired girl with dark grey eyes, on the front left side of her head is a longer strand of hair that gave her a slightly cuter side. Her height is a little above Miho, around 5 cm taller. The other girl was a girl with long ginger colored hair and light brown eyes. Her height was actually 1 cm different of Miho's height, and she was using black thigh highs instead of black socks like what Miho and the black-haired girl wore.

After Miho sees them, she quickly got off her chair and stood there nervously and startled as she stares at them. "Come on, Saori. You're startling Nishizumi," the black-haired girl said to the orange one next to her softly.

"Aah, sorry, sorry," the orange ginger-haired girl apologized to Miho quickly in high spirit.

"Now, let me ask properly," the black haired said to Miho softly after turning her head at her. "Would you like to join us for lunch?"

Miho was pretty surprised to hear that, she leaned her back from them. "Me?! Join you?"

Both girls nodded in response instead of answering her.

* * *

Ooarai Cafeteria

"Hey, we picked a new girl up!" the ginger-haired girl stated happily as they three holding their boards to get their foods.

"We've wanted to talk to you for a while," the black-haired girl said softly, smiling to have a new friend.

"What? Really?" Miho asked in disbelieve.

"You always seem so air-headed and musing!" the ginger-haired girl replied happily with her eyes closed.

Miho turned her head from her and bowed her head down with a smile. "A…amusing?"

"Yeah," both of the girls with her replied with a nod.

"Hey, I'm…." the ginger-haired girl said, before she got cut by Miho

"Takebe Saori, your birthday's June 22nd," Miho stated, which surprised Saori for Miho's knowledge.

"And you're Isuzu Hana, your birthday's December 16th," Miho said to Hana.

Hana was flattered to know that Miho recognized her. "Correct," Hana replied with a nod.

"Wow, you even remembered our birthdays!" Saori said in astonished.

"Yeah," Miho nodded. "I checked the classes register so I'd know once I made some friends."

"Isn't Nishizumi a peculiar one?" Saori asked. "right! Can I call you by your first name?"

Miho felt aghast by this, she turned her head to Hana which seemed she was agreeing to that. "Miho…"

"That's great! It's so friendly!" Miho stated happily as she closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to dance around in her head.

After she got the meal she wanted she walked off from the counter and made a circling dance with her food. Which made her nearly slip forward only to get rescued by her friends from falling to the floor.

* * *

"Aren't we manipulating information there?" A girl of the two in front of the student council on her left asked worriedly as the two stood in front of the seating council in the very dark of the office room.

"You worry too much," the Council casually said.

"Understood," the girl on the Council's left said. "I shall start right away."

* * *

"You know, there's something I need to ask you about," Saori said as Miho was sitting with Saori and Hana standing in a class. "It's been a problem for me. I'm a bit popular."

"That again?" Hana asked in amusement.

"A lot of guys have been approaching me lately," Saori stated honestly. "What should I do?"

"A lot of guys?" Miho asked, this kind of stuff was something she doesn't know of and she never handle, talking about a lot of guys want to be someone's boyfriend was not something in her mind.

"I mean, they're just from the neighborhood…." Saori said, she then gestured about what those people do to her every day. "Every day they greet me with, 'good morning', or, 'how's it going?"

"Like I've been telling you, those are just greetings," Hana stated softly with eyes closed.

Miho was just sitting there staring at them both, speechless about this boyfriend stuffs. "But I'm sure they have a crush on me."

The sooner she kept hearing this kind of thing, it's either she just laughed a little about it. Or either she slammed her own head to her own table hard like she was sick of hearing it.

"Yeah, sure," Hana answered to Saori's statement.

"Takebe, you're always so bright and easy to approach," Miho concluded to Saori with a smile. "Maybe that's why they want to be your friend."

Saori felt speechless of that answer. "I think it's a good thing if you can make friends quickly, I was so happy today when you called out to me! I thought I'd made a wonderful friend" Miho added as she looked at Saori's blank expression.

Saori rolled her eyes to Hana who nodded in agreement to Miho. "you're great yourself, Nishizumi."

Miho was quiet shock to hear that from Hana. "What? No! Not at all!" Miho replied quickly, shaking her upper body and her right hand in denial.

"You're always so calm and strong and also mature," Miho complimented to Hana. "I'm so jealous!"

"Please…" Hana said softly, before adding some words to her with a smile. "I'm told so often that I'm too stiff…"

"Really?" Saori asked. "At my last school, people would always get upset and tell me not to rely on them. I wonder what I have to do to be more like you."

"Maybe it's because I've been doing flower arrangement forever," Hana suggested.

"Ahh? That's awesome!" Miho replied cheerily as she leaned forward. "I've always wanted to try that! It's nice to be girly and beautiful."

Both Saori and Hana paused to Miho's reply, Hanna felt a bit flattered. "Thank you so much for being my friend."

Saori and Hana smiled and replied with a nod. "Our pleasure," Hana added as they said that.

That was when three other girls entered the class, the three stopped in the middle front of the class. And they were not schoolgirls from their looks.

The first girl on the very left was a girl with short black, she was wearing a single eyeglass on her right eye. Her height was 164 cm. She had a black bow tie collar around her neck. Her eyes were grey and had a stern kind of expression. Her name was Momo Kawashima

The second girl on the very right was a girl with dark brown hair which she usually wears in a medium ponytail. And a pair of dark brown beautiful eyes. If her face and figure wasn't beautiful enough, she would fit to be called a 'Ms. Fan Service'. Her height was around 157 cm, 1 cm different of Miho. Her name was Yuzu Koyama

Then there was a third girl in the middle of them, and surprisingly she was shorter than the other two. Her height was about 142 cm, a short girl with long twin ponytails, reddish-brown hair and a pair of red-brown eyes. She was standing with the other two, while at the same time eating her favorite dried potato chips. Her name was Anzu Kadotani

Everyone's attention turned to them and they were surprised for their presence. "The president?" a student in the room asked in surprise, as the other girl started mumbling about what they're doing here.

"What's the student council doing here?" another girl asked as the rest murmured about this.

As the rest kept asking to themselves of their presence, the girl with the short black hair and single eyeglass, Momo, presumably the manager of the student council, pointed her finger towards Miho who didn't know she was pointing to her. The president of the student council, Anzu, looked towards the girl the manager was pointing at. Anzu holds her bag of dried potatoes on her right arm and raised her left hand up and waved it at Miho. She was looking straight at her.

"Hey Nishizumi, Sweetie!" the president of student council called.

"Yes?! Umm…" Miho then turned to Saori in nervous and was about to ask questions.

"She's the Student Council President," Saori answered as she sounds like she was gossiping. "There's also the Vice President and the Public Relations Representative with her."

The three student council members quickly approached and surrounds Miho, Miho felt a bit afraid of what was going on as they looked down to her. "We've got a little business to discuss with you," Momo said coldly.

"Yes?" Miho replied curiously.

"About your elective choice," Anzu said as she approached Miho and held her from behind. "Take up Panzerfahren, okay? Thanks."

Miho was quiet frightened by her request as she turned her head to her. "Um, I'm fairly sure this school doesn't have Panzerfahren on this curriculum."

"It's being brought back starting this year," Momo stated as she leaned close to Miho.

"I specifically came here thinking it shouldn't have any tanks," Miho stated, she felt her panic rise because of this.

"Well, it must be fate then!" Anzu assured her cheerily, Miho felt as if she was being forced in this point.

"I thought I could choose my elective myself!" Miho stated, she wanted to avoid Panzerfahren at all costs.

"Thanks for picking it!" Anzu said at last in cheer, hitting Miho's back as she ignored her statement and making sure she's up to Panzerfahren.

Miho couldn't believe what the fuck she just heard from her own ears. They just manipulated her to join up Panzerfahren. As she watched the student councils walk away from her, she just stared blankly… her mind was permanently shut down. She just can't believe it.

* * *

Much for her first day, she can't even start to focus on the school routines in the class. Which she had been dismissed from to the class into the infirmary to rest for a while by the teacher. To make herself feel better, she was accompanied by Saori and Hana who wanted to make sure Miho was doing alright. They both lied to the teacher and told her that they were also sick and the three went to the infirmary together.

They talked a little while they were in the infirmary. After Saori and Hana found out why she was here and acknowledged Miho's long family history of Panzerfahren, they assured to her to not be forced into the Panzerfahren activity. It was something Miho was glad to hear and accept it as it is. She was pretty happy with her friends now. Nothing else left to say.

But when the sound system announced the whole school to gather in the gym, Miho wasn't expecting or sure to see why they were gathering in the gym. When she was with Saori and Hana to see what was going on in the gym, she couldn't believe her eyes that all students of the school gathered in the gym. At the stage in front of them all, there are girls who acted as the security guards in school uniform. And on the stage, there those student council members again, who requested Miho to join up Panzerfahren. They have announced to them that they will watch the sponsor of the Panzerfahren.

Those three council members then left the stage and the large-video screen player turned on. Miho couldn't believe she was going to watch this along with Hana and Saori. Heck Miho didn't even notice when the show played, Saori and Hana were already persuaded to join up Panzerfahren as their eyes didn't leave the show with Hana smiling and Saori leaving her mouth open. 'Studying Panzerfahren means studying how to become a woman', heh, no shit about that for Miho but she didn't care. Miho only avoided watching the show by hugging her legs to her chest and bowing her head down to her legs as if she was embarrassed.

After the show, Miho looked up to the stage and she could see most of the students were interested to join Panzerfahren. To her shock, Saori had an awed impression and interest while Hana commented "wonderful," with a smile. Miho looked to Saori and then Hana as she couldn't believe what she saw and heard from both of her friends. She then looked up on the stage, seeing the council members already came back to the stage. Momo, the representative council, has stated that there's a Panzerfahren world cup will take place in Japan which because the Ministry of Education stated that the Panzerfahren education should be strengthened.

"That's why our school is also resurrecting Panzerfahren!" Anzu added. "I think you'll find that participating has plenty of benefits!"

Then it was the Vice-President, Yuzu Koyama's turn to explain. "The one with the highest grades will be given 100 coupons, 200 pardons when coming in late, and also triple credits on all normal subjects!"

"We're counting on you!" Anzu said finally, waving her left hand up as they left the stage.

* * *

Miho was sitting on her bed, wearing her blue pajama coat as she was hugging her legs and her teddy bear, Boko, and looked down to her curriculum paper, undecided what curriculum to choose on the paper. Miho felt lonely, doubt, and afraid on what to do. Leaving the only the dim light in her bedroom to comfort her. It saddens Miho after Anzu's request for her to join up Panzerfahren.

The memory of that awful incident came back into her mind and what happened afterwards.

The memory of how her actions that brought shame to Kuromorimine Academy. The memory of how her actions have dishonored the Nishizumi heritance. The memory of her actions and all the disgust and outraged of a lot of people including her own mother of all people.

Remembered that awful time, it brought her nothing but pain. A pain that was almost strong enough that she allowed a tear to fall from her eyes. She closed her eyes and hugged her Boko tightly as if she was struggling to fight against that pain. Then the next thing she remembered, what if the Panzerfahren education had something to do with the odd dreams she was having. Besides the men, Soap and Price, there were also tanks roaming around she had seen those but not just that. Aerial and Navy forces were also there in her dreams, and every time she kept thinking back to that dream, the pain was quickly becoming too much for her to handle.

She needed to tell them, telling them that she can't do it. She can't join back to Panzerfahren.

She just can't

* * *

Hana and Saori were sitting in front of Miho, who bowed her head down. Miho didn't make any eye contact with both of her friends. She only fell silent as she wasn´t able to decide which curriculum she was going to join because of Anzu's forced request. They both couldn't see Miho's eyes as her hair was hiding her eyes in the shadow. If they could talk honest about Miho, she looked like she was broken.

Miho was now still staring down at the curriculum paper in front of her, she had signed up with the Incense Ceremonial Elective instead of Panzerfahren. She can't take it, that's for sure! She doesn't want to go back into this shit, no! If she did, she wasn't sure what will happen after that. The only thing she wanted to avoid is only the negativity and the trauma she had experienced during her time doing Panzerfahren. Miho was afraid and sad what is she going to tell them.

"I'm sorry…." Hana and Saori hummed in surprise. "I just….. I can't….."

Miho paused for a moment before she said it aloud honestly. "I came here because I really didn't want to study Panzerfahren!"

Both Hana and Saori looked at each other, before looking back to Miho. "That's okay," Saori sincerely replied with a smile.

"We're sorry," Hana apologized calmly with a smile. "We put you through this."

Miho was very surprised on what Saori and Hana were doing with their curriculum papers. Instead of taking up Panzerfahren like they have wanted, they scratched off the marked curriculum of the Panzerfahren and chose the Incense Ceremonial Elective just like what Miho chose. Miho couldn't believe her eyes on what they were doing. They were supporting Miho.

"We'll go with your pick," Saori said to Miho.

Miho quickly leaned forward and said to them. "No, no! You two should go and pick up Panzerfahren!"

Saori then leaned forward to Miho. "Don't worry! Being together is best!"

"And besides," Hana then leaned forward to Miho, joining Saori. "Maybe you'll start remembering things you don't want to if we do it."

Miho forced herself to smile to Hana and Saori she doesn't want them to be in trouble for this. "I-I'm fine."

"I don't want to make my friends suffer," Hana added softly.

"I can just take up whatever my boyfriend does!" Saori added with eyes closed and a peace sign with two fingers.

Miho could only smile to the fact that her friends always had her back.

* * *

Miho was called in by the council students to their office over the audio systems. Miho had feared the worst that the council students didn't expect that Miho would choose another elective instead of Panzerfahren. But with the support of her friends who her willing to face the council together with her, she felt a little more confident to face them. The three of them headed to the office and they entered after knocking on the door. Now the three were already in front of those council members.

As they stood there, Anzu was sitting lazily behind her desk and staring at her computer angrily as the windows behind her were showing the vast ocean. Yuzu was standing in front of the desk to the left of Anzu, staring down to the floor sadly. While Momo, still kept her stern and aggressive posture to the three students in front of them. Momo lifted the paper and showed it to the three girls.

"What's the meaning of this?" Momo asked coldly.

"Why won't you pick it?" Anzu asked in a flat tone despite her angriness, not bothering to look at Miho.

"Our school has no other experienced Panzerfahrerin" Momo said to Anzu.

"This is the end!" Yuzu said in desperation as her hands clamped to each other and pressed them against her chest. "Our school is done for!"

"Don't be so selfish!" Saori retorted.

"Yeah!" Hana added in agreement. "Are you going to force her even though she doesn't want to?"

"She doesn't even want to drive tanks!" Saori added.

"Please leave her alone," Hana asked sternly.

Anzu is still not bothering to look at them and gave a threat. "Keep saying that and you'll get expelled."

"Threatening is cowardly," Hana replied to the threat.

"It's not an empty threat," Momo replied to Hana's statement. "The President is always serious."

"That's right," Yuzu added softly and seriously. "You should apologize while you still can. Okay?"

That's when both Saori and Hana started arguing wildly with the student council. They were fighting with the student council despite the fact that the threat was not a joke. Miho was the only person who didn't get involved with the arguing. Miho looked down at the ground, thinking of what she would do.

Her friends tried to defend her. They tried to defend her from the threat the student council gave to them. Miho still fell silent to this fact. But they can't keep this fight up for much longer.

"They both want to go to Panzerfahren, and yet they're here with me," Miho thought silently.

"They're doing it for me," Miho's thoughts then paused as the arguing was still going on. "For me."

She then became reminded of the Tiger tank she once commanded. Reminded as her heart started beating faster to pick a choice. It was a hard choice for her but what else she would choose. Getting expelled, or join Panzerfahren.

She made her choice.

Miho took a long sigh, and then shouted aloud. "I will…!"

The councils and her friends stopped arguing after hearing Miho wanted to say something as she paused. "I'll take up Panzerfahren!"

Both Saori and Hana felt shocked and gave stares of disbelieve with their mouths open toward Miho. For Momo, Yuzu, and Anzu, they all smiled to hear that Miho will take up Panzerfahren as her elective. Yuzu was very happy that she said that the school will be saved. Miho wasn't sure what she meant by that, but she thought it must be the education of Panzerfahren will be back to something great again because of the presence of a Nishizumi.

Miho would only hope that everything will be alright.


	4. Chapter 4 - The Tear (edited)

After Miho met the teams and together they found the other tanks yesterday and washed them. Miho along with the rest of her friends, including Yukari who was a new member of their Anglerfish team, were all waiting for their instructor to come by. There were around five teams that control of their own tanks waiting in the field. Besides Miho's team, there were the Turtle team, the Rabbit team, the Duck team, and the Hippo team.

The Hippo team had four members. Erwin, Caesar, Saemonza, and lastly Oryou. The Rabbit team has six members which are Azusa Sawa, Ayumi Yamagou, Saki Marumaya, Karina Sakaguchi, Yuuki Utsugi, and Aya Oono. The Duck team has four members which are actually volley ball players of their old club; they are Noriko Isobe, Taeko Kondou, Shinobu Kawanishi, and Akebi Sasaki. There's no need to tell everyone who the Turtle team is since they were the Student Council who are part of it.

Miho today was late to come to school because she encountered someone from Ooarai on the road. Her name was Mako Reizei, a bloody genius girl who is the top student in Ooarai. Despite her 'so-called' laziness and moodiness, she had a medical problem that might become dangerous for her. Mako was suffering from low-blood pressure, which affected her into fatigue, sleepiness, dizziness, and also affecting her expression which made some people think that she was depressed.

Because of Mako's medical issue, she had troubles in school mainly about coming late to school. According to Sodoko (Midoriko Sono), Mako's record was 251 times late, absence for 12 times, and 5 authorized absents. This which Sodoko asked Miho to not help Mako in case she comes late again. After that, Miho didn't see where Mako is going after she reached the tank training field.

After a while now, they were all waiting for the instructor to come. Heh, when they thought that Miho wasn´t the only one, who was late, the instructor was also late. Or rather, she got late if Miho was using her feelings from her heart. Huh, what a waste of time for her she thought. As they waited, they heard a loud roaring sound from the sky above. It was a big cargo plane flying above them.

As they saw the plane was approaching and descending to the parking lot full of cars, it opened the ramp on the back side of the plane. And then, a tank was parachuted from inside the plane and crashed down the ramp into the parking lot as the plane quickly pulled up into the sky once more. The tank landed but it was still moving forward (back side of the tank) along with the wooden board underneath and the parachutes that were slowing down the tank. So instead of stopping, it started drifting until it stopped by crashing into a red velvet car. Making the car get thrown away off the parking lot into the road upside down with the tank finally stopping at the road, to make Yuzu feel uncomfortable was the fact that the car that the tank had rammed was the Principal's car.

"The Principal's car!" Yuzu shouted as she showed some of her worry on her face.

"Bleibt stehen!" Anzu ordered as she lazily ate her dried potatoes.

The tank then drove backwards, driving over the principal's car flattening it to the ground. Well, ain't that great. Miho thought, whoever is driving that tank should replace the car they ran over. That scene had everyone watching in either astonishment or impression. Not for Anzu, because she was excited as she said 'pooh'. And also not for Yuzu because she let her mouth hanging with a very small smile because to her disbelieve and shock that the tank just ran over the Principal's car into nothing but a piece of a metal sheet.

"Und matsch…" Yuzu said in low voice as she watched the tank.

The tank then drives forward and quickly hit the brakes. The tank stopped right in front of the girls who were waiting for the instructor. When they see the tank up close, they could describe that the tank was in dark green-gray color camouflage, had a width of 3.24 m and a height of 2.30 m. The cannon was a 120 mm and it was quite modern. But then, Miho felt there was something unusual when seeing that tank, which is kind of reminding her of how modern the tanks she saw in the dreams had been. If her guts were right, that tank should exist in the year of 2000s. Heh, makes her wonder how that modern tank exist in the year 1959 really quick

The top hatch of the tanks turret then automatically opened and a person emerged from inside the tank. That person then pulled off the helmet that person was wearing and then looked at the girls. Turns out the commander of the tank and their new instructor for the girls is also a woman, not a man as Saori expected. She was wearing her JGSDF (Japanese Ground Self defense Force) green uniform, short black hair with a single strand of her hair hanging on her forehead, had a pair of black eyes and she was a tall woman.

"good morning!" the woman shouted out from her tank, which she only received the murmurs and the 'haaaah?' from the girls in return.

The instructor then got off from her tank as the girls have stood in their formations according to their teams. The instructor walked to the front of the girls and stood there as she observed the girls who are standing still in their formations. Though as she observed them, Saori's face looked pretty sour after she saw who their instructor was. Huh, bad thing for her, Miho guessed.

"I've been deceived," Saori said in low-sour voice.

"She looks wonderful though, doesn't she?" Hana asked softly, regardless of how the instructor's appearance to her.

"This is Chouno Ami from the Special Training Association," Momo said aloud as she along with the other student councils stood beside Ami.

"Hello everyone," Ami greeted, her posture never changed. "I heard many here have never been in a Panzer before. But let's all do our best!"

Ami looked over to her left, when she noticed someone she recognized. "Oh?"

She then approached Miho. "Aren't you instructor Nishizumis youngest daughter? She has been a big help with our duties. How is she doing?"

Miho left her mouth open for a moment, considering she didn't talk to Maho or Shiho anymore after she parted ways with her family. "She's well."

All the students except Miho's team then looked at Miho. She really can hear their amazement towards her. One girl asked if her sister was an instructor. One girl asked if her family was famous. Ami then looked over to the other students.

"She has her own Panzer school," Ami replied to interrupted their murmurs. "It's quite famous among all the other schools."

As Miho looked down to her left in agitation, Saori who was behind her raised her hand up. "Instructor!"

After Ami looked over to Saori, she continued. "Are you very popular too?"

Ami yelped a little in surprise and thought for a second as Miho looked behind her and smiled to Saori, at the very least Miho was glad she didn't face palm for this of being popular/boyfriend stuff. "Rather than popular, I'd say I got exactly what I wanted. My accuracy with the cannon is 120%."

That statement from Ami made everyone in the formation awed impressively, except Miho. Then Yukari raised her hand as Ami looked over to her.

"Instructor! What are you going to teach us today?" Yukari asked aloud.

"Let's see…" Ami said as she closed her eyes, before looking over on anyone else. "I think we will have a full-scale mock battle today."

Every girl in the formation including Yuzu were very surprised by what Ami was thinking. "Really? Right out of the blue?" Yuzu asked in disbelieve and concern.

"Don't worry. It's all practice," Ami assured them with a smile.

Yeah, it's all practice. But hell, if things didn't go as Ami expected then what the fuck. Miho wasn't pretty sure if that's the right next step to have practice. At least, start with the basics first. Do a full-scale mock-up battle for the first time without proper basics? Hell it equals to the Russians back in WW2 who charged at the Germans with either a rifle or an ammo mag in full-scale charge as they got mowed down by German machine guns without even thinking on taking cover.

"You just have to floor the pedal and pull the trigger," Ami stated, yeah, unless they don't know which pedal they had to floor it and what's the trigger for the cannon.

Ami then opened up her map and show it to them. "Please go to your starting point."

Miho and the rest only nodded in understanding, before they headed for their tanks. Oh, this isn't good especially most of them are recruits for the Panzerfahren. Miho was really worried right now if anyone else got hurt because of this. But then again the only thing she can do is only follow the instructor's order. This is going to get nasty.

* * *

Currently, Miho's team had a bad day. The commander of the tank was Saori, the driver was Hana, the gunner was Yukari, last but not least Miho was the loader of the tank. The tank was driving at full speed through the forest in a panic pace. The Panzer IV tank was under attack by other opponent tanks which are the Duck team that are commanding the Type 89 Ha-Go tank and the Hippo team in their Stug III tank. As the Panzer IV runs, Miho was looking right outside the tank on the right side of the turret to see what's she seeing up front.

As Hana kept driving the tank, they reached a three-way intersection of the dirt path. Saori looked out by the roof of the turret and sees the road as Miho was looking behind them to spot where their opponents were. One path leads forward, and one path leads to the right toward the hill. As the was tank still driving forward, the Hippo team's Stug quickly appeared right in front of them blocking the path that goes forward. It was quiet known that Saori was very panicked about this.

The Stug drives forward straight towards Miho's team's tank. The Stug was lining up their shot at the Panzer IV. And from behind the Panzer IV is the volleyball team who's going to line up their shot at the Panzer. They were surrounded from both sides which is not good for them. The morale of her team was starting to dive into panic as Miho only stayed calm and find any opportunities ahead of them.

"What now?" Hana asked in panic and worried.

Saori entered her head back in the tank and looked at Hana in a hurry. "We're surrounded!" Saori then pointed her finger to the path to the hill on their right. "Go that way!"

Hana rolled her eyes to behind her. "I can't hear you!"

Saori then kicked Hana's right shoulder pretty hard, Hana yelped in pain. "Run to the right!"

Hana immediately turned the tank to the right and rushed forward up the hill. Hana had to do evasive maneuvers as she drives the tank to get off from the enemy's line of fire. Miho was still sitting on the door of the turret outside the tank as she ducked her head down to take cover from the incoming shells and the flying dirt and dust to her face. Huh, no worries about this, Miho does this kind of stuff a lot.

But then Miho saw something ahead. There was someone in the field of grass, at the stump of a tree. It was a girl, who looked sleeping at the stump of the tree from a distance. Had her book above her face so Miho can't see who that was. It is something odd for Miho to know someone sleeps in this field despite hearing the thundering sounds of the tanks cannon fire.

"Careful!" Miho shouted as the tank drove closer to the sleeping girl and Miho still sitting partly outside the tank.

As the tank was getting closer to the sleeping girl, the girl stood up from the grassy ground and didn't leave her book from her face. The girl then faced towards the tank that was about to run her over, before she jumped onto the front side of the tank and tumbled down to the surface of the tank heads first. The girl then lifted her head and looked towards Miho. Miho was quiet surprised on who she was looking at.

"Mako?" Miho asked, Mako then stood up on the tank. "We met this morning."

Saori then popped out her head through the roof of the turret and looked at Mako she was surprised a little that she recognized her. "Oh hey, Mako."

"Hey, Saori," Mako replied emotionlessly.

Miho then looked to Saori in confusion. "Are you friends?"

Saori then looked to Miho and nodded. "Yeah. Since childhood."

Then Saori looked over to Mako in perplexed. "What are you doing here? You've got classes!"

"I know," Mako replied in flat tone, which made Mako sigh.

*BUUUAAAAM*

The trio girls ducked from the impacted shell that struck the ground right behind the tank. Saori quickly got in the tank while Miho quickly looked over to Mako calmly and alert.

"Get inside! It's dangerous here!" Miho ordered, which Miho and Mako get inside the tank.

Mako was then sat down in front of and underneath Yukari. Miho on the other hand was sitting right next to Yukari. Saori still on her post at the roof of the turret looking through the slits of the turret's cupola. And Hana was still driving the tank. Mako then leaned her head back against Yukari legs as if she was tired.

"I need more oxygen…." Mako said limply as she closed her eyes.

"Are you okay?" Yukari asked worriedly as she looked down to Mako.

"Mako has low blood pressure," Saori stated as she looked at Mako.

"She looked like she had a hard time this morning too," Miho said with a smile.

Yukari and Saori then looked over to her as if they were agreed to what Miho said. "You ran into her?" Saori asked.

Miho then looked up to Saori and nodded in reply. "So that's why you were late," Saori stated in understood.

*DUAAARR*

Everyone inside the tank ducked their heads down from the incoming shell that just missed the,. "I've had it with this death trap! What are we going to do?!" Saori yelled in panic as she held her ears with her hands and closed her eyes in distress.

Miho thought for a moment of what is the next best course of action for her team, before she looked out through the turret door on the right side. Miho then looked forward at where the tank was driving at. There was a red bridge above the river ahead of them, it was wide enough that it could fit a tank to get through one by one. But there's one danger though, if the driver can't see a damn thing of where the ropes of the intact bridge were, it could bring the whole bridge down remembering it was Hana who was driving the tank.

"Please stop the Panzer!" Miho ordered as the tank already got close to the bridge.

After the tank got close to the bridge, Hana stopped the tank right at the entrance of the bridge. Miho then got out of the tank as Saori, Yukari and Hana popped their heads out the tank and looked at Miho. They thought Miho has gotten out of her mind.

"Stay inside! It's dangerous right now!" Yukari shouted from their tank.

"I'll be fine!" Miho shouted back as she ran to the bridge. "I'm sure there's time before the next shot!"

Miho kept running to the bridge, until she was around 10 feet away from the tank and turned around to look at the tank. "Slowly forward!"

If they want to get the tank get past the bridge, then someone had to go outside to make sure the tank didn't go sideways hitting the cables or risk of the bridge collapsing will be the price to pay. To make things much worse for Miho, the boards of the bridge don't look thick enough to withstand any explosion but it was thick enough to hold a tank. Hence the bridge was made of boards, bars of steel as support underneath the boards, and iron cables to hold the bridge. The bridge seems to be old according to Miho, can be told from the rust that was appearing on the red steel underneath the boards and on the cables.

Miho raised both of her hands and waved them back as she stepped backwards while the tank drives forward. Hana kept a sharp eye on Miho's hand gestures to make sure she was doing it right. She drives the tank forward slowly following Miho's pace. Try to be careful not to cut any cables.

Though, Hana failed to be careful on the bridge. Hana was steering the tank a little to the left, she did turn the sticks right again following Miho's instruction. But she didn't turn it good enough, which caused the tracks of the tank to get very close to one of the cable at the bridge.

Without any alarm because Miho didn't notice that, the tank's track quickly cut off one of the cables. Suddenly, the bridge tilted to one side along with the tank as the girls on the tank and Miho quickly yelped in fear. The bridge was still shaking along with the tank as Miho had to crouch to keep herself stable, which caused the girls inside the tank to became much more panicked. It was clear from Miho's perspective to see their scared faces.

"We're going to fall!" Hana shouted as she covered her head inside the driver seat.

"No!" Saori shouted from the top of the turret.

Then out of nowhere…..

*BUUAARRRR*

*CTN-DAAAR*

The girls inside the tank quickly screamed in fear after the tank got shot in the back. Thankfully, the shot made from the Stug III didn't destroy the tank, instead the shell they shot just struck the back side of the tank with the rear of the shell still sticking out the armor. Overall than that, Miho felt very glad that the girls inside the tank were all alright. They need to get off the bridge fast.

But after that happened, Miho felt something was quiet unusual underneath her feet. She quickly stood still as a statue as her head looked down to the floor of the bridge. She didn't see something odd from the bridge. But then she quickly noticed what was that she felt on her feet.

The boards of the bridge were cracking a lot underneath her feet. Since this bridge was quiet old, and didn't use as a bridge for tanks for a long time. The bridge was now very fragile with the tank on the bridge. She did try to walk to the tank. But then…. She heard it….

*KREEEEEEK-CRACK* *SIIIING*

She just broke one of the boards and the steel support underneath was starting to get lose as well. Miho knew this wasn't good. Because of that surprising attack from the Stug, it made the whole bridge fragile. She needed to get that tank out of here, off the goddamn bridge! But the question was, how is she going to do that if she must stay still on the bridge to avoid breaking any part of the bridge by her feet?

But then, there was a good news and some bad news. The good news was, the part of the bridge where the tank was sitting it was only fragile, not very fragile if Miho looked to the boards underneath it, the boards only had a couple of cracks meaning that the tank can get out from there safely if they took a slow pace. The bad news, Miho was standing on the most fragile spot of the bridge, a lot of cracks and some wooden boards are broken and a couple of steel supports were losing in her position. If she took one step and the whole floor underneath her would collapse. Miho doesn't have any choice but to stand still and ordered the girls to get the hell out of there.

Well, that's what Miho thought. Hopefully.

Saori then popped out from the top of the turret along with Yukari through the door on the left side of the turret and looked over to the front. They saw Miho was still standing there on the bridge. And when they looked down to the driver, they were quiet shocked on what they were seeing. Hana was knocked out unconscious.

"Lady Isuzu?!" Yukari shouted worriedly.

"Are you okay, Hana?" Saori shouted.

"We lost the driver!" Yukari shouted.

"We can't move!" Saori shouted as Saori quickly get in the tank and took care of Isuzu.

Miho only nodded in understanding as she was still standing there in a distance outside the tank. Yukari did look at Miho, and there was something wrong with Miho. Instead of running to the tank to handle Hana, she just stood there like a statue. Yukari was wondering if she was more careless than she thought.

"Miho, why are you standing there?" Yukari shouted in question.

"It's… nothing…" Miho shouted back, doubted on what else she had to say. "Just take care of Hana."

"Miho, what's wrong?!" Yukari asked, Miho was becoming suspicious the longer she's being that.

"It's nothing, just take care of Hana!" Miho ordered, she then looked down to the floor of the bridge in worry.

"Miho, what's going on?!" Yukari shouted in question, this time angrily. "Just come here!"

"I can't!" Miho shouted back at last, Yukari was quickly surprised by her answer.

"Bu-but…. Why?"

"The bridge we're on is about to collapse," Miho shouted, which Yukari gave a shocking expression to her. "The bridge right now is very fragile! If I moved it will collapse! I need you to get that tank out of here now!"

"But doesn't that mean we will make this bridge collapse?!" Yukari asked back in confusion.

"You are in the safe zone!" Miho shouted back. "You need to back up the tank slowly to be safe! But I cannot get there! I'm on the most vulnerable spot here! If I took one step and then the whole bridge will collapse!"

Yukari can only be silent in pain, what will happen to Miho? "Alright! We'll get the tank out of here! Just hold on!"

"Do that!" Miho shouted with a smile. "I'll be fine!"

Yukari quickly get in as the tank suddenly drive backwards slowly out of nowhere and put into a stop after it got stabilize on the bridge. Yukari quickly looked over who is driving, she was expecting it was Hana. Instead, Mako was the one who was driving the tank. She holds the driving controls as the manual book was sitting right in front of her face.

"Wow, Mako, you can drive!" Saori exclaimed in shock.

"I just learned it," Mako stated, which was impossible for any students in the school to learn that fast.

"Just now?!" Yukari asked, showing the 'what the fuck' face expression.

"No wonder you're the top student!" Saori stated, felt very relieved to have her around.

"Where's Miho?" Saori asked, but then because she heard everything Yukari talked to Miho as she was tending Hana, she quickly frowned. "Oh…. She can't…..?"

Yukari only nodded sadly. "She's not coming. She had to hold on the bridge for now…"

"I see…" Mako said as she and Saori nodded in understood. "Let's back it up slowly."

Miho was watching how the tank was doing as the Panzer was driving backwards toward the exit of the bridge. The tank was doing well going backwards, but her heart was starting to get panic every time she heard the floor makes the crackling noises. But then, something unexpected happened.

*DUUAARRR*

A cannon shell just flew past the Panzer, nearly hitting the bridge or either the Panzer from behind. Then Miho had noticed by her intense feeling that the Stug was about to shoot the Panzer along with the help of Noriko from the Duck team with their T-38 tank. They need to get out from the bridge fast. That was the time when Saori peeked out from the turret.

"Miho, You're okay?!" Saori shouted worriedly.

"I'm fine, just get that tank out of here!" Miho ordered with a shout.

"But-" Saori then got cut off by Miho.

"Just GO!" Miho shouted, for once in anger as she throws her arm forward, telling them to quickly get off the bridge.

But then Miho quickly nearly tumbled down because she moved her body on the very vulnerable spot of the bridge. It was sure about to collapse, to make things worse is that Ami the instructor failed to notice Miho was still on that bridge and outside her tank. As Miho steadies herself on the bridge, Saori quickly went back in the turret and looked over to Mako. She was quiet upset about what to do now, but now they need to get out from the bridge. She can't tell the other teams to stop firing because the radio was broken, she has to tell them directly.

"Mako! Full reverse, get us off the bridge!" Saori commanded sternly.

"Ok," Mako replied, as she changed the gears and floored the pedal into full reverse.

After an incoming shell of the enemy passed the Panzer, Hana quickly woke up. "Hah?! What happened?!"

"You're alright?" Saori asked quickly.

"Yeah, where's Miho?" Hana asked, but then a moment of pause from Saori, she knew what was going on. "She-She's still outside?!"

"Look we have to get off the bridge-" Saori then quickly got cut off by Hana.

"I CAN'T LEAVE HER!" Hana was about to reach for the door of the turret, before Saori managed to stop her.

"Hana, STOP!" Saori shouted quickly, Hana sadly looked at Saori. "There's nothing we can do about it. I'm sorry."

* * *

Miho felt glad that the Panzer was able to get out from the bridge, even though it made the bridge much fragile after that. But then, an enemy shell suddenly hits the right support beam on the other side of the bridge. Which made the bridge underneath her collapse, Miho was falling down into the river below with a very loud scream. She fell down to the river along with the remains of the bridge beneath her, before the rest of the middle side of the bridge collapsed and falling down to Miho.

This was it, her demise has coming to an end. Everything that was around her was coming to a slow motion like the time was slowed down in her eyes. She stopped screaming as she was calmed down by her visions. Her beating heart that was beating faster was now slowing down into a patient rhythm. Soon, she will die.

She was happy, very happy. She managed to save her friends by ordering them to get out from the bridge. She has promised them that, she will be fine. But looks like she had to break her promise because she's not going to get out of this alive. The last thing she did before the impact is to close her eyes and smile as death was coming closer to her.

As she was closing in to the river, she didn't realize something. Unbeknownst to her, there was a white portal that suddenly forming right underneath her. She fell into the portal along with a few of bridge's collapsed material before the portal closed itself. It only left most of the bridge's ruins falling to the river. Miho was no longer in this world.

From the bridge, Hana was with Saori, Mako and Yukari ran to the edge of the bridge and looked down the river. They hoped that Miho survived that. But that hope had vanished after seeing the piles of ruins of the bridge floating and sinking in the river. That was it they though, they…. slowly cried for their loss. Miho had died in this practice of mock-up battle, just because the bridge collapsed. They have failed as friends to let Miho die.

"Miho… I'm sorry…" Hana said lowly to herself in pain as she closed her eyes in regret.

* * *

TF 141 Headquarters, outside of London, 1145 hours.

Soap was in his office, dealing with his pile of shit of paperwork. Heh, he does this kind of stuff all day. But then, he actually hated this part of the goddamn job more than the 'shoot-the-bastards' stuff. It's not because he really hates writing, no, considering he also likes to write everything in his journal. No, the reason why he hates paperwork so much is about how tall the pile of the paperwork is! Hmm… Soap should ask Captain Price to give this paperwork bullshit to Director Macmillan in the SAS Headquarters.

Price…. That old man. His grieve won't disappear…. He lost his only mentor and captain of the TF141 three years ago. That last mission known as Operation Kingfish, a joint operation between Delta Force and TF141 went awry. The mission took place in Karkonosze Mountains, Ukraine, where he and the other operatives track down Kingfish's location, aka Vladimir Makarov. After He, Ghost, Roach, and Price went inside the building where Makarov should be.

They have found out that place was a bloody trap.

He remembered, after his team found the information about what Makarov was planning, the bastard Makarov left a bloody C4 under the table. Luckily they all managed to get out safely and they had to make the run for it to the chopper. After they had reached the evac point however, Soap was injured by a nearby explosion which caused the team to drag him to the chopper. Captain Price had to stay behind, stay behind to hold off the hostiles so Soap and the team can escape. That was the last time he saw Captain Price.

It's been 3 years after that operation; he along with Lt. General Shepard was the only person to run the TF 141 definitely. It's been a bad day for Soap to lose his favorite old man from his days in the SAS. He was not just an old man for him; he was also an old brother to him. It really means anything to him to keep fighting the world's evil side, especially the thought about killing Makarov. Captain Price would be proud about that.

He then decided to let that thought to go away. He focused back on working on his paperwork. But though, his day then interrupted by an unexpected visitor to his office. The door of his office was opened and someone walked up to him by his desk. Captain "Soap" Mactavish then looked up and found out it was his Second-in-Command, Simon "Ghost" Riley who entered his office. And from the looks of his hidden face under his balaclava skull, it was quite urgent.

"What's wrong, mate?" Mactavish asked, since he was still called by that name instead of Soap. "Can't you see I'm busy with something?"

"Sir, you need to come with me, it's urgent!" Ghost replied quickly.

"Why is that?" Soap asked back, as he leans his back against his chair.

"We've got some sort of paranormal activity in this HQ," Ghost said quickly. "There's a portal that has just opened in the middle of the runway."

"What the bloody hell do you mean there's a portal in the middle of the runway?" Soap asked, surprised to the fact if this was an intrusion as his brows winced.

"You better see it for yourself, sir," Ghost replied, before Soap got off his chair and followed Ghost to the runway.

After they both reached the runway, they can see that the members of the TF141 were already on site. They have armed themselves with assault rifles and sub machine guns, one of them had a machine gun. Gary "Roach" Sanderson was the one who was holding his machine gun. They all were aiming at the white bright portal that was floating above runway 112 at 10 feet high. Despite the tense situation they were having, some of them, including Soap himself were awed by this discovery.

But then again, did any government would do this kind of shit?

"What the bloody hell?" Soap commented in confusion, but then looked at Ghost. "We didn't have heard anything about government doing stupid experiments, are we?"

"Nope," Ghost replied with a shook. "I was wondering the same thing as you."

"Roach, any contact from the portal?" Soap asked.

"Negative, sir," Roach replied as his aim never left from the portal. "Nothing come out from whatever is that thing is."

"I don't even think SAS is involved with this kind of shit…" Ghost then paused for a moment. "What do you think, Captain?"

"We better call some supervisors for this."

Suddenly, the portal burst in bright light and something came out from the portal. The bright light had blinded all 47 TF141 members on site including Soap, Ghost and Roach themselves and forcing them to look away from the portal. After the bright light vanished, they then looked back at where the portal was floating. They were quiet shocked to see the portal had vanished from the air. They still looked up to where the portal had been in silence, until Roach broke it up.

"Uhhm, isn't there something that got through the portal?" Roach asked, which made everyone got up with that and they all looked down to the runway.

The discovery was beyond than they had expected.

What they were seeing right now was the ruins and debris of woods and steel. They were piled up into one big pile. They then decided to take a closer look to the piled of debris. Soap readied his M1911, Ghost cocked up his ACR, and Roach cocked his M240 as the rest readied their weapons. They slowly approached the debris. As they got close, they saw something underneath that pile.

That was the time they were quiet shocked on one thing. There was a human hand sticking out from the debris. Someone was buried underneath that pile of debris.

"Bloody hell, there's someone underneath this pile of junk!" Soap quickly holstered his pistol and started to tear down the debris from the unfortunate victim. "OY! Give me a hand here!"

Soon, the whole members of the TF 141 quickly helped Soap tear down this pile of heap and tried to help whoever was buried down there. There were so much wooden boards they had to throw away from above the victim. They just kept digging the pile of ruins until they reached the injured victim. They kept digging…. Digging and digging.

Once the pile of trash had been cleared off the victim. They were very shocked to see who the victim was.

It was a short orange-haired girl.

"Bloody hell, a girl!?" Ghost asked in shock, along with the members of the TF 141.

"She's pretty injured," Soap said, then noticed the clothes she was wearing. "And she's a schoolgirl?"

"By the looks of it, she's a Japanese," Roach added. "And she's pretty like those girls in the anime."

All of the TF 141 members then looked over to Roach with their 'what?' expression. "What?"

Soap decided to shake that thought off and called the medic. "MEDIC!"

Ghost quickly checked her pulse by her neck, and he was glad about it. "She's alive but had a weak pulse. We need to get her to the infirmary, sir!"

"Alright, let's pick her up," Soap said as they both along with the medics picked her up on the stretcher and were about to go to the infirmary. "The rest of you, find out about what the bloody hell we just witnessed back there!"

"Yes, sir!" Roach said along with the TF 141 members before they ran off the runway to start their job. "Good thing we got that recorded."

Soap, Ghost, and both of the medics quickly entered the infirmary quickly and put the girl on the bed. They would say the injuries she had were quiet severe injuries. Ranging from her chest to her legs, there was a lot of scratches and big and small wounds she had. They were glad that she didn't have any injuries on her face, it would be a pity for her to be not pretty anymore, Ghost thought. They must save the girl quickly before she died from blood loss of her various injuries throughout her body.

Ghost and Soap have been helping the medic on taking care of this unknown Japanese girl. Soap attached the oxygen breather on her mouth as Ghost attached the needles on her arm so that she can be given morphine, the blood bag for latter. The medics attached her to the EKG machine to see how strong her pulse is. They were quiet upset to see her pulse was still pretty weak.

They quickly pulled out all of the equipment they need to do a surgery on the girl. And they knew, they need to hurry. The time for the girl's life is the essence. If she dies, they won't find out what had made that portal.

Soap's regret will increase because the failure of saving the only one single life.

* * *

Miho slowly opened her eyes a little and then she rolled her eyes around, but she can't move her head to the left, right, nor even lift it. She thought she had died, she thought she was in the other world. But then, she realized she was still alive. Somehow still alive after that bridge had collapsed. Miho just can't believe her eyes.

She was inside some sort of an infirmary from the looks of it, just not the infirmary like the hospitals or even the schools she knew. She managed to see who was trying to save her, frankly she felt surprised inside her heart. The people she was seeing from her bed was not doctors or even nurses, instead they were looked like combat medics that were trying to save her along with the other two who don't look like medics. What their faces look like she can't tell because her vision was quiet blurry to see their faces. She then looked over to herself by rolling her eyes downward.

She noticed that she had a breather attached to her mouth and nose. There were also small hoses and needles attached to her arms she thought it must be some kind of pain killer for her. She rolled her eyes to her left and saw the EKG machine there that checks her heart rate and pulse, and it was a bit modern if she could say it. And she was quite shocked to see that she was severely injured as blood was pouring out from her wounds.

She had to keep open her eyes to see what's more than that. But then again her eyes were very tired to keep them open for long. Then those medics and soldiers came over to Miho and checked up on her condition. One of the soldiers quickly noticed Miho was waking up as she was still severely injured.

"Connell, the girl's awake!" the soldier with a Mohawk hair said. "Give her anesthetic, quick!"

"Hang on," One of the medics said, before running over to Miho and injected her on her left arm. "Easy there, girl, just rest."

"Just sleep, little lady," the man with Mohawk hair said, as her sense of hearings and visuals were starting to blur much more. "You're badly injured. We'll take care of you."

Rest…. They were right about it. Would she dare to wake up after she was having a very bad condition? The next thing she did was to close her eyes. As the anesthetics were working up her body, she drifted into a deep sleep. Nothing else she sees but a black void.


	5. Chapter 5 - New Home (edited)

Miho slowly opened her eyes as her eyes were adjusting to the bright light in front of her. Miho winced at the pain of the bright light before she opened her eyes again slowly and indefinitely. She saw the lamp on the ceiling above and in front of her. She felt the soft bed underneath her where she was laying, the soft bed of white along with the white bedcover that covered her whole body except her head. She rolled her eyes and saw the morphine bag was hanging next to her on the metal stick that was for hanging the morphine or blood bag with the EKG machine that was standing on the other side.

Miho was confused about where she was right now. How could it be that she was still alive? She should've been dead. Was it a miracle or a coincidence? Why is she in a place, where everything looked so different?

Miho then slowly in pain lifted her head and looked around the room. The room of this infirmary was all colored in white along with the beds and the bed sheets. There were some tools left around the room probably for surgery, though there were no doctors in sight and might have left them carelessly. And there was some sort of a modern air conditioner attached to the wall across from her, it was white and it was shaped like a long rectangular one.

Then she looked forward after she lifted her head and her upper body off the bed. She noticed the bandages she had on her body. She was surprised to see there were four men that were sitting near the bed where she was lying on. They all looked like they were waiting for her to wake up after an unknown event. Their faces said it all, they don't know who is she and don't know how she got here.

The first man was looked like an old man from Scotland. His eyes were brown and he has a medium build muscles. He was wearing a formal black military uniform along with the badges he had on his left chest. He looked like quite alert with Miho's appearance by looking at his eyes.

The second was a Russian man. He has brown eyes and had a beanie over his head to cover his shaved-buzz black hair. He was wearing a black T-shirt, a white-desert combat vest, and blue jeans. His description matches the man she had seen in her dream about the ambush were they had been pinned down at the helicopter crash-site.

The third was a mysterious man behind his mask. But Miho could say he was a British due to him wearing a grey jacket with the black-colored version of UK flag on his shoulders. She can't get anything out from him yet. Except for his head was fully covered with a skull-like mask sunglasses on his eyes, and the headphones he was wearing.

The last person, Miho couldn't believe her bloody eyes. It was that man. The man she had been seeing in her dreams. It was John "Soap" Mactavish.

"Hey gentlemen!" Soap shouted as he looked at the awaken Miho. "She's awake!"

They all quickly looked at Miho, as she stopped moving and stared nervously at them. "Calm down, my lady, we're not here to hurt you," said the old Scottish man, as his hand raised in front of his chest.

Miho then felt relieved thanks to the Scot's words. "Uh, a-alright…."

Miho then looked around her, confusion was starting to rise inside her head. "Whe-where am I?"

"You're in the Task Force 141 Headquarters just outside London," the skull-masked man replied, before he asked another question. "May I ask who are you?"

"U-uhm, I'm…." Miho paused nervously. "Miho… Miho Nishizumi."

"Alright, Ms. Nishizumi-," Soap replied with a nod, but then got cut off by Miho.

"Just call me Miho, please," she insisted as her face blushed because he was calling her formally.

Soap and the rest felt surprised on what Miho asked and how she blushed, but Soap then decided to follow what she asked. "Alright then, Miho, let's introduce ourselves first to you."

"See that man over there?" Soap asked as he pointed to the Director of the Special Forces. "That is Director Macmillan, Director of the United Kingdom Special Forces."

"It's a pleasure to meet you my lady," Macmillan commented with a nod and a smile.

"The Russian next to Macmillan is Nikolai," Soap said as he looked at Nikolai. "Our ex-informant, our pilot, our hacker, and our best TF141 operatives in this unit."

"Nice to meet you, миледи," Nikolai greeted with a smile and a nod.

 _"Huh, reminds me of Nonna,"_ Miho thought after hearing what Nikolai said.

"This mysterious bloke next to me is Simon Riley," Soap said, with sarcasm. "Or in his nickname Ghost. He's my second-in-command field officer and my lieutenant."

"I hope you had a good day, mate," Ghost said to Miho, somewhat in an uplifting tone to make her calm down by the creepy appearance of Ghost. "It's because my mask, isn't?"

"Yeah," Miho nodded, before looking over to Soap.

"Alright, my name is-," Soap then cut off by Miho quickly.

"Captain "Soap" Mactavish, right?" Miho asked, which caused the gentlemen to jump at that answer.

"Hang on, how the bloody hell do you know my name?" Soap asked as he left his mouth open a little and sharply stared at Miho.

"I…. Well…" Miho wasn't thinking straight at that time because they were staring at her in suspicion, except for Nikolai apparently.

"Calm down people!" Nikolai said aloud to everyone as he looked at each of them. "She's just a school girl from another world, don't go suspicious on her!"

They all looked at Nikolai as they thought for a moment, he was right about it. "Well, he's right about it. She's harmless," Macmillan agreed, as he sighed to Miho.

"Alright, just tell us how did you know my name?" Soap asked, this time softly as he leaned forward to Miho.

"Ah… well..." Miho paused, but then answered. "I´ve been having dreams about you back home."

They actually can't believe about she ever dreamed about Soap, except Nikolai however, looks like he had one before. "Are joking with us?" Ghost asked, unsatisfied with her answer.

"No, really I'm not!" Miho quickly replied, as she was panicked by Ghost's voice. "I-I don't even know why I was dreaming about Captain Mactavish that time! It just appeared after I slept."

"Would you want to tell me about what was your first dream about Soap was?" Nikolai asked, somewhat in trust and softly which gives the question to the other men in the room.

"Why all the sudden you go believe her on that?" Macmillan asked.

"Because I had something like that before after my time in the Soviet-Afghan war," Nikolai then looked towards to Miho. "Would you tell us about it?"

Miho was doubted if she's going to tell him about her first dream, but seeing how soft and how tolerant Nikolai is, she shyly but agreed to talk to him about it. "I… kind of woke up from the ground, waking up from the road and shouted to my surroundings because there was no one with me. But then I had to duck down to the ground again because there were bullets flying all around me…. It was very terrifying for me. Then there was a tank firing next to me, making my ears ring for a moment. It's… scary…. I thought I was in another kind of the Second World War. I did look on myself at that moment and I was quite shocked to see I was wearing some sort of combat uniform like Ghost's and I had a rifle and a pistol I've never seen before as well. I looked at what was next to me and found there was a tank, a type I've never seen before.

That modern tank then went off as it started moving forward as it disappeared in the fog. Then I saw there were two soldiers running up to me. I nearly shot them though after I saw them up close. One was Captain Mactavish. The other one, his name was Captain Price, I think."

The three members of TF141 along with Macmillan were all surprised that she has mentioned his name. She had called out Soap's mentor and best friend. They widen their eyes for this discovery.

"After I met them, we were suddenly attacked by enemies that were firing at us. We had to shoot back at them, even if I don't want kill someone I had to kill them. Then I got shot three times on my chest, it was… quite painful. Price had to drag me into a building along with Soap. When we took cover in the building as I was bleeding and trying to stay alive, there was a very loud bombardment outside. It shook the whole building we're in like there was an earthquake and I screamed for my life, I just kind of can't take it anymore. After the bombardment stopped, Price and Soap looked over to me, before I fell to sleep like I was dead."

They were quite amazed on what she was dreaming. It's not kind of a coincidence kind of dream. She just dreamed the reality of a war that she doesn't know of and met Soap and Price. The TF141 members and the Director quickly looked over to each other in astonishment. This was something they never heard of from a Japanese schoolgirl.

"Where's Captain Price, Mactavish?" Miho asked. "I think he was your mentor."

Soap felt quiet speechless, he bowed his head down and let Ghost answer that. "He's not here I'm afraid. Our latest operation, Operation Kingfish that involved Cpt. Price went wrong. Our mission was to find and kill Makarov the ultranationalist leader that time but we found out that was a trap. We had to get out from there, and Cpt. Price had to stay behind to hold the hostiles so the rest of us could get out from there. His status right now is currently MIA (missing in action) I don't know if he's dead or still alive."

Miho felt quiet sad to hear that, she frowned as she looked over to Soap. "I'm sorry to hear that, Captain."

Soap lifted his head and looked straight to her with comfort. "Thank you, Miho."

Miho smiled to hear his reply. It was a really sad thing to lose someone. She knows that, but then she frowned about one thing. Her friends back in Japan thought that she was dead. She bowed her head down to the bed.

But then Miho decided to change the topic. "Umm, Nikolai, you mentioned that I just came from the other world, right? What did you mean by that?"

The gentlemen straightened their backs as Nikolai formed the words in his mind. "Uhm, you just suddenly appeared here. You went through the portal and you were severely injured with the debris of woods and steel above you. You nearly died of blood loss."

"Nani?!" Miho asked as she leaned forward, quite shock. "I… I went through a portal?"

"We have the recording right here," Ghost then handed her the camera he brought for her. "Care to take a look?"

She then looked on the camera screen and watch the recording. She is really puzzled and really shocked on how did the portal sent her into the TF 141 HQ. Not only that, she recognized those woods and steel pieces that came through with her. She really didn't fall into the river, but fall into the portal.

"The UK Special Air Service actually has conducted the investigation of this portal, called The Tear, several years ago," Macmillan stated which is already known to Soap, Nikolai and Ghost. "To see this inside a Special Forces Headquarters is a really rare thing. The first Tear was seen back in Leningrad. This phenomena activity happens quite rare as we didn't know how it works, what it does and when it shows up. Well, of course we have conducted experiments to make our own Tear years ago but it was never completed. However, we have plans to finish this Tear before and after you showed up."

"For real?" Miho asked as she gives back from the camera to Ghost. "Does that mean you can get me back home?"

"Honestly, we can't guarantee anything for that," Soap said doubt clear in his voice. "But I think we can get you back home, well in exchange for what information you have for us from your world. Even though I know it's the same thing as this world."

Miho paused for a moment on that decision, before agreeing to it. "Okay, what would you like to ask me?"

"What year is it in your universe?" Ghost asked. "Because in our world it's 2016."

"Nani..?" Miho fell into silent for a moment, before she coughed and answered. "In my world, it's 1959."

"Bloody hell!" Macmillan commented, as the rest were surprised of her answer. "That's nearly 50 years late!"

"Uhm, may I ask something?" Miho asked as she reminded on one thing, the men only nodded in allowance. "Do you know the Type 10 tank from Japan?"

"The Type 10 Hitomaru?" Nikolai asked, and Miho nodded, as he along with the rest felt odd of her question since she was asking about a modern tank in 2010s, which she suppose she doesn't know about it. "Yes… why?"

"When does it exist or first used?"

….

….

"In 2012 why?" Soap asked in confusion as he tilted his head to the right.

"Because in my world the Type 10 exists in 1959 in Japan."

….

….

….

….

Miho's reply has made the men gave their stupefied glares to her as if they were retarded to notice the existence of the modern Japanese tank.

"How the bloody hell is a modern tank from 2012 able to exist in 1959?" Ghost asked, confused on how the Japan version of Miho managed to get their tanks to the next level that fast.

"Well, since Japan was famous for one of the famous sport," Miho replied. "The sport was called Sensha-dō."

"Sensha-dō?" Macmillan asked, he along with the rest of the men didn´t understand Japanese. "What's that?"

"In English, Tankwondo."

….

….

….

They all fell silent on what the bloody hell Miho was talking about. "Tankwondo? What the bloody hell kind of sport is that? Sounds like armored tanks are involved," Soap stated which he didn't know that it was true.

"Armored tanks are actually involved with that sport and Japan was famous for it," the men gave their cringed and shocked faces to Miho after she said that.

"What kind of a madman dare to do competition with tanks?!" Ghost asked furiously, he was mad at the founder of the Sensha-dō. "Don't tell me you also compete with Tankwondo."

"Well, you're right about it," Miho replied calmly to their shock. "I thought Tankwondo existed in this world."

"In reality, no, my lady," Macmillan replied with an agitated shook. "There's no such thing as that. Even before the second world war. If there is, that would be a large catastrophe for the whole world."

Miho paused in disbelieve, there's no Panzerfahren in this world, she just can't believe it. "Oh, I didn't know…"

"Has someone ever died because of Tankwondo?" Nikolai asked, oddly from him he was interested instead of angry like Ghost.

"No, no one ever died in Tankwondo as far as I know," Miho replied with a shook of her head, Soap just scoffed in disbelieve on how the hell anyone didn't die from that shit. "There are rules in Sensha-dō."

"What are they?" Macmillan asked, he was curious about it since every sport has their own rules.

"For a start, prohibited actions," Miho said. "Tanks do not use parts or equipment that are not sanctioned by the league. Second, leaving the competition area which is obvious. Tanks do not fire directly on humans and in the cease-fire zone. Do not attack the vehicle that has been declared 'inoperable'. For how someone didn't die from Tankwondo, we use live ammunition rounds provided by the Sensha-dō league, production of your own warheads and shells are not allowed, also the tanks are coated with high tech materials that prevent penetration by rounds, such as carbon fiber and layers of armored mantlets to make sure the crew are safe. Also the tanks must be one produced before August 15, 1945 to be able to compete"

"Wow, whoever made that sport must've been strict about safety," Ghost commented, he felt glad to hear those rules. "I think I want one."

"Uhm, the problem is the sport was only for girls," that again made everyone worked up.

….

….

….

….

….

….

….

….

"What the fuck?!" the four men said aloud in unison.

"Err, yeah that's the truth," Miho said, nervously on how to deal with this situation.

"Well, at least we don't have any daughter to hear that," Macmillan stated. "I'll be gone scared to see a girl driving a tank around London if I had one."

"That's true, in fact we girls are allowed to bring our tanks around the city," Miho added, made Macmillan smiled about it. "Whether it be from Elementary school until university."

"I see," Nikolai nodded in understood. "What tank you were commanding?"

"A Panzer IV tank in Ooarai High School and a Tiger I when I was in Kuromorimine High School, I was the commander of those both tanks," Miho replied. "To make things better for those both schools are that my family have a very long history of Tankwondo in the Nishizumi-Style Way Of The Tank."

"So you're saying you're an expert commander with tanks?" Soap asked to clear things up.

"Kind of like that, we Nishizumis even inherit a certain ability," Miho stated with a smile. "A natural ability to sense the incoming shells and the enemy's movement without needing to see them."

"For real?" Nikolai asked, astonished by her abilities. "Wish I had that when I'm flying my helicopter."

"Uuhm…." Miho thought for a moment about it. "I think that's going to take a long time for that."

"Is there any crazy thing you ever did with your tank while on battle?" Nikolai asked again.

"Well, there's always one back in Kuromorimine Academy," Miho said." My driver managed to run the tank in full speed and make the tank drift as she turned the wheel."

The tank was drifting, she earned the amazed glares of the men. "Reminds me of my day back in Afghan," Nikolai commented, reminded of that day.

* * *

Nikolai was driving his T-90 tank along with Mishka the loader and Piotor the Commander and the Machine gunner. Nikolai drove forward at full speed across the deserts of Afghan as the soldiers on foot outside the tank just watching the tank running past them. When Nikolai tried to turn the tank to the right, he made a mistake on driving the tank.

He turned the tank to a sharp right while still giving it full throttle. The result was hilarious. He flipped the T-90 upside down and made the tank get dragged away for about ten yards. Piotor, Mishka, and Nikolai quickly switched gravity and landed on the top side of the turret inside. The soldiers outside could only laugh at the flipped tank for its failure while on the inside, Piotor and Mishka angrily looked over to Nikolai who flipped the damn tank.

"Nikolai! You урод блять!" Piotor shouted. "This is the second time you flipped the tank!"

"Next time, I'll drive, Nikolai!" Mishka shouted. "You should have stayed with those Anti-tanks трахается than driving this дерьмо!"

"Uuh… Oops?"

* * *

"Huh, that's why they won't keep you around the tanks," Ghost commented, as he totally understood why he's not allowed anywhere near the tanks that time.

"Totally worth it that time," Nikolai added with a chuckle. "I knew there was a technique for that."

They all paused for a moment, before Soap had another thing in mind which was agreed by the three men with her. "Miho, you said you're an expert commander with tanks right?"

"Yeah… why?" Miho asked slowly, puzzled on what is he thinking.

"You looked like to know something about handling these tanks," Macmillan added, helping Soap. "We might be gladly to have you with us."

"Eih?! What do you mean?" Miho asked in surprise, leaned her upper body back.

"I've been thinking…" Soap paused for a moment, as Ghost and Nikolai looked at him. "I wanted to recruit you into Task Force 141 for your knowledge. Yaa' know? Your personal training with tanks might be helpful for the 141."

"But…. You wanted me to get back to Tankwondo for that?!" Miho asked in panic.

"Actually in real combat, why all of the sudden you sounded so panicked?" Ghost asked.

"No! I can't go back to do that!" Miho said aloud, denying the offer.

"Hey, calm down, mate!" Macmillan said as he approached her and rubbed her shoulders to comfort her. "Just tell us what's wrong."

"Eh, um…" Miho paused for a moment as she looked down. "I… had an incident long ago."

They were quiet surprised to hear she had an incident of the Panzerfahren. "What kind of incident?"

"Well, I was participating in the 62nd tournament of Sensha-dō…" Miho paused, trying to remember what happened even if she didn't want to. "We were driving through the cliffs in one tank column. It was a really stormy day that time. I was commanding my Tiger which was holding the flag tank. When the Panzer III tank on the front my tank was escorting my flag tank, it got shot by a tank stationed on the top of the cliff and the Panzer slipped off the track. Worst of all….. the Panzer fell down into the river and…. I had to abandon the flag tank."

The men frowned to hear her story about it. "I had to run down the cliff and dive down to the river. I begged in my heart that they were still alive. Eventually…. I managed to rescue them. But after that, our school was defeated by Pravda High School just because I abandoned the flag tank, left un-commanded. Many people were pretty outraged by this defeat, including my own mother…. The students blamed me for the defeat and ending their 9-years streak victory, while my mother…. heavily reprimanded me for a few days. And I had to change schools to get away from all of that, because I don't even know anymore which was the right thing to do and which isn't. But then again I was forced to go in Panzerfahren again with a threat. I think that's how I got in that portal…."

"You know what happened?" Ghost asked, quite jumpy on Miho's statement.

"I'm not… sure…" Miho thought for a moment in silence. "I was on the bridge outside of my tank when we were doing a full-mock battle fully unprepared. After my tank accidentally cut a cable of the bridge and got shot from behind, it was the time I know that the bridge will collapse if I made a move. But not for the tank because they were on a nearly safe zone spot. I ordered them to get off from the bridge as I tried to find a way to get off. But it was too late… a shell from an opponent shot the bridge and I fell down to the river along with the ruins of the bridge. My crew were too late to tell them to stop firing, can't even contact them by radio because it was broken. I think that's when the portal appeared underneath me and ending up here."

The men nodded in understood. They all have concluded on one thing how did she end up in another universe. Fate.

Other reasons of why did she end up here were none except fate. This is maybe why the SAS conduct a quiet rare investigation and tried to make an experiment of it. Maybe this is why she ended up here. To give her a second chance in her life.

After Soap thinks over this again, this might be a mistake to enlist her into a multinational Task Force. Other than the reasons from her on why she avoided Panzerfahren, it was because her trauma. Soap had one before but he was able to control it by now, but for this girl…. She won't last a day for sure about it, plus with the training of combat without tanks.

"I see," Soap said with a sad tone. "Gentlemen, let's talk outside about this. We'll give a time for privacy, Miho. Just get some rest, you're still to injured to walk."

"Okay…" Miho nodded sadly. "Thanks."

The men then calmly walked out the room one by one, Soap was the last. Soap looked over his shoulder to see how Miho was doing. Miho then lied down her body onto the bed, eyes on the ceiling. Soap then turned his head forward and closed the door behind him. Then walked up to the group of three men standing in a circle in the middle of the hallway.

Soap sighed as he closed his eyes, and then looked over to Macmillan. "So what do you think about it?" Soap asked.

"For a start, I won't recommend to enlist her to the task force," Macmillan stated. "First is because she's a schoolgirl, second is because her trauma after her combat in the match which could affect her combat efficiency. Might as well the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder she could be having."

"Yeah," Nikolai agreed with a nod, with his arms crossing each other. "I mean, she's just a girl."

"I know," Soap replied with a nod. "She better be sent home back to her world, but with the portal not appearing now. I would have suggested for her to stay in London for a while."

Macmillan only smirked on that. "That wouldn't be a problem, Soap. Because I have some good news about The Tear."

The TF 141 members quickly looked at Macmillan in astonishment. "What is it?" Ghost asked quickly.

"The MI5 along with SAS has calculated that the highly-classified Project Tear will be finished in the next year," Macmillan answered, making them to look over each other.

"Что?" Nikolai asked in surprised. "That escalated quickly."

"The bad news?" Soap asked, doesn't take the good news lightly if there's something else.

"The British Government would interrogate her more after this because she is an asset of the government before she'll be sent home through the portal," Macmillan replied, which gave the disturbing feelings to Soap, especially on 'interrogation', she's just a girl. "But they would leave her alone on one condition."

Soap's ears perked up on that. "Which is?"

"She accepts the Dual Citizenship offer," Macmillan stated. "But considering she's Japanese, the Japan government wouldn't take lightly on this one except if she's a multinational member of the special forces. But from another universe? I don't even know anymore."

"They guarantee that they will leave her alone?" Soap asked. "I hate to see a girl become an experiment subject for only this project."

"They'll guarantee about it," Macmillan sternly replied. "If I see or heard any single agent is harassing her, I'll make sure to send our boys to apprehend the agent for that."

"Good, also one thing…" Ghost asked. "What about the Tear? What will you guys be going to do about it? Because planning to make a portal to go to another universe is a bad thing."

"We could only shut down the portal and locked it down in a very classified place as we are doing the research about it, why?" Macmillan asked.

"What if the portal falls into the wrong hands?" Nikolai asked, which Macmillan quickly thought about it. "What if the terrorist managed to get through?"

"Then we have no choice but to destroy the portal," Macmillan stated, it was the only way to keep Miho's universe secure from any evil terrorist that are planning to retaliate through the portal.

"If they managed to get through?" Soap asked which gave Macmillan a pause.

"Then we have to get the portal back despite we are breaking the timeline of the other universe's history," Macmillan replied. "And we destroy the portal."

They all fell silent about it, if that was what to happen they should prepare for it. "Sounds good enough for me, but I don't get the reason on why would you keep the portal."

"Even if Miho is to be sent home through the portal, she's still a very special asset to the British government, we could contact her if she needs us or the government needs her," Macmillan said with a shrug. "That was my plan actually, because we still take care of our friends, right?"

"Like what Price said before," Soap added with a smile. "We take care of our friends, no matter what."

"I like the idea," Ghost nodded, smiled underneath his balaclava. "Maybe she would be separated from us, but she's still a family for us."

"Well, not yet a family, comrade," Nikolai replied. "But soon enough."

"Let's build a relation with her, mates," Macmillan suggested, they started to walk back into the room before Soap halted them for a moment.

"Hang on, sir," Soap said quickly as holds Mac's shoulder. "What of her house and financial?"

"Her financial would be handled by the government, even if she doesn't work," Macmillan said. "As for the house….. I think I have one in London that would be suitable for her."

* * *

Kennington Road, Lambeth District, London. One day later.

Miho got out from the military hospital after a day of rest in there. Kind of a quick recovery for her despite how severe the injuries she had. Though, there are some things that gave her the nervous feelings. And there are some which she was happy to hear.

She was pretty shock to know from Macmillan and Soap that the MI5 of the British Government wanted to interrogate her, rendering she could be a threat in the British soil. But after Soap along with the men has gave their offer for her to have a Dual-Citizenship so the MI5 would leave her alone. She felt so happy to hear it, she wanted to avoid anything that could be bad for her. And the Dual-Citizenship? She is very glad to become a Japanese and a British right now, pretty glad she took English courses back in Kumamoto.

But of course the MI5 wanted to keep their eyes on the girl, so Macmillan knew who was the one who would deal with that.

Right now, she was with the four men, plus with the present of another British, his name was Sgt. Gary "Roach" Sanderson. When she asked about why he's here, Ghost replied that Roach will be the one who will be keeping an eye on her because she was an asset for the government. Soap also commented something else about Roach. Stating that:

"He's a Sergeant, but reminds me of what I must've looked like coming out of Selection; raw, skilled, loyal to a fault."

For Miho, as a former tank commander of Sensha-Dō. Quickly thought about Soap for the moment. The words raw, skilled, loyal to a fault. Huh, those words fitted Miho as well, she remembered her days in the Kuromorimine Girls Academy looked like. Looks like she's not the only who felt quite that way right now, Soap's a captain yeah but he still had his feeling when he was quite new in the military as a Sergeant.

Miho was standing at the sidewalk with Ghost, Soap, Roach, Nikolai and Macmillan. They were standing in front of a building where Miho will be living. It was a third-floor house. It was in beautiful brown color while the roof was in dark blue. There was a wall-like column on the front of the house next to the white door that reached from top to bottom of the floors, it also inserted with big windows in each side of the column. The house had a wide of 16 meters, quite a long wide for a third-story house. Miho actually felt pretty happy about the house.

"So…" Macmillan started as they stare down at the house. "What do you think about it?"

"It's perfect!" Miho said aloud as she closed her eyes with a smile and her hands gripping underneath her cheek, her face was quite cute for the men. "I can't believe I'll be living here in England!"

"You're lucky for a Japanese" Roach commented with a shrug. "To make things better, you're going to become a British as well."

"Maybe after you settle yourself for a while in this house," Nikolai said, patting her shoulder. "You'll get a tour with Roach and Soap around London."

"I'll appreciate that," Miho replied, she then waved her hand to the house. "How about we go check out the house?"

"Yeah let's go, mates," Ghost invited, pointing his head to the house. "Let's have a break shall we?"

"Sure, I think I'll need some tea," Macmillan agreed, they all then went ahead to go inside Miho's new home.

Despite with the fact that Macmillan just asked Miho to answers some questions from MI5 in papers so they will leave her alone for good, right after they entered the house. Miho was very happy to live a new life in here. She had a second chance to live, and that's what she wanted. Hopefully, she will be forever happy here.

* * *

5 Days later, Jubilee Gardens near Thames River, Waterloo district, London

It's been nearly a long week for Miho to live in London. And she could tell her trip all over London has been a very fun thing for her. Every single building that exist in London was very modern compared to the city she has been living in. And what was more interesting to her was the fact that since the United Kingdom's government was still the Monarchy/Kingdom government, she was quiet amazed and impressed to see there are some of the buildings including the historical Big Ben still maintained their shape until now.

She has recently got a new camera and took every single picture of London whenever she goes. Starting from Kennington road until the famous Buckingham-Fucking Palace, it really excited her. If one day she could get back home to her real world and show them the pictures of her trip, it is really contenting. Her friends….. she quickly frowned at that thought.

Hana, Saori, Akiyama, and Mako… they were her new friends and she was very sad to know they had been separated this quickly. Not only them, she misses her sister and her mother. Oh God, she doesn't how her mother will react to her faked-death but Maho… she's really caring for her. Miho could imagine that Maho… was crying over her death. Miho could only frown at that thought as she looked down and was sitting on a bench in the gardens that was facing to the river.

She then lifted her head and looked towards the river, seeing those boats in the river reminded her of the school carrier she ever got on before. Then she looked around her, she can't even imagine about how much people are in this park. The children are playing around while their parents kept their eyes on them, there were groups of people having a good friendly chat with each other, with the rest of them, probably tourists, are watching the scenery of the river and beyond the river. Taking pictures of them as Miho did the same thing like them from her seat.

As she was watching the river after photo shoots, a man walked over to her and sat down next to her. It was Soap Mactavish, the captain and a new friend she had meet about a week ago. Roach wasn't here because he had an operation going on overseas in another country. Ghost and Nikolai on the other hand, were oddly helping Macmillan on some paperwork bullshit given by the MI5 and MI6 and the SAS. Soap could only say that it was their new day in the office to Miho, which made her giggle dryly.

Soap was with her because they both wanted to have a walk in the park happily. Soap did buy her the Fish and Chips for her and himself from the middle of the park, and also one strawberry ice cream in cup for Miho. Miho calmly took her Fish and Chips along with the ice cream and ate them. Well, those girls from St. Gloriana were not wrong about how good the Fish and Chips were. They ate together as they watched the scenery of the river, making Soap remember something.

"Ei, Miho," Soap called as they both looked at each other. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm feeling great!" Miho then looked to the river. "Well, I guess… everything looks so new to me."

"Don't worry about that," Soap chuckled, leaning his back against the bench. "I know how that feels."

"I can't even imagine London in the 2000s would be like this," Miho then laughed a little. "Funny thing though, those ships remind me about we had our own ship of school carrier to go around Japan."

"School carriers?" Soap asked, surprised the thought of having schools on ships. "How large is it?"

"I would say larger than the US aircraft carriers," Miho replied, which made Soap jumped by it. "let's say the size of the ship is nearly the size of a city they had to put on the carrier."

"Wow, those poor buggers really going to have a hard time to maintain the ship is containing its normal shape," Soap commented, which Miho nodded in reply. "Really cost a lot, is it because the Panzerfahren you mentioned about?"

"Correct," Miho replied, she then eats her ice cream.

"Which school that has the most tanks?" Soap asked, which made Miho grinned.

"That would be the Saunders University High School," Miho replied, Miho just shrugged. "It's the wealthiest school in Japan and it's the only school that has the most tanks, most of them are the Sherman tanks. They really have a very good affiliation with the Americans and also love to throw parties whenever as possible."

"For bloody real?" Soap asked in surprised, he then laughed. "Bloody hell, those girls really matched to those Yankees back in US."

"Yeah…" Miho said, but she was trailing off. "True…"

Soap then looked over to Miho, quite concerned about her. "Is there something bothering ya'?"

Miho paused for a moment as she watched the river, then looked down as she finished eating. "I miss my friends and my family back at home."

Miho paused for a moment again, leaning her upper body to the front as her elbows landed on her knees and her hands holding her chin. "I felt very sorry for them. They must've thought that I was dead after I fell into the river with the bridge collapsed. Mainly for my sister Maho. I could sense she is devastated of my disappearance or fake-death."

Soap paused as he hummed to the thought, his memory. "I know how it feels. I have my friends that time, Gaz and Griggs. They both died right in front of me after we were all incapacitated and the bastard who shot them showed up. Even my fight against the bastards is over, I couldn't even forget it for the moment I made it back here. I blamed myself for their deaths."

Miho was saddened to hear that as she looked at Soap who is now sighing with his eyes closed. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's alright," Soap replied with a nod, before they looked back to the river. "Like what Price said, we take care of our friends."

Miho could only smile to hear that, as they continued to watch scenery of the river.


	6. Chapter 6 - The London Massacre (edited)

4 days later, Royal Brompton Hospital, 14:00 PM

Miho opened her eyes slowly as her eyes slowly adjusted to the lights from the ceiling. She then lifted her head off her bed and looked around. Miho was inside a patient room, and she was quite confused on what happened. Why was she here, in the hospital?

The room she was in was all in white. There was a window right next to her bed, which allowed her to figure out that she was on the third floor of the hospital. There were two brown cabinets in the room next to her, and across her to the left. A large TV planted across her on the wall, facing towards Miho and it was off. And there were a couple of armchairs on her left.

After a moment to look around to get a clear view of her surroundings, she realized there was someone who was with her in the room. And of course it was none other than Soap himself. He was sitting with his hands holding his head as if he was in grieve as he was sitting still on an armchair beside her by the window. Probably waiting for Miho to wake up.

She then got her upper body up and off the bed. But then she felt a searing pain throughout her body as she did that. She groaned in pain as Soap quickly took notice of the girl's action and stood off the chair. He told her to just lie down on the bed and she does what he said. She felt quite confused on what was going on.

After she lied down again, Soap returned back to his seat and kept his eyes on the girl's condition. Miho looked over herself, and noticed something that had horrified her. There were a lot of bandages around her body, she can feel some of it on her stomach and her chest. She can't remember what just happened to her.

"It's good to see you awake, Miho," Soap said, a relieving smile made on his face. "I was very worried about you."

"Soap?" Miho called in confusion. "Where am I?"

"You're in Royal Brompton Hospital, lady," Soap replied, he then sighed sadly. "You were injured and been here for about a day."

"Wha-what happened?" Miho asked stammering as she tries to lie down comfortably to relieve her own back from the pain.

"There was a terrorist attack in London," Soap replied sadly, he then looked down to the floor. "It was the worst one we had so far. You were also there during the attack."

"I-I don't remember…" Miho said weakly, she then tried to remember what had happened before. "Where was the attack?"

Soap paused for a moment, before he lifted his head up and looked to her. "At the Buckingham Palace where the Victoria Memorial was built."

"Eh?" Miho asked in surprised. "Wha-what? Attack at Buckingham Palace? By who?"

Soap paused again, before replying to her. "The terrorists who shot you."

Terrorists.

The bastards who bring terror on their way to destroy the government or to any living people in the country. She heard of them, what they do, and what they want, from that talk she had with Soap herself. As she pondered about those words and about the location, her memories became clear all over again. She remembered what happened that time at Buckingham Palace.

* * *

1 day earlier. Front side of the Buckingham Palace near the Victoria Memorial, Westminster District, London.

Miho was standing in front of the Buckingham Palace by herself. No one was looking after her including Soap and Roach because they were busy with some recent operations they had to deal with. But that won't matter for her because she is already a big girl, she can take care of herself. Just like in her time back in 1959 in Japan. At least she already got used to this new world she was in.

A lot of people were gathering by the gate of the Buckingham Palace, most of them were taking photos of the building and taking selfies with their phones. She was a little far away from the gate due to the groups of people forming up at the gate. She took some pictures of the Buckingham Palace so that she can put it in her memories of London. After a moment of taking photos, she then turned and walked over to the most iconic memorial in front of the Palace.

The Victoria Memorial really is a very beautiful piece of artwork for Miho. Her eyes moved to the top of the memorial, her gaze cannot let go for a moment. There it was the famous golden statue of Queen Victoria herself. With her wings on her back, making her look like an Angel of London. Man, she couldn't stop smiling at that. She took another picture of it, and then put her camera in her pocket.

She then walked around the memorial to see how the memorial was surrounded with a couple of fountains and stairs around it. The surroundings of the memorial of course were beautiful. If Ooarai or Kumamoto had one like this she would be smiling when seeing it. Plus, Maho and her mother would love to see this, hopefully.

Miho then took a seat at the edge of the fountain that was facing to Spur Road and relaxed. She looked around her as she smiled thanks to her new day in London. Miho could see the birds flying and playing with each other in the air. And there are also some birds that are walking around the memorial in groups. Those birds were probably hoping that they found some food on the way.

Miho then turned her head towards the road ahead of her. There were cars driving around the road. Some of them parked at the edge of the road on the right. Miho could see there was a police officer that was adding the penalty ticket for wrong parking onto a car.

It was not only the police officer who was at the Buckingham Palace. There were two men in redcoats guarding the entrance to Buckingham Palace. And interestingly, they looked like they have been trained-well ceremonially if Miho sees them on how they walk and guard the area. Those are actually the Queen's Guard that Soap talked about. However, Soap warned her not to mess with any of those guards even if they didn't flinch. Because they are quite hard-cracked soldiers to deal with, one wrong move on the guard and she will receive the butt side of the LA85 rifle to the face.

She then looked over to the people who are around the Buckingham Palace. Not to be mistaken that there was a large crowd at the Buckingham Palace. Children were also present as they were amazed of the historical site and playing around that place. It was rather cute to watch those kids around the memorial. Reminding herself of her childhood when she was with Maho.

She then looked up to the sky to see the clouds. The weather of the day was quite cloudy, as if the clouds looked like they prepared to drop their rain of water to the earth. But then again, the grey clouds up in the sky kind of give the comfort for her today. She likes the breeze of wind in London than the one in Japan.

She smiled towards the clouds, before looking back down to the road. Then she turned her gaze to the fountain besides her. She was pretty excited to see there were fishes in the pool. More than that, there were the fishes she pretty much loved to see in the pool. There were Koi fishes in the pool, the beautiful white and colorful oranges fish that are actually came from Japan. She was surprised by the fact that the British Love Koi fishes.

She then turned her head again and was facing the road. Then she remembered her friends and family again back in 1959 back in Japan. She quickly frowned at the thought. Man, if they were with her along with the girls from St. Gloriana things would be much better for her. Probably on some occasion she would serve them some tea of Earl Grey if she had any.

Not only that. Miho has also decided to change religions after she has been living in London. Her religion has changed into Catholic, just like Soap's religion. Even though she and Soap weren't even quite as religious about it. It was for her pace of mind to live a new life, she thought as she held her necklace with a cross around her neck.

She then looked over towards the memorial and Buckingham palace. But then, she saw something quite suspicious at a distance. She was looking at a suspicious man, who was walking towards the memorial. Miho was starting to wonder what is he doing.

The man she was looking at was wearing a pair of dark grey pants, an open-brown long sleeve leather-jacket with a white buttoned-shirt underneath the jacket. His face was hidden by the public with his balaclava that only covered his nose and mouth and a dark brown cap along with his sunglasses to hide his eyes. If she could see his eyes through his sunglasses, Miho knew he was up to something no good. She really needed to watch him carefully.

Not only he was walking to the memorial on his own, but he was also bringing his bag to the memorial. A grey backpack that he was hanging on his right shoulder. He kept walking into the memorial as he was looking around him and behind in alert. Miho kept her calm as she pretended to enjoy the view to make sure this dangerous man didn't notice that she was watching him. Fortunately for her, he didn't notice the girl was watching him as he was getting close to the memorial.

After that suspicious bastard reached the bottom of the stairs of the memorial that was facing the Palace, he put down the bag right there in the middle of the crowd as he made sure no one was watching. There are some cases that large crowds mean high possibility to not notice any crimes that someone was doing. And in that man's case, he was not being noticed by the large crowd around him except for Miho apparently. He thought he succeeded on what he was doing, but didn't know that a girl will try to stop whatever he was doing.

After dropping the bag, he immediately turned around and hastily walked away from the scene. Looking behind him to make sure he wasn't followed by someone. Miho waited patiently for the bastard to leave until he was no longer to be seen. It was time for Miho to act.

She quickly stood up from the edge of the pool and walked over to the bag at the bottom of the stairs where the man dropped it. After reaching the bag, she looked over her shoulders to make sure he didn't see Miho checking on the bag. Seeing he was nowhere to be seen, she crouched down to open up the bag. She unzipped the bag slowly and then looked inside. After opening up the open bag, she heard a clicking noise and seen some red lights in the bag. Her expression quickly turned into one of horror and shock after finding out what was inside the bag.

It's a bomb.

Miho froze to see the bomb inside the bag, but then looking at the time of the bomb, it was five seconds.

"BOMB! BOMB!" Miho shouted quickly as she turned around to the opposite direction and started running while the people around her were startled and started quickly run away as well.

"GET CLEAR! GET CLEAR!" Miho yelled as she quickly runs and waved her hand to the panicked people around her that are running.

*DUUUUUUUUAAAAAARRRR*

Miho was sent flying in the air for about 3 feet because of the explosion, that goddamn massive explosion was really loud and really strong to kill a lot of people. Before Miho landed on the ground very hard, landing with the front of her body on the ground. Miho was lucky to get a little farther away from the bomb. If not, she would be dead from that explosion.

Fucking hell, that explosion was very loud and she felt that it had nearly killed her. She felt very dizzy and nausea as she slowly got up from the ground. Putting both of her hands on the ground before moving her legs into a kneel before she slowly stood up on where she was. She then turned around to look behind her, besides the fact that the explosion sent her flying for about five meters. There was something else that terrified her.

She could see a big cloud of fog at the memorial because of the explosion. Not only that, it left some structural damages to the memorial. And what was the worst of it all was that had her fucking terrified and feet horror. There were corpses of the people who died by that explosion. Men, women, children. Jesus Christ, she couldn't stand to see them turned into burned corpses.

She then slowly looked around her. They were having the same feeling as Miho, but most of them with a scream and panicked shouting's. Why did that bastard do this? Why killing people like this without any reason to kill them? She doesn't know what the hell was going on.

*BRA-TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT*

As she was still in shock looking at those dead bodies, and with the nearby police officers and Queen's Guards on site. She along with everyone in the scene started to heard gun fire from behind them. To be exact, coming from the left side (Miho's right) of the Buckingham Palace. She and the rest on site slowly turned around to look behind them and looked toward the source of the gun fire. And there they were, Miho's eyes widened in fear.

There are a lot of people running and screaming from the road beside the Palace. To Miho's shock, they were mowed down by the gun fire from behind them. Some of them kept running, only to get shot and fall down hard to the ground, some got shot and kept crawling forward to stay alive. They are shouting and crying, in fear, and pain. Miho only stood frozen there, as the people who were standing with her slowly turned around and started running to the safe zone.

The people who were running from their imminent death of gun fire, they all were running past Miho who still stood there in shock. Some of the people did bump into her as they continued running. Men, women, children, all of them running to stay alive. As the sound of gun fire was getting closer and the moving lights of weapons was in sight, Miho could see them. It was those bastards who were shooting everyone on their way.

There were five bastards right there. All of them were wearing Kevlar vests and gloves while their uniforms were three dressed up in businessman uniforms and two in combat-like uniform. Two of them were wearing gas masks, two of them wearing balaclavas, and one was leaving his head exposed. Four of them were holding their AKs while one of them was holding his machine gun to mow everyone down. It was then Miho realized, she had to get out of there as she took a few step backs from where she stood.

"Jesus Christ…"

Instead of running, she got bump into by a man scared for his life in front of her. She nearly tumbled down to behind her and hold the man. She then pushed him to behind her to make him keep running. Before she tried to run, she turned around again to look at those shooters. Only for her to be in the line of fire of the gun men. One of them, managed to shot her with an AK.

Miho yelped in pain as she was hit by another couple of shot to her body. Five bullets of 7.62 managed to hit her from her stomach up to her chest. The force of the bullets that hit her made her fell backward, a tear left her eyes because of the pain. She fell down as her blood sprayed from her bullet wounds after those shots. She landed on the ground on her back, leaving her eyes closed. She left for dead on the ground, as her eyes closed and she kept hearing the gun fire but it sounded very dull almost as if she was underwater even as she meet her death.

Miho thought she was already dead. Miho didn't prepare for this, but what else she could do? There was no one here who would rescue her. Everyone was dead. And so Miho, thinking her life was over as her blood was pouring out from her wounds. But then, there was something wrong with her death.

She wasn't dead after all. How the bloody hell did she survive those shots?

 _"Why I'm still alive?"_

She slowly opened her eyes and looked around by rolling her eyes. She was able to see that there are the shooters that had just walked past her as they were spraying bullets at the running civilians ahead of them. And as their empty bullet casings were dropping from their guns and littered around Miho. Those gunners only kept walking, not noticing the girl was still alive and nearly-playing dead. Miho only waited for a moment for the terrorists to walk away, and heard their gun fire fade a little from a distance.

It was her time to act. Miho slowly stood up from the ground, as she held her wounds with one hand. She looked at herself and was frightening to see her wounds. Three shots in her stomach, one shot on her chest and one shot by her left shoulder. She then looked around her, exactly everything around her.

"No…"

She can't believe, all of those people are dead. Corpses of them were scattered all around the memorial, the road, and in front of the Palace. Her tears left her eyes as she could taste her blood was coming out from her mouth as well. She then looked over to where those terrorist have gone.

She had to stop them. _"I must kill them…"_

She started to march forward to where those bastards had gone. She saw them, about 50 yards away from her as they were spraying their weapons at anyone in their sights. Good thing was, they were looking forward instead of looking behind them towards Miho. Miho had time to find a weapon on the way to stop the gunmen.

She suddenly tumbled down to the ground into a kneeling position. She was starting to succumb to her own wounds. She needed to act quickly before she died. Luckily, she stumbled on a weapon. It was a pistol.

A black pistol was lying down in front of her face. It was a pistol that she recognized from her time with Roach. It was an M9 Beretta semi-auto pistol in front of her. She limply took the gun with her right hand and stood up from the ground. Holding her wounds with her left hand and holding the gun in her right hand, she marched forward to the bastards who killed the civilians.

 _"Where are you…?"_

As she marched into the road of the Mall. There they were, right in front of her. The terrorists were still walking forward in a spearhead and kept shooting whoever was ahead of them. It was her chance to kill them, but it would be risky. But she felt glad on who were those bastards ahead of them.

For once in her life, the police, the Queen's Guards and the SAS arrived just in time.

The SAS, the Guards and the Police were all taking very heavy fire from those bastards as they took cover at their makeshift barricade of police cars. The police and the SAS noticed the girl who was right behind the terrorists and one of them shouted to watch their fire. It was her chance. Letting go of her wounds and ignoring the incoming bullets from the SAS, the Guards and the police, she held her M9 as strong as she can as she was aiming for the bastard on the very right of the terrorist formation. She then pulled the trigger.

*BANG*

The first bastard was shot in the head, instantly killing him as he was dropped to the ground to the right. None of the terrorists noticed it.

"Four to go."

She then aimed her gun for the bastard on the very left. As she yelped in pain because of her wounds, she pulled the trigger again.

*BANG*

The second bastard got shot right in the neck. He dropped into a kneel and held his own neck. Before he died choking on his own blood as he fell forward to the ground. The terrorists still didn't notice about it except for shooting at the law enforcement units ahead of them.

"Three."

She then aimed for another bastard right next to the one she just killed. She gasped as she was standing strong despite her wounds and still ignoring the flying bullets around her. After she steadied her aim, she pulled the trigger again.

*BANG*

He was shot in the head, quickly dropping down to the ground as the SAS and the police who were still having their heads out of cover were very amazed on how accurate Miho's shot was as they started shooting back at the terrorists with no avail.

"Two."

The terrorist on the right next to the middle one with his machine gun, noticed there was something wrong. He then looked to his left, and he found that one of his comrades was killed. He then looked behind him and was quite startled to see a lone bleeding girl aiming her pistol at them and to see two other of his comrades have been killed by her. He quickly turned around and aimed his AK at her, but unfortunately he was late to pull the trigger.

*BANG* *BANG*

He was shot in the chest as his aim to her broke, before he got shot in the face by the second bullet. Killing the fourth bastard as his rifle was thrown behind him.

"One."

Now, the only bastard that was left is right in front of her. Using his machine gun as he marched forward. But he noticed that the AK from the bastard she just killed was thrown forward next to him. When he looked behind, he was quite shocked and but immediately swung his machine gun to behind him as he was still pressing the trigger. She got her aim on his head just a moment before his machine gun killed her. She took the shot.

*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*

The bastard got shot in the stomach first, and then to his chest, and lastly to the head. Justifiably killing him outright. But hence he was still spraying with his machine gun as he swung it around to aim behind him. Miho was fortunate to only get shot in her right shoulder, and one barely missed her right eye, but the bullet caused her face to be covered in blood.

"Agh.."

Miho was completely incapacitated. She fell down to ground on her back, landing with her right shoulder first. Hitting the ground hard as she didn't let go of the pistol in her right hand that landed on her bleeding stomach. Her head was facing down the road on her left, before she slowly turned her head to look at the sky above her. She smiled as she admired the cloudy sky. She did it.

"I….. I did… it. I… stopped them…"

Her breathing slowly became a weak one, as her mind and her vision were becoming blurry the longer she was lying on the ground. She was about to die. This is it, her time has come. But then, she heard someone shouting from afar.

"MEDIC!" a voice shouted, and the person who shouted that reached Miho and crouched down to look her over.

It was an SAS trooper with her. Which was then followed up by a medic and a couple of police officers and other SAS troopers behind them. The SAS trooper who reached her first then used both of his hands to hold her wounds as the medic was pulling the bandages out from his bag and started to apply them to Miho. The trooper then quickly looked up to Miho by her face, even though Miho can't see who he was because of his gas mask.

"Stay with me, young lady!" the trooper shouted, she heard him quiet blurry. "You're going to be alright!"

"I did it….." she replied weakly with a flat smile. "I… killed them…"

"I know, you did the right thing," the trooper replied. "Just stay with me!"

How longer she'll stay she doesn't know, but she felt very weak. She slowly closed her eyes and her breathing started to slow down as she was succumbed to her wounds. The SAS trooper suddenly panicked and kept forcing himself to keep her alive.

"Hey, hey, lady!" the trooper shouted, as the medic quickly put a breather on her mouth and nose. "We need to get her to the hospital now!"

After she closed her eyes, she felt nothing and heard nothing but the peace of the black void.

* * *

Present day

"Now I remember…" Miho said weakly, as Soap watched her condition. "I… I was there…"

They both paused in silence, before Soap replied. "You know what happened?"

"A terrorist… left a bomb at the memorial," Miho replied weakly as she stammered. "I shouted in time and ran before it exploded…. But some of them didn't survive. And then…. The shootouts happened."

Soap bowed his head, before looking back up to her. "You took five bullets of an AK to your stomach up to your chest and a bullet of a PKM machine gun to your right shoulder. I was afraid to hear that, but when they said you somehow survived those shots…. I… don't' know what to say…"

Miho still stayed silent as she was amazed to the true fact that she had achieved. "There's no girl around here able to survive that, but you…. have broken that record Miho."

"I…. asked that myself as well, Soap," Miho paused, quickly reminded of the shooters. "The killers…. Did I..?"

"Yes, you killed them," Soap quickly replied, to Miho's shock. "You killed them outright and accurately despite your severe injuries. You're a strong girl, I'll give ya' that."

"I… killed them..?" Miho asked again, she can't believe on what she did before.

"You had to do what you have to do," Soap replied quickly, leaning against his chair. "You were the only one who was able to kill them before those bastards could do much more damage or something even worse."

Miho fell silent for a moment, after she was convinced by his words. Before she asked another question that Soap wouldn't dare to speak out loud.

"How many people died?"

Soap was taken aback by her question. "Miho, I won't dare to say it to-" Soap denied, before he got cut off by Miho.

"How many?!" Miho said aloud in anger, it was the first time she was angry. Miho sighed for a couple of times until she calmed down, "how many people died, Soap? Just say it to me…"

Soap huffed in agitation as his foot tapped a bit faster for a moment, before he looked at Miho and dare to say the answer. "Approximately 354 men, women and children died in the incident. While around 179 people survived the attack badly wounded."

Miho was very shocked and her heart felt fucking broke. A lot of people died in that incident because she thought she was too late to see this coming. If she could have intervene in this incident much earlier, she would have saved everyone from that incident. But no, this was too much for her to take. She felt the tears coming out from her eyes and sobbed.

"You alright?" Soap asked quickly worried to see her sobbing.

"No…. why?" Miho asked. "If I could…"

"Miho, this wasn't your fault," Soap assured her to comfort. "It's those bastards who are responsible for the massacre. Don't blame yourself, you did what you could."

"Yo-you sure?" Miho asked, unsure her actions were the right thing.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Soap replied with a nod. "You did the right thing. Remember you told me about how you abandoned the flag tank to save the drowning crew of the tank? You actually did the right thing too. Don't blame yourself for those incidents, it was the right thing to do."

Miho sobbed as she wiped away her tears from her eyes, she then laid her head down on the pillow to get comfortable. "Who… saved me, Soap?"

"That was Wallcroft, a good friend of mine back in my days with the SAS," Soap replied with a smile. "He, along with the rest of the SAS, the Law Enforcements, the MI5, and Macmillan gave their thanks to you for your heroic actions back at the Victoria Memorial. You are called as a hero of that incident for taking down all of those terrorists on your own. "

Miho couldn't believe on what she was hearing. They all were thanking her for all she did to stop that incident. Unlike her old family and students in Kuromorimine, all of the people she was with had their hearts and minds only for this incident. They were calling her a hero despite the fact that she was a little too late to save those people in that incident.

Miho couldn't help but nod her head as she sobbed. "But-but… what about the people who died?"

"We'll gave them a proper funeral for those who died," Soap replied. "And we will make sure whoever else had a part in this will pay for what they've done."

Miho then raised her hand up to her face, and felt there was a bandage over her right eye. "Soap, is there something wrong with my right eye?"

Soap took a small mirror next to him on the table and gave it to Miho. Miho looked over at her own face with the mirror, and she was quite surprised that her right eye had a scar. The scar was like the one Soap has except that it was on her right eye. She then put the mirror down on the cabinet beside her and looked at Soap.

"I forgot to tell you that a bullet of a machine gun managed to scratch your eye," Soap added, before going silent.

"How do I look?" Miho asked slowly, a frown on her face.

"You looked like someone who has just gone through hell," Soap replied, then sighed. "And made it back as a hero"

They both paused in silence, before Soap added. "Macmillan and the MI5 would like to talk with you after you get out of the hospital….. I'll give you some time alone."

Soap then stood up from the chair and headed out the room while Miho was still staring at the window next to her. Lost inside her own mind.

Now she was all alone in the room. Still sobbing as she let her tears fall to the pillow this time. She put her left hand in front of her chest as she felt the ache from her chest. Miho couldn't grasp what has happened before. 354 people of which 533 people died from the incident, before Miho managed to grab a gun and kill the terrorists. This is too much for Miho the girl to take.

She was going to need a lot of time for herself to recover from this.

* * *

Miho's house, Kennington Road, Lambeth District, London, 12:00 PM

Three days after The London Massacre

The day was really dark above the house Miho Nishizumi was living in. Very dark clouds forming up in the sky above and blocking out the sun. Very dark clouds formed up above London as if there was no sun rise up from the east. Followed up with the heavy rain that covered London completely as strong winds of the storm were sweeping through the city of London. And it was including the house of Miho Nishizumi that took the heavy rain of its day of sadness.

The whole house Miho was living in was dark, only the cyan light from the outside of her house that lightened up the rooms. Miho was sitting on her armchair in her living room. Drinking a cup of her favorite Earl Grey tea as she was waiting for Soap to come over. While Roach was sitting across from her, sitting in a sofa as he was checking on his laptop for any news this lately. It was a really gloomy day for them both. Especially after that incident.

A couple days ago, she had a talk with Macmillan and the operatives of the MI5 about that incident. And to her surprise, they awarded her a medal. She was given the famous medal of Victoria Cross for her great heroic actions and most conspicuous bravery against the enemy presence in the massacre. Killing the entire terrorist group to stop the massacre by herself, severely wounded and strong, was something amazing for the British Government for the first time and they have honored the name of Miho Nishizumi as a citizen of the United Kingdom and also her citizenship recognition as a Japanese Citizen.

And now, before she called Soap to her place. She asked Roach first about the incident that happened that day earlier. She asked Roach about one thing, about who those terrorists are. Because she, of course, felt this was not just a normal kind of terrorist attack. When Roach said who they were and who the leader of the terrorists group was, she felt disbelieve on what was she was hearing.

This Russian Terrorist group was called the Inner circle. The group was run by their leader, Vladimir Makarov. Miho saw the picture of him. A ruthless, cunning bastard who would do anything he wanted without regarding the amount of human lives lost. Roach said what he is.

A man of his own war. A man without rules and boundaries. A man who didn't flinch at torture, human trafficking, or genocide. A man who is not loyal to a flag or country or even a set of ideals. A mad-dog killer who aims to try and become the dominant power of the world and usurp the western world. He was the bastard who is responsible for the death of the people of the United Kingdom in The London Massacre Incident.

For the first time in her life, she felt the anger inside of her. The fire of rage was building up inside her heart. Her blood that was pumping all around her body began to boil. Her eyes were also lit with fire, after hearing and seeing this bastard. There was one goal she had in mind right now after knowing who that bastard was.

Revenge

The reason why she called Soap to her house was because she was going to join up with the Task Force 141. Her knowledge of Tankwondo will be very helpful for the TF141 and soon enough she'll become an operative and an expert tanker of the TF141. There was another reason why she was going to join up with TF141. Soap apparently also had a huge grudge against Makarov, stating that he was the bastard who set them up during Operation Kingfish which cost Captain Price to be left behind by the team so they could survive. Makarov apparently also had a grudge on Soap as well because Soap killed an ultranationalist leader before him, Imran Zakhaev.

She knew he must be killed. No matter fucking what. She doesn't care if she must use her heritance, the only thing she had in mind is to kill him.

As she was waiting for Soap to come, she and Roach heard a knock on their front door. They both knew that was Soap. They both looked at each other by eye contact and silence, before they stood up from their chairs and headed for the door. Once they reached the door, Roach opened the door, and they both greeted the TF141 captain. The three then headed to the living room and sat down there. Soap sat next to Roach while Miho sat in her armchair still drinking her tea.

The three sat still in their seats in silence, before Soap broke it up. "Alright, so, what is this about?"

"Well….. Soap, I'm wondering, do you still have nightmares of that incident?" Miho asked, she then sipped her tea.

"Yeah, I do," Soap replied, before looking at her with a raised brow. "Why are you asking that?"

"I've… heard that you have a grudge against these terrorists," Miho stated, which was quiet obvious for Soap. "Especially with this one bastard, called Vladimir Makarov."

Soap quickly jumped at the name, while Roach only kept his cool. Soap leaned forward from his seat. "Where did you learn that name?"

"I asked Roach about it," Miho replied coldly, as Soap quickly looked over to Roach which he replied with a shrug. "And I felt very sorry that Captain Price was gone missing because of him."

Soap paused of her sentence, before replying. "What are you getting at?"

"I was thinking about…" Miho paused, thinking about the best words to say as she sips her tea. "Accepting that offer you gave to me that day."

"What offer?" Soap asked as he tilted his head to the side.

"That offer that you gave me after I went through that portal," Miho replied, which Soap widened his eyes in shock. "I wanted to join up with Task Force 141."

"Wha- you gotta be joking!" Soap retorted as he stood off from the sofa. "I thought we agreed to not let you join up with the Task Force!"

"Well, then I changed my mind, Soap!" Miho replied quickly as she also stood up from her chair. "I won't stand here until the bastards who did this are dealt with!"

"Look, you ain't gonna join up with the Task Force!" Soap retorted as he pointed his finger at her. "You only get yourself killed out there!"

"I know, Soap!" Miho replied aloud. "I want to do this, Soap! And there's no stopping me from doing so! I'm not going to let those bastards go while leaving a lot people dead in here!"

"Why the bloody hell do you want to do this!?" Soap asked aloud.

"BECAUSE I WANT MY REVENGE!"

Both of Miho and Soap quickly went silent after what she said. Roach however, was quite shocked to hear from Miho. Stating that she wanted revenge of all things. Miho was not herself anymore.

Soap looked right into her eyes and he sees it. It was the first time for his life to see that her eyes changed. Her eyes were already engulfed in flames and it was quite terrifying to notice despite the fact that she was a girl who was still a former high schooler and a former tank commander of Sensha-Dō. That kind of anger boiling up inside Miho was nearly the same as with Captain Price. The kind of anger that Miho had must be a dangerous thing for the captain of the TF141.

After a long moment of silence, Miho broke it up with a sigh and closing her eyes, and talked with a soft tone. "Look, the reason I want to join up is to get my revenge on what have they done to those people. When I tried to not remember it, it still hurts my heart and I can't take it anymore. I will get my revenge along with yours because of what Makarov did to you…"

Soap paused in amazement as he left his mouth open a little. "I will help TF141 with anyway I can. I want to kill Makarov," Miho stated at last, which she received the shocking glares of Soap and Roach.

Soap was left speechless because of Miho. Despite the fact that she is a hero and the hard-crack survivor of The London Massacre, there's no way she would survive the next event with the presence of terrorist or enemies from another country. But then again, Miho wanted revenge and wanted to join with the 141. If Soap denied her, he doesn't know what she would do after that. Soap doesn't want her rage to hit the wrong one because of that.

Soap sighed in worry, before looking back to Miho. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

"Yeah… this is what I want," Miho nodded. "I'm not going anywhere until their deaths have been avenged."

Soap looked over to Roach, they both then nodded in agreement before looking back to Miho.

Roach stood up from the couch and pronounce the words to Miho.

"Well then, Miho. Welcome to Task Force 141."

* * *

Author's note:

After this chapter, I'm gonna skip the story to the part when Miho is going home.

Why I skipped the story to that part? Because I'm lazy to explain the story while in the events of MW.

But then again that's also because of my storyline in my head. There will be flashbacks about it soon enough.


	7. Chapter 7 - Old Home (Edited)

One Year later, SAS HQ, Credenhill, outside Hereford, January 5th 2017

This was her time her time of waiting to get back home was already over. The SAS, The MI5 along with MI6 finished research on the portal. Built the so called portal back to her world the Tear in Credenhill. Miho excitedly took a long fly to Hereford to see this. It was the rarest moment in her lifetime. It's been a year that she had been living in this world. And most important of all, she was glad that the Third World War that was mainly committed by the United States of America and the Russian Federation ended long ago.

Many people… a lot of soldiers… died during that fucking war. Ever since WW3 had started and the betrayal of General Shepherd who is commanding the entire TF141. That fucking bastard, it was a good thing that Soap killed him by throwing a knife into his eye before that bastard was known as a hero and a fucking liar by the world. Their revenge on Shepherd has been paid after knowing that he killed Roach and Ghost.

Funny thing is, Ghost somehow got back to Credenhill alive after that fucked up operation in the Caucasus Mountains and after the Third World War, implying he went underground when all of that occurred. How that wanker was still alive after getting shot and burned alive? Bloody simple, he got shot in the chest and not in the head by Shepherd which made him play dead. Second, those Shadow Company bastards didn't pour enough gasoline on him which left Roach to be burned to death. Ghost got his dog tags and gave them to Miho as a reminder of Roach. Ghost also thanked Miho and Price that they killed Shepherd for that he was a goddamn liar and traitor.

Like something that Cpt. Price said to them before. The only thing you need to change the world is one good lie and a river of blood.

And when the Task Force was disavowed, they swore by their hearts that they would kill Makarov. Including Miho herself, because of what that bastard had done back in London. He massacred the people of London, twice…. Miho's blood boiled much more to hear the news that the gas attack didn't only happen in London, but throughout Europe, Miho felt a little relieved that Japan didn't get involved with this. To make things even worse for Miho, personally, is that Makarov killed Soap back in Prague. Price can never forget how much her rage and her sorrow escalated after Soap was killed and Yuri told his secret between himself and Makarov.

For Captain Price, who was captured by the terrorists and locked up in the gulag for a few years. Felt nearly the same thing as Miho. Knowing Miho was actually the best protégé of Soap in the Task Force 141, he was willing to make sure that the same fate didn't come up to Miho. She is just a girl, he can't take that risk after hearing her stories about Sensha-dō, her dreams, her old life and how she ended up in this world, and what happened in The London Massacre. But now, he is very glad that Miho is actually doing fine right now.

After rescuing President Boris Vorshevsky, their names have been cleared and the TF141 was then reinstated. They, along with the 550 members of the surviving Task Force 141 from around the world and along with the Russian-loyalists who are agreed to join with the 141 (not including those who returned back to Russia), are determined to find this bastard who is still at large. Heh, the bastard went underground after that war. That's really sucks for Price and for Miho.

Though, even Miho was excited by the news the portal was made by the British government have been made in Credenhill (And also tested out the portal by individuals to go directly through the portal, who confirmed that the world in the other side of the portal was the real universe of Miho's), she was still disturbed on one thing. Makarov is not going to leave her mind inside her head. Until today, the 141 was still not able to track down where the bastard has gone. The only things they have about him are information of him. Now with her going back to her old home world, it was a devastating feeling that her revenge has not been completed, or yet never will be completed.

Miho keep telling Price that she wanted to stay here, which surprised him why she wanted to do that instead of heading home. But Price knew her intentions about Makarov he tried to talk his way out with the conversation with Miho. They both then went to argue because Miho hated to go home immediately while Makarov is still on the loose. But Price had promised Miho that Makarov will die by his hands. Miho had her doubts about it, but then she trusted Price to let him do what he can.

Miho also asked Price on one favor when she was about to go home. Something that startled Price a bit seeing as he needed to discuss it with Macmillan. Miho wanted to continue the legacy of Task Force 141 in her world, which included the armaments and vehicles that the 141 had and used. Miho, Price and Macmillan discussed this topic along with Ghost, Yuri, the British Government and the rest of the 141 members. And the results were quite surprising in the end.

Most of the members from the 141 and the loyalists wanted to go with Miho. Their reasons were quite vary. It included the following ones such as they didn't have any homes since the rebuilding of their own countries, didn't have loyalty to any country, wanted a new change, and etc. Around 250 members of TF 141 including Ghost and 300 members of the Russian-loyalists agreed to go through the portal. While the rest of them, decided to stay because this world is already their home. The British Government have given a go ahead for this, for Miho to continuing the legacy of Task Force 141 was something to be honored with despite that might break the part of the timeline in her world. When she was asked about that timeline, she simply replied that she will handle that.

Besides, she has been promoted into a Captain after the Third World War. Declaring her as one of the Commanding Field Officer of 141. Back then, when she was recruited to 141 that time, she has taught the men how to handle their tanks in the Sensha-Dō lesson, including drifting the tanks and gun & run. She was promoted into A lieutenant by Soap personally, which they have invented the "141 Way Of The Tank". And now she is a Captain, personally thanking Price and Macmillan for the promotion. And having Ghost as her Lieutenant and second-in-command? Damn, she'll be glad.

Right now, she is standing in front of a large white bright portal in one of the hangars in the SAS base. With her, were Price, Nikolai, Yuri, Macmillan and Ghost right next to her. And there were two other soldiers who are best friends beside her. Chemo a black American-Canadian operative of the 141, ever fighting alongside her like that time back in the Favelas. Vicek a Russian-Czechian soldier who was working with Nikolai to be a member of a PMC. Ghost, Vicek and Chemo will be coming along with her through the portal. And besides them, there were a lot of agents from the MI5 and the MI6 and the SAS troopers are watching on how the portal is doing. They said to Miho that, those members of 141 and the loyalists already entered the portal first and had finished setting up a hidden base on the other side of the portal with large armaments and vehicles including tanks at their disposal.

Well… this is it. It's time for Ghost, Miho, Chemo and Vicek to say their goodbyes to everyone in this hangar. The four turned to Macmillan, Nikolai and Price. They felt the sorrow to know they will be going their separate ways. Miho shook her hand with Price's as she looked at him.

"It's been a long time for the both of us," Price stated, Miho could only smile. "I felt so woeful to see you going back home."

"I know, Price," Miho replied, they both then let go of their hands as she let a tear fell from her eye. "It's been an honor to fight alongside you."

"You're the best girl in the 141," Nikolai added with a grin. "I'll give ya' that."

"I know that, mate," Ghost added, but then looked over to Miho. "Cpt. Miho, I'm sorry about what happened to Mactavish."

Miho frowned a little after he mentioned that name, but then she smiled. "It's alright."

"You have my deepest condolences, young lady," Macmillan added with a nod, with a tone of sadness. "He will be remembered as a hero of the former SAS and the 141."

"Thank you…." They all went silent for a moment, before Miho looked up to Yuri.

"Miho…. I'm so sorry that I was one of the reasons that Soap was killed," Yuri said, he felt sorrow as he bowed his head. "I should have told you earlier about that secret."

"It's fine, you have done us a good favor for clearing our names," Miho replied with a nod, before looking up to Price. "Promise me you will kill Makarov."

"I'll make sure that happens," Price replied with a stern nod. "For Soap"

"For Soap," Miho, Chemo, Vicek and Ghost replied in unison.

They all then turned around to the portal. Miho, Ghost, Chemo and Vicek marched forward toward the portal. Every each one of their steps caused their hearts to feel there is a new determination in each of themselves, as Price, Macmillan, Nikolai, Yuri and everyone from the SAS and the government watched them leave. A few steps closer left for the four operatives to reach the portal. A few steps closer…

When they nearly got through the portal, Miho stopped marching. Her men also followed suit after they saw her stop. Miho and the other 3 operatives then turned their heads to Price, Macmillan, Yuri and Nikolai. Miho gave a nod to Price.

"Goodbye….. Captain Price…"

Price gave his nod as a reply. "Goodbye, Captain Nishizumi."

Miho and her men then turned their heads to the portal. With one step left, Miho entered the portal first slowly. As the portal gave way for Miho as she entered. Then Ghost went after her, before Chemo and Vicek followed them suit.

Price, Yuri, Nikolai and Macmillan all sighed in sorrow to see their mates gone. They still staring at the open portal afterwards. Yuri then looked over to Price with a smile.

"She's home at last," Yuri said as his hands are on his hips.

"And she honored us by continuing the 141 legacy," Price added, he then looked over to Mac. "What do you think? Is she able to do that?"

"She could succeed," Mac replied with a nod. "She is full of determination."

"Hopefully she's still has her luck with her," Nikolai added, which made them all chuckle as they watched the portal, hoping she really made it through.

* * *

After Miho, Ghost, Chemo and Vicek went through the portal, the Tear behind them vanished after that. And now on from this day Miho is back in her old world. It is time for her along with the 141 to continue their legacy here. There will be a lot of work to do for Miho. But she was reminded by Chemo that she didn't have to do all the jobs by herself.

They walked forward to their hidden base and looked around. Their base was hidden in the middle of the forest, probably mountains, so the only way for someone to see this base was via satellites. More than that, it looked like they managed to built a large kind of base, which contained airfields, hangars, a command center, armories and other such facilities to make an army. It was night time at the moment and the season was winter and they walked forward to find the men of 141. They then met some of her men in front of them, at a campfire near the airfield and along the hangars to warm themselves up. The men they met then stood up and quickly saluted with their right hand above their foreheads and she replied with the same gesture to those soldiers.

And there was something relieving her in that base. A soldier was playing an audio song. One of her favorite Russian songs Комбат by ЛЮБЭ. She shook her head a little into all directions upon hearing the song.

/watch?v=_WQgNSPUjAE

(I do not own any song that I posted in this story, it's only for atmosphere, add youtube before /watch)

Ghost and Miho then looked around and found the rest of their men were still working on whatever needed to be done in the base as they enjoyed to listen the song. Vicek and Chemo on the other hand told Miho that they were going to the armory to work on something. Both Ghost and Miho were walking towards the Command Center and met some of the men there. They then asked those two men at a map table to know how the base was doing.

"Hey, Sergeant," Miho started as she and Ghost stopped at the table. "It's a nice base you guys build here."

"Bien sûr que ça l'est!" said the French 141 soldier. "We can even make our own ammunition and weapons in this base."

"For bloody real?" Ghost asked in astonishment. "Damn, they really invested a lot after that war."

"It's a new start for us to continue our job as the 141," said the thin-bearded British 141 soldier. "And also we'll be making a new life here, who knows."

"Yeah, so for a start we gonna work as a PMC isn't that right?" Miho asked as she looked at the map.

"Oui," the French 141 said. "I hope it does not gonna be that hard for now. Unless you have someone you know who works with the government."

"Well, I know someone to be honest," Miho stated, before looking over to Ghost. "For first, what year is it now? I hate to hear we've missed a lot of years."

"It's 1960," the British 141 soldier said. "We did some scouting in the nearby city to figure out what year it is, and the day we departed was the same as here."

"Yoi," Miho replied with a nod as she looked at the map again. "Second, where's this base built exactly?"

"East side of Asagoyama Mountains, South east side outside Kumamoto city," the Frenchie said, which then received a glare from his captain. "uhm, you okay?"

"That's close to my old home," Miho stated flatly, which surprised them to know about that. "So, anything else you need to tell me?"

"Nothing more than checking out everything at our disposal, Captain Nishizumi," the British said, Miho and Ghost nodded in response to that.

"Alright, get back to work soldiers," Miho ordered with a comforting tone as she pushed herself away from the table. "Looks like you have some work to do."

"Yes, ma'am," both soldiers replied with a nod, before heading off to their respective workplace.

Miho was actually planning to just keep working overnight in this base to make sure everything was prep up. But Ghost is actually against that, knowing that Miho was very tired to do the rest of the waiting jobs. The last time Ghost checked on her condition, she didn't sleep for a month after the war and was still devastated about Soap's death. She needed some rest that she won't be falling asleep while she was working.

After they entered the deeper part of the Command Center, she saw one of her most hated jobs to do. Fucking paperwork again. Miho scoffed at this sight and began to take a pen and worked on a paper as she stood still in front of a table. She took one and was about to write. But her sleepy eyes with the scar on her right eye started to disturb her as if she was denying to get some rest.

Before her pen managed to touch the paper, Ghost quickly grabbed her hand that was holding the pen and lowered it down. Miho was surprised about why he did that. She had some work to do and she can't just let it go off her head. Ghost then took the pen from her had and placed it down on the table along with the paperwork.

"Ghost, what's with this?" Miho asked in an exhausted tone.

"Not being disrespecting, Captain," Ghost replied as he sighed underneath his skull mask. "But you need some rest."

"I-I don't need any rest, alright?" Miho denied as she wanted to get back to work restlessly.

"Miho, don't force yourself to work!" Ghost quickly grabbed her arm and looked straight into her scarred right eye. "I don't want you to faint after all of this work."

"Just let me finish this, alright?!" Miho retorted as she shook her arm to get out of Ghost's grip.

"Miho, look," Ghost said, somehow his tone was softening. "I know you are still angry about Soap's death and about Makarov. Much more than that, you haven't sleep much for the last bloody month. Just, let it go for a moment, get some rest. Please."

Miho bowed her head down to the table in sorrow. Ghost was right about it. She hasn't sleep much over the last month and kept ignoring the urge to sleep because of that damn war and Makarov. Her heart was itching painfully about those things. But for now she needed to let that go for a moment, following Ghost's advice.

They both stayed silent for a moment before Ghost said, "let me handle the paperwork."

She then slowly looked up to Ghost in disbelieve. "You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Ghost replied they then silently waited for a moment.

Ghost and Miho weren´t able to think about what to do next, but then Ghost was reminded of something. "Didn't you say Kumamoto is your hometown?"

"Да," Miho replied in her Russian language weakly. "Why?"

"I would suggest you head to your old home and stay there for a while" Ghost suggested as he patted her shoulder. "While on the other hand I will deal with this hidden base."

"Sounds like a plan," Miho agreed with a nod.

"So where's your home?" Ghost asked.

"I know a place."

* * *

Nishizumi Residence, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan

Same night

The snowy night covered the residence quickly and kept sending a cold breeze all around, there was a family meeting within the residence. There was nothing special about this meeting. Just people coming together to talk and have a chat. But Maho wasn't sure if that was that.

Maho was with her mother in the living room along with the rest of the tank commanders from Kuromorimine Girls Academy, along with their other two guest of the Shimada family. At first The Shimada Family. There was Arisu Shimada or in her English name Alice Shimada. A daughter of Chiyo Shimada which is a rival of the Nishizumi-style family. Besides them there were Erika and Ami Chōno with them.

And the tank commanders of the Kuromorimine Girls Academy were Mauko the Maus commander. Sangou the Panzer III commander, Ritaiko the Jagpanther commander, Geshiko the Panther commander and last but not least, Koume Akaboshi the former Panzer III commander and the Panther commander.

After one year of Miho's probable death or disappearance, the Nishizumi felt their hearts get torn apart. Especially Maho, she cried after she heard from Ami about what happened in Ooarai. Hearing the training backfired with Miho falling into the river along with the ruins of the collapsing bridge, Maho couldn't say anything else but to blame Ami for it. Even though she along with her mother moved on with their lives, Maho couldn't let that go from her heart.

Maho also blamed herself for that. For failing to protect Miho from this unforeseen incident due to her mother. She remembered that she cried inside her own room that time. Locking the door of her room to not let her mother in. Scheisse, it was really bad.

Now, Maho was sitting between her mother and Erika. While beside them were the Shimada Family and Akaboshi. Across them were the commanders of the Kuromorimine Girls Academy. Maho was still currently the overall commander of Kuromorimine and said that she soon will leave for a college in Germany. But then again, the decision was doubted to be a mistake after Miho's disappearance so she decided to stay in Japan for now. Her mother of course went against this, but knowing how Maho reacted to Miho's disappearance or death, she let Maho to do what she wanted.

All of them were talking to each other happily as they drink their glasses of hot cocoa. Actually, all of them except Maho talked happily to each other. Maho kept silent and mostly to herself as she was remembering her time with Miho. Having the thought that her sister was dead was quite disturbing. She took a sip of her cocoa with her eyes closed. Her frown and sad expression never disappearing from her face for this entire meeting.

Maho wasn't the only who kept silent however. Alice was also silent during this conversation. She was also devastated about Miho's death. Miho was her number one top fan of Sensha-Dō and was eager to meet her. Having heard the news about Miho, Alice Shimada did nothing but to freeze up in shock.

As Mahos friends and families talked, Erika, her Vice-commander noticed that she was being silent for this entire conversation. She took a sip of her cocoa drink first and put it on the table. Erika then leaned forward a little to see her commander's face. Erika's skin went pale to see the commander was still looked cold, and also sorrow was there along with the usual ice cold face.

"Uhm… are you okay, commander?" Erika asked worriedly, as the chatter from the other commanders and the families stopped.

"I'm- fine," Maho replied, still looking down at the table in front of her. "Just not in the mood to talk right now."

"Like Alice then," Chiyo said. "What's up?"

"It's nothing," Maho replied with a shook. "Like I said, I'm just not in the mood to talk."

"But commander!" Sangou exclaimed worriedly. "We just had a good practice match with Saunders and we won. Shouldn't you be happy about it to know that we're doing good for the next tournament?"

"Yeah, you girls were doing alright back there," Ami added as her hands clapped once on her chest. "You should be happy about it."

"No, that's not it," Maho replied with a shook of her head and a cold tone.

"Is this about how Geshiko accidentally blew off your tracks at the practice match, commander?" Mauko asked, which then Geshiko got her bait.

"Hey! That was your fault to make me shot her tracks!" Geshiko retorted angrily. "Did you even see where my tank was?!"

"Then tell me who's the one holding the trigger?!" Mauko retorted back as she pointed at Geshiko. "You were the one who's controlling the cannon and took the shot on the enemy tank instead of looking out what's behind you! I told you to move out of the way!"

"Maybe you should have let me-!" Geshiko retorted, but then got cut off by Akaboshi before Chiyo or Shiho could cut their chatter.

"That's enough!" Akaboshi said aloud, making them both stop talk fighting and looked toward her. "We're in the Nishizumi house! And we are talking right in front of Commander Nishizumi."

Even though Maho heard their talk fight, Maho doesn't care about it anyways as she sips her cocoa.

Geshiko and Mauko quickly looked towards their overall commander and forced to make a smile on their faces. "We're sorry, commander!" They both said in unison.

"Don't worry," Maho replied with a nod, which received all of their glares of confusion except Alice. "I'm not angry because of that practice match."

"Then what's bothering you, dear Maho?" her mother asked.

"You don't look well," Chiyo added, which was true for Maho.

"I'm just not in the mood, alright?" Maho replied coldly as she sips her cocoa.

"Is it about Miho?" Alice asked at last, which Maho was startled to hear that as she choked on her cocoa while the rest were surprised if Alice said that.

Maho then put down her cocoa on the table and coughed. "How did you know?"

"You looked still sad about it," Alice replied. "And so am I."

"You can't let that go?" Erika asked Maho in surprise as she held her left shoulder.

"Yeah…" Maho said as she bowed her head and formed a shadowy look of dread. "I… should have gone with her."

"Wha-what do you mean?" Erika asked in confusion, the others were also confused a little on what she said.

"I should have stayed with Miho after she got off this school," Maho stated coldly but with sorrow clear in her voice. "All of you made her gone on her own just because of that tournament."

They could only stay silent, including Ami, her mother and the Shimadas after that. "After Miho changed schools, Miho was forced to go in Sensha-Dō again and Ami just conducted a full-mock up battle unprepared right of the start. And Ami, you let them keep shooting at Miho's tank and the bridge where she was still standing and couldn´t move because the bridge was too fragile, before she fell to her death…. Ami, were you blind to see that Miho was standing… right…. there?"

They all except Maho looked towards Ami, Ami frowned and her guilt came back to her heart after Maho said that. "I-I know, I'm sorry. I should've noticed first that time."

"But Maho-san that was a long time ago," Erika convinced Maho. "Why don't-"

"Erika, shut up," Maho ordered, Erika was taken aback by that while the rest of them were surprised by her reaction. "Just shut up."

"B-but why?" Erika asked, worried by her commander's reaction. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Yes, you did," Maho replied coldly, not bothering to look at Erika. "And I'm angry at you."

This caught her mother's attention about it. "What are you angry about Maho?"

"She insulted and slapped Miho, mother," Maho replied coldly, which earned all of their shocking glares to her including Alice because Maho said that to her mother. "I should have hit you in the face instead of letting you go, Erika."

Erika was feeling scared of Mahos reply that made her gulp slowly. "But, commander…"

"And I should have been angry at all of you commanders for harassing Miho," Maho then looked at Akaboshi in sorrow. "Except for you Akaboshi."

The commanders including Erika except Akaboshi all gulped on that threat, they were very afraid about what Maho will do to them, The Shimadas, Ami and her mother felt the melancholy Maho had. "But it's too late for me to do that."

Their fear of the threat was soon vanished after that. Except for Mahos current condition knowing that she knows what they did to Miho and was still angry about it. Shiho, The Shimadas and Ami could only stay silent as they didn't want to talk about this further. Maho closed her eyes like she was praying for her own loss. She even felt she can't forgive herself for that. The conversation they had now turned into a silent one.

The silence still filled the room as none of them dare to say a single word. The only thing they could hear from the room is the breezing wind of snow that is passing around the house outside. The silence atmosphere in that room becomes a dreary one as the commanders along with the families in present felt an unmistakable aura from Maho. An aura that expressed her rage and her sadness inside of her heart. Even though they could see Mahos face was still in a neutral state, her mother could only hold her right shoulder and massage it to comfort her.

That was the time they noticed Maho left a tear fall from her eyes. It has been a year and there was nothing new about what happened to Miho. The only thing they could say about her, is that she is dead at this point. Maho shook her head at the thought as she looked at every one of the people in that silent room.

Then they heard a loud noise outside.

*TOK-TOK-TOK-TOK*

They all turned their heads toward the source of the sound, the sound was beyond that room. Someone was knocking at the front door of the Nishizumi House. It was quite an odd thing for them to know someone came by this late. Maho then looked over to everyone in the room.

"Did any of you invite anyone else to come here?" Maho asked, but all of them replied with a shook of their heads.

"No one that I know of besides us," Akaboshi replied.

"I was about to say the same," Chiyo added with a shrug.

Maho then looked over to her mother. "I'll get the door."

After her mother nodded, Maho stood up from the floor, and along with Erika. "I'm with you," Erika said to her commander, which earned a nod as a reply.

They both then headed for the door through a couple of rooms. Once they reached there, they can hear that someone knocked again.

*TOK-TOK-TOK-TOK*

"One moment!" Maho shouted a little before her hands reached the door.

Both Maho and Erika opened the door together by unlocking it and sliding it to the right side. After that, it revealed a person who was waiting at the door. But to their shock, the person who was waiting for them was wearing a skull-mask with sunglasses and headphones on his head. He was wearing a grey jacket with zip lines on the arms. And his pants were winter camouflaged combat pants. And he was wearing some sort of vest with ammo pouches they had never seen before.

Erika and Maho quickly gasped and took a step back from the stranger. This wasn't any ordinary stranger. If they had confronted by a dangerous man, they knew things will go bad. But when made eye contacts with him, he asked.

"Is this the Nishizumi Residence?" the skull-masked stranger asked, which surprised them both on how did he knew this place.

"Uhm, yes, this is the Nishizumi Residence," Maho replied, then she fell silent for a moment.

"Is Ms. Maho Nishizumi here?" the stranger asked, surprising them again for his acknowledgement of the commander's name.

"This-this is Maho Nishizumi-san!" Erika replied quickly, as Maho gave a terrified glare to Erika for telling that she was here with her and this stranger. "Wha-what do you want?"

"Oh, Ms. Nishizumi," the stranger replied softly, he then bowed his head. "It's an honor to meet you, ma'am."

"You're not from around here, are you?" Maho asked as she realized his odd accent, feared a little from him. "What do you want?"

"There's someone who wants to meet you," the stranger replied, which surprised Erika and Maho for that answer.

"Who is it?" Maho asked as she leaned her head to him.

"Someone you have known for years," the stranger replied, which earned glares of confusion from the girls.

The stranger then softly shifted his body to his right and gave a sight for them both. They could see someone else was behind him. But then, they were quite shocked on who it was they were looking at as their eyes widened and left their mouths open. It was Miho Nishizumi, right in front of them.

She was wearing a black beanie on her head along with the goggles for winter. She was wearing the same jacket as Ghost but with the difference with her pants, which was colored in grey instead of a camo color. She was wearing straps around her upper body and had some pouches on her belt that might contains tools (unknown to Erika and Maho, it also contains ammo). She left her front body of the jacket unzipped which revealed that she was wearing a dark green buttoned shirt. She had a sleepy face

And there is something that was more shocking to them, is that there was one feature that Miho had. Erika and Maho could never forget one thing that has become a part of Miho. The unmistakable large scar on her right eye as if she was recently got scratched by a tiger. She was just standing five feet in front of them while holding a backpack that has hanging by her right hand.

Miho took a couple of steps forward to Maho and Erika. And then she dropped the bag as Ghost stood beside them. It was a moment of silent to meet her again. Until…

"Привет, сестра," Miho said, Erika and Maho doesn't care for the language. "It's been a long time."

They still stood there, not knowing what to do.

Until Maho suddenly embraced Miho in a hug.

Maho keep hugging her tightly as Erika and Ghost watched them while Miho herself let Maho hug her and not bothering her hands to hug her. At last, the Nishizumi sisters have been reunited. Maho buried her face into Miho's shoulder as she sobbed and left tears of happiness fall from her eyes to meet her again. She came back home at last.

"I'm…. ve-very happy… that you come back…" Maho said softly and weakly as she stammered and buried her face into Miho's shoulder. "Miho…"

Miho paused for a moment to hear those words, before she moved her hands to Mahos back and hugged her as well. "It's good to see you again, Моя сестра."

* * *

"What's taking them so long?" Ritaiko asked in a little annoyance. "Shouldn't they have come back by now?"

"Be patient, Ritaiko," Chiyo Shimada said softly. "Not every time you met someone by the door and things get finished quickly."

"Who could that be anyway?" Ami asked as she looked at Chiyo. "No girls in your school know of this place, right?"

"No one else except my little Arisu Shimada," Chiyo replied, which made Alice blush on the way here she said it.

"I wonder who was it" Akaboshi commented curiously as she looked at everyone in the room.

"Probably a postman," Shiho suggested, which she knew was wrong.

Soon, they heard some footsteps approaching. When Maho and Erika entered the room, they smiled to see them. But they quickly noticed there was something on their faces as they stood frozen there. The only word they could find for the expression that they both were showing. Nervous.

"Maho, what's wrong?" Shiho asked in concern, though keeping her cold expression on her face.

"There's… someone wants to meet us now," Maho replied, which surprised them all with a jumped upper body.

"Who is it?" Sangou asked.

"Well, it's someone we know of," Erika replied, making them confused.

"What do you mean by that?" Mauko and Alice asked in unison.

Maho and Erika looked at each other in doubt, but then turned their heads again to them. "It's better if we show you who is it," Erika added nervously.

They both turned around to behind them, as they were all looking toward the room through the opening door behind them both. "Come in."

They soon saw someone coming into the room and took a calming step towards them. When the person fully entered the room, they were very shocked to see that… Miho Nishizumi is right in front of them, alive and well. Those who sat down quickly stood up and facing towards Miho. They couldn't believe that she was alive.

"MIHO?!" all of them except Erika and Maho said aloud in unison.

Miho only paused for a moment after their reaction. "You miss me?"

They all fell silent, as Shiho, the mother of the Nishizumi sisters took a closer step to Miho. She looked up to Miho, but when she noticed the scar on her eye. She felt deadpanned on what she was seeing. But then again she was alive.

"What happened to your eye?" her mother asked, which surprised the rest of them when they noticed the scar on her eye when Miho looked at them.

"A bullet managed to scratch my eye," Miho replied calmly with a flat smile. "I'll be fine."

A bullet to an eye. It was something that would terrified all of them. Miho survived a bullet to her eye. What happened to her was the question.

"Uhm, there's someone else with me," Miho added. "Is it fine if I call him?"

Him. They all first thought there was another girl with Miho they all stared blankly at her. "Uh, it's okay," Shiho replied with a nod of approval.

"Okay," Miho then turned around to behind her. "Ghost, come in."

Ghost Now they all quickly were thinking of the man's name. What the hell kind of name is Ghost? They thought for a moment about why he was called Ghost. But when they saw the man enter the room. Miho could say, their skins went pale to see the skull-masked man that is armed in combat uniform enter the room and looked at each of them. For Ami however, was actually curious of this man.

When he looked over all of the scared faces including Miho's mother, he asked. "Don't tell me it's because my mask."

Akaboshi was the one who nodded slowly to his question. "Erm, yes…"

Shiho then decided to turn this tense situation into a calm one. "Why don't we just sit down and drink cocoa for now?"

"Sounds good by me," Ghost replied happily under his mask. "What about you, Captain?"

"Same as you," Miho replied, as everyone was surprised in their hearts to hear that Ghost called Miho a captain.

As they all sat down and Miho along with Ghost got their own cup of hot cocoa in their hands Miho took her sip of her drink, while Ghost on the other hand just left it beside his hand. Miho could see all of them were nervous because of her return to the Nishizumi Residence alive. Everyone waited in silence as they were not sure what they wanted to say to Miho.

"Looks like I missed Christmas," Miho commented, made everyone to produce the words, "eh?"

"Well… yeah you did," Maho awkwardly replied. "We did have a good Christmas…"

Ghost noticed the trailing tone Maho made, makes him wonder what's up with that. "I'm guessing that's an awkward kind of Christmas you were having there?"

Maho and Erika quickly looked over to the Kuromorimine commanders as they did the same, and nodded in honest. "Yeah, sadly that one," Erika stated.

"Huh, lucky you weren't at our place," Ghost commented gladly, they were all confused on what he meant.

"How's the Christmas at your place?" Chiyo asked, curiously. "Sounds like you were having fun back there."

"There was alcohol to be obvious," Ghost replied, they suddenly imagined what happened if they were there that time. "Dinner and dances of course."

"Alcohol?" Ami asked worriedly. "Miho didn't drink any right?"

Ghost and Miho quickly divert their attentions to Ami. "Actually Miho managed to drink three bottles of vodka by herself and didn't pass out," Ghost replied, that is not something you want to hear from the girl herself.

...

...

...

They all cringed to hear that Miho did before. "Are you serious?" Akaboshi asked in disbelieve.

"Eeyup," Miho replied with a sighed. "I love Russian alcohol."

They all then paused again, undecided what to say next if not for Alice who broke up the silence. "Where have you been this whole time?"

"It's hard to explain," Miho replied with a smile, happy to see a little girl with them. "But I'm guessing you want to know about how I survived that incident on the bridge."

Everyone quickly looked at each other, and then they nodded to each other before looking back at Miho. "Yeah, there's no way you could've survived that," Erika stated in agreement.

Ghost then pulled out his video camera and put it on the table. "You wouldn't believe it, but she went through a portal when she was falling down to the river."

"Wait, what?" Geshiko asked in disbelieve the rest of them showed the same reaction as her. "You mean a portal suddenly appeared right underneath her and she fell through it and disappeared? No, no way!"

"Then you should take a look at the record on the camera," Miho said as Ghost tossed the camera to the middle of the table in front of them. "I don't care if you believe it or not, just watch it."

One by one, they took a look at the recording on the camera. They were showing three expressions to see the portal sent her to a place where's a military base was. Curious, shock and worried. Miho could see they could not bear to see the severe injuries she had that time after she was buried underneath that debris. Alice was the only one who gasped and shook in fear to see Miho injured like that.

And there was also another thing that caught their attention. Remembering about how Ghost's appearance was like, they saw the soldiers in the recorder were wearing a combat uniform with a vest that they've never seen before. They could admit that the vests those soldiers had along with the weapons are quiet modern. Mauko was the last one who watched the recording, before giving it back to Ghost. They remembered Miho said she doesn't care if they believed it or not, but they all have agreed to believe that such things happened to her.

"What year was it?" Sangou asked.

"2016, then the next year," Miho replied, they all felt amazed. "Modern year."

"It looks like it sent you to a military base of some sort," Shiho stated curiously. "To where did the portal send you?"

"A special forces base just outside London," Miho replied, Ami got worked up on that. "More than that. It sent me to a modern world of another universe, not into the future of this world."

"EH?!" everyone asked in surprised, confusion and unison as they gave their cringed faces to her.

"What do you mean you sent into another modern world instead of this world?" Maho asked, completely puzzled on what she said.

"What she meant is the portal was sent into my modern world instead of yours," Ghost explained as they listened to him with their mouths shut. "In this world, Sensha-Dō exists before the Second World War, right? In my modern universe, such things never exist even before the Second World War. Sensha-Dō never existed in my universe."

Their eyes widen in disbelieve and shock. Why does his universe doesn't have Sensha-Dō? They don't know. But soon someone asked to him again.

"Then why didn't you ask the government for that?" Ritaiko asked, she felt absurd on that.

"We have asked our friends in high places, mate," Miho replied to her question. "Even if it sounded convincing, they won't allow it because knowing how dangerous it is Sensha-Dō. Another reason is because it would dangerously become a high trouble for the government as it would increase the chances of unseen attacks in the city. Other reasons, is because they would freak out to see a girl driving around the city inside a tank."

 _"Huh? Now I'm wondering why my universe was the opposite of that," Maho thought, as she questioned herself in her heart._

"But, Sensha-Dō was approved by the British government that time," Miho added, which then earned everyone's glares to her. "But only for the use of one military organization. They made me as an asset for a Task Force to teach them about Panzerfahren."

"Just for a military Task Force?" Chiyo asked as she lifted her hand to her chest. "What kind of Task Force?"

"A multinational Task Force," Miho replied, she then took a sip of her drink. "Task Force 141 or referred as the '141'. Best warriors on earth. It was made by the government of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. While the main majority of the soldiers were from those three countries, soldiers from foreign countries also can be recruited to the Task Force."

"Even Japan?" Ami asked, she was starting to get more curious.

"Even Japan," Miho nodded. "Though, we don't have the men from Japan with us because they're still living in the other world."

"Hang on, so you built a portal to get back here?" Erika asked, quickly changing the topic as she pointed her finger at Miho.

"Yeah, took a bloody year to do that," Ghost replied. "But quite worth it."

"Alright… umm back to the topic about the Task Force," Chiyo insisted, she then leaned forward to the table in front of her. "So… who is the commanding officers of the Task Force?"

Miho and Ghost stayed quiet for the moment. They both looked at each other, Miho looked a bit upset about it. They can't see what expression that Ghost showed however because he still won't open his mask. They both then looked back at everyone in the room, willing to answer.

"Captain John 'Soap' Mactavish was the first commanding field officer of the Task Force 141," Miho replied, then sighed sadly. "Ghost and I were his former LT and second and third-in-command back then, I was his protégé. Then Captain John Price, another field officer of the 141, one hard old man for sure."

Maho winced her eyes notice her tone was a sad one. "Why sounded sad after you mentioned, erm.. Soap was his name?"

Miho paused for a moment to stare at Maho, before bowing down her head. "I don't want to talk about it."

This was of course a very personal thing to Miho, and she doesn't want someone to ask her what's what. Makarov… that name won't leave her head forever because she did not get the revenge she wanted. She still bowed her head down and she produced a shadowy dreary look on her face. Somehow, the look of Miho's face was much more terrifying than Mahos look. Shiho and Maho felt an aura from Miho, but it's not just an aura of rage that was coming from Miho. It was a killer's aura.

Miho then lifted her head and looked at everyone. "After the Third World War that was fought by the United States of America and the Russian Federation was over. I was eventually ranked up as a Captain and currently a field officer of the 141 besides Price and Soap. Then I came back home here, along with 550 members of TF141 so I can continue the legacy of the 141."

Miho paused for a moment as she looked at everyone's upset faces, before Erika opens her mouth. "You're the commanding field officer of 141?" Erika asked, she felt a little disbelieve but also felt uncomfortable to Miho's different personality.

"Yes, I am," Miho replied with a nod as she stared at Erika. "Why are you asking that?"

"Well… um…" Erika felt confused on herself about what she would say to her, before Miho realized what she was talking about.

"This is about that 62nd tournament, isn't it?" Miho asked, her tone was starting to sound upset but her face remained neutral.

Erika flinched at Miho's question, but then continued. "Y-yeah, it's about what we said about that defeat and saying you… betrayed us that time…"

"Betrayal…" Miho said to herself aloud, looking down on herself as everyone observed on what she was doing. "You don't even know what the word betrayal means, do you?"

Since Miho was asking Erika only, they all shut their mouths as Erika thought for a moment in doubt. "Umm… maybe a little?"

Miho paused for a moment, before she only chuckled as Ghost only looked over to her with his brows raised under his sunglasses. "And seeing and hearing me changing schools and joining up Panzerkraft of that school and you said I was traitor, didn't ya?"

"Yeah…?" Erika replied doubt clear in her voice, her arrogance of her personality was not showing because Miho has changed.

Miho sighed slowly, as everyone including her mother nervously took a sip of her cocoa. "It's just a matter of perspective to know the meaning of betrayal."

She then looked over to Erika as she rubbed the table in front of her softly with her right hand. "And your term of your meaning about betrayal is wrong…"

Miho then took a sip of her cocoa, as everyone in the room looked at each other in agitation. before looking back to Miho after she puts down her drink. "Betrayal… is when the time your ally literally stabbed you in the back with a knife instead of helping you, and he just left you for dead. Thinking you're nothing but an expendable pawn for him."

Erika and Maho felt the sweat came down from their foreheads, just because listening to something sounds very serious and grudging from Miho. "I know one good traitor that time. A bastard who could change the whole world with only one good simple lie… and a river full of blood"

This whole explanation from Miho was to be honest, dreary, Chiyo had to shut Alice's ears to avoid hearing that. "And when the bastard has done that to all people that he knows, by betraying them and killing them… That bastard had to pay his debt for the people he betrayed with only one term of mine."

Miho slowly pulled out something from her right side of the belt and put it on the table. Their fear including her mother and the Shimadas were increased and their skins went pale as they looked at what Miho put on the table. A dark-green cream pistol with the black barrel on top of it, her G18 auto-pistol was on top of the table. Seeing her putting a gun in the Nishizumi Residence was something terrifying for Shiho and Maho.

"He must pay for every person he betrayed and killed… by his own blood… no matter what," Miho said at last, before she and Ghost then looked over to Ami who looked a little frightened on what she was hearing. "I think you know what that means, Ami."

Ami said nothing but did nod to Miho's statement. "You killed him…"

"Correct," Miho replied with a nod.

Miho then looked at each person in the room. She could say, they all looked quite tensed up about what she was talking about. Listening to a speech like this was like listening to someone who survived hell longer than anyone else in that room. But then, Miho doesn't have any intention to provoke everyone's feelings in the room with her.

Miho then took her gun away and holster it on her belt. "*sighed* Erika?"

Erika then turned her head nervously at Miho. "Um, I just wanted to say that I take back everything I said about you that time… I'm… sorry," Erika said sadly as she felt unwillingly to say the words for Miho.

Miho stay silent for a moment as she looked at Erika who just looked away from her. "I'll let that one pass. But don't even think I will forget about that incident in the tournament and I still won't forgive you about it along with everyone in Kuromorimine except Akaboshi about what you have done to me."

Erika flinched at her words, but then again she won't dare to say something arrogant to her because she was right about it. "I… I understand."

Miho then looked over to Ami. "Ma'am, I want to talk to you about my Task Force."

"Oh, yes?" Ami asked, kind of excited but then wanted to know on one thing. "Hang on, before we go to that one. Can you tell me about Ghost here?"

"You want to know about my history?" Ghost asked, surprised at Ami's request. "It's not pretty to hear, my dear lady."

"Well, I'm curious," Ami added, as Chiyo and Shiho felt uncomfortable of her request while the rest were also curious of Ghost's history.

Ghost looked over to his CO Miho only gave a reply look to him with her 'do what you want' face. Ghost then turned his head to Ami. "I had a bad childhood when I was a little kid. My father was quite heartless until he brought back dangerous animals and taunted me with them, even going so far to force me to kiss a snake or threatening to kill me with them. More than that, I have an older brother always scaring me at night with his blasted skull mask. Things got so far until my father made me laughed just by watching as a prostitute died by drug addiction."

Everyone's face went pale to hear how his childhood was like, especially Chiyo and Shiho who felt horror and preposterous of how his father treated him. "Soon, I joined the military after that. I ran a three-man mission one day, about taking down the Zaragoza Drug Cartel. But then me along with my other mate were betrayed by our own CO to the enemy. I was brought into a facility and I was tortured and brainwashed, driving me mad and suffered by it. Those bastards left me buried alive in a coffin and I managed to get out from there by myself using the jawbone of my CO. The bastards then killed my whole family which drove me insane.

Then I killed the perpetrators who killed my family and find Manuel Roba who was the leader of that Drug Cartel. I shot Roba's back before his head and left the area immediately. Then I met General Shepherd, who was originally the commanding officer of 141, not field officer. He's the one who betrayed us during The Third World War, he shot me and burned me alive while Miho along with the other field officers were being attacked by his own private army called the Shadow Company. At least Soap had killed him with a thrown knife to his eye."

Ami felt horror and pretty shocked of his past as she got a scared-pale look on her face with her mouth open and her eyes going small. For the rest of the people inside the room. They all sharply and blankly stared at Ghost, shocked to hear his whole past. Now they knew the reason why he was called Ghost. He's been dead before and now he has come back alive again after that. Miho feels so glad to have him by her side.

"I'm… really sorry to hear what you have been through," Ami said pitifully to Ghost with a nod and her hands gripping on the table. "You've been through a lot."

"Along with Miho," Ghost added, which he earned an agreement from his CO with a smile and a nod.

They all stayed silent for a moment, to redeem about what Ghost have been through. It was a hard time for Ghost for what he has been through. At least he's still alive with them.

"So, Miho, what do you want to talk to me about with the 141?" Ami asked, curious on what's in her mind.

"You work with the Japanese government, correct?" Miho asked, not wanting she got things wrong about Ami.

"I'm with the JGSDF, why?" Ami asked, as the rest were curious on what Miho was planning.

"The Task Force 141 is right now actually open for recruitment," Miho said, Ghost was feeling happy to know that they are getting more men soon enough. "We gonna need people who are the best of the best in our Task Force. And also we're looking for work in this country since we're a multinational Task Force. Hopefully you have any of those maybe even both, because right now the 141's current status is a Private Military Company and our men are eager to work with a government."

All of them were quite surprised of Miho's request about it, Ami saw this as a good opportunity for helping Miho out with her Task force as they will help the government for return. "I think I can help you with that. But first, I want to see the Task Force by myself if that's true."

"Our base of operation is at the east side of Asagoyama mountains, South east side outside Kumamoto city," Miho replied, the Nishizumis and the Shimadas were impressed on how her base was set up there while the others were surprised by its location. "Ghost will handle the schedule for your visit to the base tomorrow. And right now, I just need to take a rest from the job for now."

Ami nodded in understanding and smiled for that arrangement. "Good then, I'll talk with the people from the government about this."

Miho and Ghost nodded to her in reply, she then looked up to her mother. "Are you planning to settle in here, Miho?" Shiho asked, hoping that she'll stay.

"Sure I am, ma'am," Miho replied with a flat smile. "Is my room still in good condition?"

"It still is," Maho replied with a smile.

Miho then looked over to Ghost. "Mate, can you pick up my stuff and bring it to my room?"

"I'll show you Miho's room," her mother added as she stood up along with Ghost.

"Alright then, let's go," Ghost said, they both then walked out the room, leaving the Shimadas and the commanders with Miho.

Miho then looked up to Alice she was looking quite afraid as Miho's expression turned from cold to worry. "Are you okay, umm… Alice?"

"Umm…." Alice shyly replied as she was hugging her Boko tighter. "N-no…?"

"It's alright my little dear," Chiyo said to Alice, comforting her.

"Why all the sudden your expression changed when you see her?" Mauko asked in confusion.

"She reminds me of those kids back in London," but then Miho's face turned to a frown. "I miss those kids so much…"

Miho's last words kind of comforted Alice. But Maho, Erika, Ami and Akaboshi were wondering something about Miho. Is there any other reason about Miho with the children? Guess Miho kept things for herself for now.

* * *

After Ghost and Shiho unpacked the stuffs from the jeep and put them in Miho's old room. Ghost said his goodbyes to them all including Miho at the gate of the residence. Before he drove away from the residence in his jeep, heading back to base. They all then headed for Miho's old room and looked around at her stuffs.

They noticed the bags she has brought into the house. Those were her clothes and her other misc. items. But what got their attention was the large green steel box in the middle of her room. Mauko and Erika approached the green box. But then got halted by Miho for that.

"Oh, erm, what's inside this box, sister?" Maho carefully asked to which Miho only glared at her.

When Miho opened the box for them, they were surprised to see a modern assault rifle was inside the box. "Weapons for myself."

"Is it really necessary for you to bring weapons to our house?" Shiho asked, doubting if letting her do that is the right thing.

"Yes, for precautions," Miho simply replied with a small shrug. "Just in case if there's an attack happening."

"Well, that's sound like a good thing for a commander," Mauko added with a forced smile, but then Miho felt uncomfortable of that last word Mauko said.

"It's Captain, Mauko," Miho corrected as she looked at her. "Don't call me commander, will ya' mate?"

Mauko paused for a moment in confusion before replying. "Uhm, okay."

Miho then looked out through the window, as everyone in that room only looked at what Miho was doing. "Is there something you wanted to say?"

"No, nothing," Miho replied with a shook, still looking out the window. "I just need some time alone."

"Alright," Ami said with a nod, before continued by Chiyo. "Let's go give her privacy."

One by one, all of them left the room. Miho still only looked through the window as they left. watching the snow covering the city in front of her. It was still a good sight for her. Hell, if she had a good Christmas like this.

"Miho?" Maho called, Miho then turned her head to her.

"What is it, sister?" Miho asked.

"Welcome home."


	8. Chapter 8 - Cliffhanger

This is the first flashback of Mihos time in MW,

Have a good time reading.

* * *

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Miho: Konichiwa, Captain. What have we got here?

Soap: Quite a simple job. A three-man job and a simple infiltration.

Roach: I don't think that really sounds simple.

Soap: That's what you think. More than that, we gonna get our feet cold.

Miho: Sounds like we'll be travelling through a blizzard.

Soap: Yep, we'll be heading to a country on the south side of the Russian Federation.

Roach: Kazakhstan, sir?

Soap: Yeah, you gonna love the former Russian Winter. We'll be infiltrating a base in Kazakhstan and retrieve the ACS module from a downed satellite in that region.

Miho: …. Oh, we're going inside an enemy base, aren't we?

Soap: Yeah, our numbers maybe small, but we're the best.

Roach: So, where's our starting point sir?

Soap: Right here.

….

….

….

Roach: You have got to be kidding me.

* * *

"Cliffhanger"

Day 2 (August 11th) 2016 - 07:33:30

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Tian Shan Range, Kazakhstan

Miho was sitting down at the edge of the ledge in the middle of the icy cliff. Soap was sitting on her right, smoking his cigar as he looked down to the bottom of the cliff. While Roach was sitting on her left, eating his favorite Pringles from the tube snack he brought must've been hungry. Miho at the other hand was sitting down between them and she looked up to the snowy sky. She was, of course, doing what Soap did as she sits there. She also smoked her cigar underneath her winter fedora hat; the Villa Clara's cigars are also her favorite apparently.

Make Roach wonder why Soap let her smoke.

As they waited for their break time to be over, Roach had a question in mind for Miho.

"Hey, LT," Roach called, Miho and soap turned their heads to him. "I was wondering about something."

"What is it?" Miho asked, curious about what he had in mind.

"While each school have their Tankwondo style," Roach replied. "I'm wondering… do they have their own similarities with any country?"

"Ah, most of them do," Miho replied with a smirk. "You got Saunders University High School, the richest school in Japan they love to throw parties like the Americans. Then there's St. Gloriana's Girls College, like us British, love to have tea parties and surprisingly love being philosophical about romance and novels. Then there's the Pravda Girls High School, a Russian style school and they are really obsessed about The Purge… I think."

"Wait, the Pravdas?" Soap asked, surprised about what Pravda is. "What's with them and The Purge they are talking about?"

"Dunno," Miho replied with a shrug, as she took smoked her cigar. "I was wondering about that myself, you might be surprise if I said the overall commander of that school is Commander Katyusha."

Roach and Soap were also surprised by the name of the Pravda's commander. "Bloody hell, sounds charming enough for a Russian-Japanese school," Roach commented,

"Same here," Soap added in agreement.

"What about the French and Italian version of the Japanese school?" Roach asked as he tilted his head to her.

Miho grinned at that question. "The Italian is the Anzio Girls High School, they really like to spend a lot of funds just for the sake to have a big party of food and their snack time. The Frenchie would be the BC Freedom High School, they nearly like the Anzios because they also love food like cakes and cupcakes. What is funny from the Anzio school is that the members of the Tankwondo have some funny names."

"What kind of funny names?" Soap asked as he chuckled at that statement.

"The overall commander's name is Anchovy. While her vice-commanders are Pepperoni and Carpaccio," Miho replied, Roach and Soap were dumbfounded as they both stared at her.

"Why the bloody hell they didn't bother to be called after a food?" Soap asked in disbelieve.

"I was wondering the same," Miho replied with a nod. "Such a bad thing I didn't have time to ask that after I fell through that portal."

"Eeyup," Roach replied in agreement as he finished his Pringles.

They waited for a moment in silence, as Miho and Soap are still smoking their cigars. Until they heard the loud noise of a jet taking off. They saw a Russian jet fighter that just flew off from the airfield above the cliff and above them. Miho and Soap knew what the sign means. They both then throw away the cigars off the ledge to the bottom of the cliff and looked at Roach. They all slowly stood up as they stick their backs to the icy walls behind them and their foot stick still to the ledge.

"Break's over, Roach. Let's go," Soap said, and they three starting to side-walk on the cliff to the right, following Soap.

As Soap was walking to the right side step by step carefully on the ledge, Miho looked down to the bottom of the cliff. It did really gives her the creep about it. Imagining if she fell hundreds of feet from that cliff. Ah, that would be sick. But then again, she doesn't care about it and she wants to get the job done.

Miho then looked for a moment to Roach. It was surprising to know Roach kept his calm as he traversed through the ledge with them. He did admit to Miho that he has fear of heights, but he knew how to control his fears. They continued walking along the ledge.

Soap halted his steps as Miho and Roach did the same, Soap then pulled out his ice axes. "Stay here and spot me. Wait for my go," Soap ordered, Miho and Roach only replied with silence.

Soap then stabbed the icy cliff face with his right ice axe first, before turning his body and took a step forward on the ledge and stabbed the left ice axe to the cliff face. Soap then started to climb up, he pulled out his ice axe of the wall before stabbing the icy cliff face further above the hole he made repeatedly. He then used his spiky boots so he can stay still and stick on the ice wall as he climbs.

"All right, the ice is good. Follow me," Soap ordered as he climbed, both Miho and Roach then pulled their own ice axes and started climbing from there.

The three kept climbing up the cliff as they made sure they're still sticking their spiky-boots on the cliff. Miho felt like this is a good experience for herself if she had a trip to Japan to climb Mount Fuji on her own without safety rope. Who knows? She's part of the 141 anyway.

As they kept climbing on, Soap was actually ahead of them. He nearly reached the top of that cliff with his soldiers following up underneath him. When suddenly there was another sound of a jet fighter that flew off from the airfield above. The jet flew over them while they were still climbing, and the loud sound and the strong wind produced by the jet sends the ice blocks above them shattering and falling down towards them.

Miho was worried to see Soap nearly loose a grip onto one hand armed with ice axe. While Miho and Roach looked away their faces from those ice blocks to cover their heads. They both then quickly looked up to Soap as he able to help himself by quickly stabbed the icy wall with his left ice axe and managed to stabilize himself on the cliff.

"Shit! You okay, Cap?!" Miho shouted as she looked at Soap who is doing fine as he climbs.

"I'm fine!" Soap replied via radio as he climbs. "Those goddamn bollocks."

They continue to climb up until Soap was the first to reach the top. Miho was the second one to reach the top. Before Roach got there with the help of Miho to get him up there. They both saw Soap was walking towards them both. And he suddenly extends out his ice axes.

"Good luck, mates. I'll see you on the far side," Soap quickly turned around and jumped a long gap to reach the climbable cliff on their right side.

After they both watched that jump, they only gave their cringed faces. "Fuck me, that is a wide as gap," Miho swore as she disbelieves to see that Soap made that jump.

"Well then, let's jump there," Roach said to Miho, before he and Miho stood there for a moment.

After looking at each other and nodding, they quickly ran and jumped the long gap ahead and quickly hit their ice axes into that wall of the cliff hard. Miho managed to stay stick onto the icy wall, but she and Soap were shocked to see that Roach was going down the wall as his ice axes that were sticking to the wall dragging him down the wall. What was beneath Roach was no longer a wall but an empty part of the cliff.

"Scheisse! Roach!" Miho shouted as she panicked to see him going down the wall.

"Hold on! Don't let go!" Soap shouted, as he tries to mess around with his ice axes to find a way to get down there quickly.

Roach nearly fell down off that wall as his wall was already empty beneath. Making some ice blocks from the bottom edge of that fell to the bottom of the cliff. Roach was now still hanging with his left ice axe at the bottom edge of that wall as his right hand was left hanging loose in the air, before he managed to hold his left hand. Roach's ice axe was about to lose its grip, until she saw Soap quickly slide down the wall and hit the wall with his ice axe.

Roach then fell off the cliff, but then he was saved by Soap as his descend stops quickly. Soap quickly grabbed his left hand after that fall and Roach was still hanging onto soap's hand. Miho felt glad to see that Soap saved him, this would be a bad operation if he died. Miho saw Soap gesture to Roach with his head to get ready to stick his ice axe to his right. Soap swings him up to the right and Roach managed to start climbing.

Miho picked herself up at the top of the cliff and waited for the other two to reach her. Roach was the second who reached the top, and Miho helped him to get up on the cliff. And then Soap, simply by dragging his back upfront to get him back on his feet.

"That was a close one," Miho commented after Roach's near-death experience.

"Yeah, let's make sure that doesn't happen again," Soap replied with a smirk, before climbing up a wall first and prepped up their rifles.

Both Miho and Roach have their ACR in winter camo and heartbeat sensor at their disposal. Roach had his USP .45 silenced pistol and a G18 while Miho on the other brought in her dual silenced G18s. Soap was bringing his M14 rifle EBR suppressed rifle for sniper support, he had his camo-snow AK 47 on his back with his M1911 pistol on his belt. They regrouped near the cliff and waited there for a moment.

"Miho, Roach, check your heartbeat sensor," Soap ordered, they both obeyed and opened up their sensors on their ACRs. "You should be able to see me in the scope."

"The blue one right?" Miho asked a she looked at her sensor.

"Yeah, that's me," Soap replied with a nod. "any unrecognized contacts will show up as white dots."

Soap then started to move out as Miho and Roach follow up behind him. They kept moving up with their heads down and weapons sweeping to all sides, making sure they didn't get ambushed. They kept moving up until they spotted a couple of hostiles ahead next to the runway of the airfield.

"Miho, Roach, these muppets have no idea we're here. Let's take this nice and slow," Soap said as he aims his rifle at one of the hostile ahead.

"Roger," Miho replied as she aims her rifle at the other hostile.

"Roach, take one on the left," Soap ordered, Miho only looked behind them to see if there's someone creeping up behind them.

"On three," Soap ordered to Roach as they both ready to pull the trigger. "One,,, two… three."

*CTAK-CTAK*

"Nicely done," Soap complimented, the bastards were shot in the head.

Miho quickly turned around and followed Soap and Roach to the path up ahead. They turned right, following the path a little further away from the runway. They soon found a couple of enemies again ahead.

"Your turn, Miho. Same plan," Soap ordered, Miho then raised her rifle aiming at the enemy on the left. On three."

"One… two…. Three."

*CTAK-CTAK*

The bastards were shot in the head again, Soap turned his head to Miho. "Nice work."

The three then continued to move up, and Soap noticed the blizzard ahead of them. "The storm is brewing up."

They kept walking on and reached the outside part of the enemy base. Bloody hell, Miho couldn't see anything 2 feet in front of her. All she could see was the shadowy figures of construction for now, along with Roach who baffled the same thing about it. They kept following Soap as they entered the entrance of that base slowly. Soap quickly ran ahead and climbed up to the small snowy ridge up ahead.

"Let's split up," Soap said via radio as she and Roach entered the enemy base. "I'll use the thermal scope and provide over watch from this ridge. Use the cover of the storm to enter the base. You'll be a ghost in this blizzard, so the guards won't see you until you're very close."

Miho and Roach quickly stacked up at the jeep parked at the entrance of the base. "Keep an eye on your heartbeat sensor, good luck," Soap added, before his radio went dark.

Miho peeled her head out from the cover of the jeep and spotted a hostile ahead. She quickly aimed her rifle at his head and pulled the trigger. One shot was enough to kill him once the bullet hit his head.

"Nice one," Soap commented via radio.

"Roach, on me," Miho ordered via radio to Roach who was behind her.

"Yes, ma'am," Roach replied, before heading into a barrack nearby with their rifles at the ready. Not noticing a hostile coming up from their right.

"On your right," Soap radioed, they both quickly aimed their rifles to their right, only to see the hostile got shot in the head by Soap from a distance. "He's down."

"Thanks, mate," Miho said, before they both went in the barrack.

Miho quickly went to cover by the front door of that barrack as Roach quickly killed an enemy who was sitting and watched through the window on the front side with a knife to his throat. They waited for a moment as they checked their heartbeat sensors.

"All right, I've tapped into their comms," Soap radioed. "Head Southeast and plant your C4 at the fueling station. We may need to go 'plan B 'if things go south."

"Roger that," Roach replied with a nod via radio.

"Alright, Roach, let's move up," Miho ordered, they both quickly crouched down and walked out into the blizzard ahead.

They went ahead passing the road and passing through a couple of tents and boxes of supplies. Miho noticed there was a hostile ahead through her heartbeat sensor. She aims forward, she finds the target for a moment ahead in the blizzard before she spots his little shadowy figure showing up. She then pulled the trigger and killed him with three bullets.

"Not bad," Soap commented by radio.

Miho and Roach quickly marched forward, and Roach noticed the bastard on their right. "This one's mine," Soap radioed.

Before Soap able to shot him however, Roach stole the kill with three bullets to the bastard's chest. "Then again, maybe not," Soap radioed awkwardly.

"Nice eyes, Roach," Miho commented as they both kept walked forward moving by a facility on their right.

They kept moving up, until she spotted four hostiles heading their way through her scope as they quickly took cover by a container. "Roach, take two of them on the front. I'll take the other two on the right. Ready?"

"Ready," Roach replied with a nod.

"And… go!" Miho ordered, they both quickly walked out from cover and around the corner they turned to the right.

Miho quickly turned-corner right again and charged at the enemy in front of her with the barrel hitting his stomach, took the bastard by surprise as he was late to aim his rifle at her and got locked in between them. She quickly pushed him back with the barrel of her rifle as she pulled the trigger. Shooting through him and then killing the bastard behind him. Roach on the other hand shoot up the last two up front after Miho charged the enemy on their right. Miho let the dead man she pushed fall to the ground and quickly aimed her rifle to her left, seeing that Roach finished the business.

"Good work, let's go," Miho ordered, and they kept moving forward through the alley of crates beside the facility.

They however quickly stopped after they heard Soap. "There's a truck coming! Stay out of sight!"

They waited for a moment as they saw some headlights of a truck ahead. They looked through their scope that the bastards were there. But to their luck, they were walking away from where Miho and Roach were waiting.

"We're clear go," Miho ordered, they then moved up to the northeast side of the runway ahead of them.

"Be careful, there is a lot of activity on the runway," Soap warned via radio, which both Miho and Roach nodded in understanding.  
When they spotted the fuel tanks, Miho's smile went wide. "Soap, we reached the fuel tanks and now planting the bomb."

"Roger that," Soap radioed, as Roach planted his C4 and Miho took watch as Soap radioed in again. "Hang on, I'm picking up more radio traffic about the satellite, standby."

After Roach planted the bomb and they moved up from there, Soap radioed in again. "Got it. Sounds like the satellite's in the far hangar. Race you there. Oscar Mike. Out."

"Hear that?" Miho asked to Roach as they marched. "We're Oscar Mike."

They killed two enemies on the way and quickly moved up after that. Miho and Roach walked forward and already off the airfield, which then Soap radioed again. "Good thing you're already off the runway, I spotted a BMP on my thermal scope near that tower."

"Fuck me," Roach and Miho swore in unison lowly. "It's a good thing we just got off the runway," Miho commented gladly.

They moved up and reached the front side of the hangar. But then seeing no way to enter the hangar and there's no Soap around, they decided to circle around the hangar and meet him there. They entered through a gap between the hangars and jumped down. Then they marched to their left. After they reached the back side of that hangar however, they were confronted by a man who was hiding behind a barrel with his rifle aiming at them as they did the same.

Turns out, it was Mactavish they all quickly lowered their weapons from each other. "Took a scenic route, eh?"

"How the bloody hell you got here so fast?" Roach asked, disbelieve of his speed.

"I have my own ways, let's go," Soap replied, before they stacked up at the door, and slowly entered the hangar.

After they entered the lobby of that hangar, Soap was ahead of them until they saw a hostile was heading for the locker in front of them and grab something. Miho saw Soap let his rifle loose on his front body and runs up towards him, not noticing there is someone behind him. Soap shoved him to the locker, and threw him down to the ground at the doorway on the right. Soap quickly pulled out his knife from his holster on his shoulder and quickly stabbed the bastard's neck. Instantly killing him.

Soap then quickly switched to his rifle and entered the main room of the hangar as Miho and Roach quickly entered one by one to check the corners. Confirming the area is clear, the three headed to the remains of the satellite in front of them. Soap and Miho began to inspect the remains of it as Roach was waiting for another order.

"Roach, go upstairs and find the ACS module," Soap ordered, Roach quickly go upstairs as he and Miho inspect the ruins of the satellite.

It took them for a moment to found any some sort of hardware contains any misc. information they need. "I'm wondering how did they shot this thing down."

"There's no information about that," Soap replied, as he took a hardware of hard disk of some sort to his pouch. "I would guess that they were sending some aircraft to shoot it down."

"Got anything?" Miho asked, as she took another piece of hardware of the satellite to her pouch. "I found one."

"Just one too," Soap then contacted Roach. "Roach, did you found it?"

"Got the ACS," Roach radioed back, which made Soap and Miho smirk. "Heading back now"

"Roger," Miho replied, thinking this mission was going smooth.

Suddenly, the hangar doors next to them suddenly opened by themselves. The next thing they saw was that there were around 10+ enemy foot-mobiles beyond the doors, aiming their rifles straight towards them. They both slowly raised their hands up as the hangar door opened fully revealing the whole area of the base. Well shit, things just went south.

"Roach, we've been compromised. Keep a low profile and hold your fire," Soap ordered with a low voice via radio, things were getting to tense up.

"This is Major Petrov! Come out with your hands up!" the unseen Russian Major said through the megaphone. "You have five seconds to comply!"

"Roach… go to plan B," Miho ordered, as the Russian Major started the count down.

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"One!"

*BOOOOOOOM*

Instead of the enemies to shoot at Soap and Miho. They all quickly turned around to see the large explosion from the runway over there, making them all stunned of that explosion. Miho and Soap saw this as an opportunity to escape, they both quickly draw their rifles and popped every one of the bastards with the help of Roach who was firing from upstairs.

After all of them were taken out, they quickly took cover at the walls next to the hangar doors as Roach ran down the stairs and took cover at the wall on the left. "Stay close and hug the wall! We'll use the MiGs for cover and cross the tarmac to the southeast!"

After they shoot back at a few enemies who appeared in front of them, Soap and Miho made a run for it followed up by Roach. "Roach! Follow me! Let's go!"

As they ran, they gunned down everyone who tried to shoot them as they passed a road on the right. Miho and Roach nearly got shot in the face after a bullet flew in front of their faces as they run. They kept running and took cover at a nearby concrete wall and shoot back at the enemies.

"Roach! Head for the MiG! I'll cover you!" Miho ordered with a shout, she quickly got out of cover and shoot 3 of the bastards in the distance before she reloads her rifle quickly.

When Roach about to approach the MiG where 5 hostiles were standing near it. That MiG blew up by itself, sending those hostiles flying around. As he took cover at the destroyed MiG, other vehicles at that runway blew up by themselves at the runway as Miho and Soap just quickly ran past Roach as he followed up. As they run, they met a few bastards who they weren't expecting about.

"We got some wankers on the snowmobiles!" Miho shouted, as she managed to mow down two of the bastards on the snowmobiles.

"I know!" Soap shouted as the three halted in the open and managed to shoot 6 of the bastards near the destroyed MiGs and trucks. "Run towards the east people! Go!"

They quickly ran forward again. They are running & gunning down the enemies behind them and in front with remarkable accuracy. With the help of their sensors, they managed to fend those bastards off very easily. They reached the exit on the edge of the runway and slide down the hill. Miho screamed in excitement to have that kind of escape.

They reached the bottom part of the base and there were shacks of houses down there. They quickly took cover behind them as they shoot back at the enemies who were firing from the top of the exit on the runway. Miho managed to shot two of them, Soap managed to kill three, and Roach managed to frag 3 of them up there. As their corpses roll down the hill, That's the time when they saw snowmobiles showing up from there.

Three hostiles on the snowmobiles were there and took the route on the right side of Miho's team. Soap get into his position by a wall of the house on the right side while Miho and Roach stood in the open ready to shoot the bastards who are driving on those vehicles. When they showed up, Soap swings his ice axe out of cover to his left and suddenly stabbed the driver, leaving the snowmobile to drive on its own until it stopped on its own.

Miho was able to shot the hostiles who was about to ram her with the snowmobile and jumped out of the way unharmed. Roach managed to shot the last hostiles on the snowmobile by shooting their heads after those bastards stopped the snowmobile. Seeing those snowmobiles on site, they have their escape route.

"Miho, Roach! Get on the snowmobiles!" Soap ordered quickly, as they all made a run to get on them. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

After they all quickly got on their snowmobiles, they quickly speed it up and ran down the snowy hill. As they drive as fast as possible, Soap made a contact with their exfil team.

"Kilo Six-One, the primary exfil point is compromised! We're enroute to the backup LZ using enemy transport! Meet us there! Over!"

"Bravo Six, this is Kilo Six-One, roger that, out," Kilo Six-One replied before his radio went dark again.

"More tangos coming up from the rear! Just outrun them! Go, go!" Soap shouted as the three increased their speed to get away from the incoming enemies from behind them.

As they drive faster, Soap shoots back at the enemies behind him with his AK for a moment before looking up where he is heading. Two enemies managed to get ahead of Miho, but soon got mowed down after Miho pulled out one of her G18s with her left hand and shoot straight at them. Roach managed to do the same to the other three hostiles on snowmobiles ahead of him but with evasive maneuvers. The three drive faster and jump up a huge snowy rock before landing safely at the lower levels of the hill.

"Don't slow down! Keep moving or you're dead!" Soap warned them via radio as they kept driving onwards.

The three soon reached the forest ahead and there are two ways for them to go, but still the path is going straight. Miho and Soap took the right path while Roach took off to the left. They managed to shake some of the enemies off because those wankers crashed into the woods of the forest. The three quickly meet up at an intersection of the forest before splitting up again, Miho and Soap went left and Roach goes right. They see a path ahead, a tree got cut down but thankfully it did not block the path for them.

They increased their speed again, and flew up in the sky for a few seconds as they used their pistols and AK to shoot down the enemy snow mobiles who tried to block their path. Bad thing for the Russians they got mowed down first before the 141 managed to land on the surface of the snow. They kept driving, right now going to pass a frozen lake they're on now as the enemies were still chasing them down.

Things went worse for Miho the moment an enemy hind came over to the area. And it stopped right in front of them. Preparing to launch his missiles.

"Do these guys ever quit about sending their hinds?!" Miho complained over radio.

"You're making me hope that Nikolai was here!" Soap replied back, annoyed about this damn hind.

They quickly made sharp turns to the left and right to avoid the incoming missiles sent by the hind. They managed to not get hit by them. The only thing those missiles kill are the Russians who tried to chase 'em down. Miho got a glimpse of a Russian trooper that flew into a steep face hill. They three drove up the path on to the top the mountain ahead then quickly drove straight down the mountain.

This was the moment Miho was waiting for. There is a large gorge very way below them. It's about 1 km long driving down the long mountain. They're going to add speed so they can jump the gorge. Miho always wanted to do that if she was in Tankwondo.

"Bravo Six, we're getting close to bingo fuel. What's your status, over?" Kilo Six-One radioed concerned that they won't make it.

"Kilo Six-One, we're taking heavy fire but we're almost there! Standby!" Soap radioed back quickly.

They drive down the mountain as fast as they can, the gravity and the momentum are doing the favor to make the snowmobiles drive even faster as before.

"Pin the throttle! Keep going!" Miho quickly radioed, they then increased speed by gassing them harder.

500 meters.

This is it…. They were moving much faster. They passed some trees like it were there for one second.

300 meters.

They're going much faster….

100 meters.

This is it. Miho gave a last shout as they jumped the huge gorge.

"Here we…. GOOOOOOOOO!"

The three, magnificently, flew in the air like a jet fighter took flight. The sickening breezy winds they received from that jump very relieving for a moment. They see their landing spot. As their snowmobiles reached the other side of the gorge, they three landed smoothly and kept gassing them to the top of the hill to reach their LZ.

"WOOOHOOOO!" Roach cheered loudly. "That was awesome!"

"YEAH!" Miho cheered loudly as well, they all are glad to break the record of the amazing escape the military ever did in history.

"Aha! There's the chopper! Let's go!" Soap radioed, they soon were able to see the chopper as they drove closer.

After they reached the chopper and slowed down their snowmobiles, Kilo Six-One glad to see them again. "Bravo Six we have you on visual! Get your ass on board, we're running on fumes here!"

The three stopped their snowmobiles and ran toward the chopper, meeting up with the armed crew of the chopper. "Okay, they got the ACS! We're outta here!" the chief of the crew said as they got the three members of the 141st on board.

Soon the pilot flew them away from the area and they all sat down on the left side of the passenger seat of the Chinook chopper. The crews of the chopper were glad to see them doing fine and complimented them for the job. Miho only sighed in relieve as Roach and Soap only laughed a little about that job. Miho then looked over to Soap who was right next to her.

"You're doing alright, girl?" Soap asked Miho.

"Well, glad we got this job done," Miho replied with a smile.

"Hey, are you that tank commander of the 141?" the crew chief asked as he puts his rifle down to his side. "Miho Nishizumi?"

"Yes sir, I am," Miho replied with a nod.

"Cool, I never knew we would meet you personally," the crew chief added with a nod. "It's an honor to meet you. You are quite popular among the 141."

"It's alright, mate," Miho replied, raised her hand a little. "Maybe I could teach a thing or two about tankery for you people."

"What about drifting the tank?" one of the crews asked curiously. "My friend in the armored division is having a bit of trouble on that. He flipped the tank the last time he did that."

"There's a technique about that," Roach added with his index finger up. "We gonna teach you about it when we get back."

"Alright, I like to hear that," the pilot of the helicopter said gladly, might have a friend in the armored division.

"So, got any news about Makarov?" Soap asked the chief of the crew.

"Negative, not sure what he is up to now," the chief crew replied, then noticed the expression Soap and Miho made. "You both have a grudge on him do you?"

"Well, yeah," Miho then looked over to Soap who was in agreement with Miho.

…

…

…

…

"Sooner or later we are going to get that bastard."

* * *

Okay, from the looks of how I write. Not bad actually, not bad.

Please be tolerant toward me, I'm Indonesian and that's why my writing was like this.


	9. Chapter 9 - A New Day

Before you read the story.

Please understand I do not own any of these songs from Youtube, I had to add it for atmosphere purposes.

* * *

www. youtube. com (/ watch?v=1vrEljMfXYo

The morning sun arrived from the east. Shining its rays of light upon the city of Kumamoto to meet its new day. The birds who were hibernating in their nests started to flying up in the sky, feeling the windy breeze of snow in the air. Miho only gave a flat smile to the new day that has come for her whilst a song was playing from her audio recorder.

Miho was sitting in her chair at the table in her bedroom in this morning. She was looking out through the window of her room, watching the snow that was already piling up on the roads, houses, and in her house's backyard. She really loved to see the sight of the snow, which reminded her about her last mission in Kazakhstan. She wanted to have a bird's eye view at the ledge back in Kazakhstan. Soap's crazy idea to sit and climb in the cliff is really paying off.

The 141 will probably be much crazier than Soap, remembering how many crazy Russians she got in her Task Force.

As she was looking out the window, she occasionally looked down onto the table beside her. She left some documents on the table, re-reading again about the previous information she had when she was with Soap and Price. And there was something else on her table, something for a memory. There two pictures set up on her table.

One picture, were four-men in combat uniform in it. On the very left was her old mentor who died, Soap. Next to Soap, was Captain Price, the old man who was a former mentor of Soap. Next to him again, was Sandman, she actually met him before on a couple of missions before they were united to rescue the Russian President. One special-crack unit from the US Delta Force who took part in Operation Kingfish, Miho would give a compliment to him about it because he along with Grinch and Truck stayed behind to their deaths that time to give Miho, Price, Yuri and the Russian President some time to escape the collapsing mine. They will be remembered for that. And the last one on the very right, was Ghost, Miho was always wondering how he went underground that time but she forgot to ask him that every time she was around him.

And there's one last picture on the table next to the first one. It's also a four-men picture but it had a couple of different people in it. On the very left was Roach, a good friend of hers who died in the Caucasus mountains, he posed himself to the camera with his right hand gave a thumbs up. On the very left of the picture was Ghost again, posing himself with a salute above his forehead while his left hand was holding his M4A1 by the barrel of the rifle. Between Roach and Ghost, there was Soap and Miho herself. Soap hugged Miho who was right next to him by her shoulder. While Miho in that picture, was holding her rifle by her left hand and also hugged Soap by his shoulder with her right hand. Oh, she missed Roach and Soap so much.

As she was looking over to the pictures on the table. Someone knocked on the door, and entered her room. She didn't even bother to turn her head around because she knows that was Maho, her sister. Maho closed the door behind her and stepped closer to Miho to see what she was doing now. Maho only smiled a little to see Miho sitting on her chair, looking at the pictures and out the window.

And what was much odd to her, is that the song Miho was playing in her room. She could tell it was an American song. But she doesn't know what kind of American song this was. Miho knew the song well actually, even the lyrics of the song. Maho didn't know that was an American country song. Miho even sing one part of the song loud while Maho was in there.

"Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia, mountain mamma

Take me home, country roads"

Maho doesn't know the name of the song. But clearly, she started to like this song besides her favorite school song Schwarzwaldspite Girl's School Anthem. Maho shook her head to nod as she followed the rhythm of the song. Miho then turned her head to Maho, to see that she didn't notice that Miho was looking at her.

"Starting to like the song, aren't you?" Miho asked flatly, Maho yelped in surprise as she quickly looked at her.

"Um, yes!" Maho quickly replied, then slowly rolled her eyes to behind her. "I think I like it. An American song, isn´t it?"

"American Country song to be exact," Miho replied with a smirk. "It's called Country Roads, Take Me Home."

"What does the song mean?" Maho asked, which Miho thought for a moment about it.

"… The song is talking about the scene of nature mainly in West Virginia," Miho replied, then sighed. "shows the respect to the land, because seniority is linked to wisdom and often times we look up to our elders for comfort and advice. And about where the true writer and singer of this song, describes the only place where he belongs."

Maho chuckled to her reply. "Sounds nice," Maho replied with a smile and a nod.

"Why are you here?" Miho asked, Maho remembered what she wanted to say to her sister.

"Uh, well, you should take a bath now," Maho said, as she massaged the back of the neck. "Mother is cooking breakfast for us."

"Да," Miho replied with a nod. "I'll be in moment."

Maho nodded in reply, and the heading out for the door. "I'll see you."

As Miho watched her leave, Miho stood off from her seat and looked over to her cabinet. She walked over to it and opened it up. She has settled in all of her clothes she brought in here yesterday. She picked up the clothes she wanted to wear soon on her bed, and then took her towel and underwear with her. Before she headed out of her room and going for the bathroom.

After she entered the bathroom, she slides the door closed and filled the bath tub with water. She undid all of her clothes, before she slowly entered the bath tub full of water. Laying down in the tub as her head was above the water and leaning against the edge of the tub. Hff, it's been a long time she got a good bath like this.

She took a bar of soap and soaked it up. Before she rubbed it on her arms, her shoulders, before her body went underneath the surface of the water again. After the soap, she took a shampoo onto her hand and rubbed her hair until it was full of foamy bubbles of soaps. She then washed her own face with the water in the tub by splashing her own face and then rubbed it.

Now she was feeling so refreshed after that. She felt much fresher again after she took a fistful of water up to her nose and smelled it. Nikolai said it's a way of refreshing your own brain if you're feeling unfocused. After that she took a sad but playful little dip in the water tub as she was relaxing by herself. Trying to root out the stress in her head.

After a few minutes later of bathing, she went out the bathroom with her towel covering her body from the chest down to her legs. She then headed to her room and entered, closing the door behind her. Looking over to her clothes on her bed, she walked over to them and opened up her towel. She then proceeded to put them on one by one, as she wasn't noticed about how fast she got dressed in them.

Right now, she was wearing a black buttoned long-sleeved shirt. Along with the straps with the pouches around her shirt like the ones Price wore back in Africa. Miho was also wearing her grey long pants with a padded square colour of dark grey-brownish in the knee part of the pants. She was wearing on the beanie she had yesterday, noting she will wear the snowy fedora for another time.

She walked out of her room and headed for the dining room where she will have breakfast with her mother and sister. She forgot little about the paths around the house after a year of her disappearance. But then again, she managed to find that room in a minute. Miho met her mother and her sister in that room.

Well, Shiho really had prepared the breakfast for her daughters, Miho. There were dishes like Chahan, Katsudon, Sushi, Teriyaki, Ramen and other dishes like it. Every food Miho liked when she was around, she only smiled about it. Miho greeted them both, before sitting down at a spot between Maho and Shiho who were sitting on their spots, facing each other. The three then proceeded to pick their food for themselves and each other.

Maho and Shiho both were honestly surprised about what she was wearing, especially the straps and pouches she had around her shirt. Miho, before eating, put down her black beanie on the table beside her food and proceed to eat. Shiho and Maho smiled to have Miho eating together with them. Miho then ate a fish Karaage along with the ramen. It reminded her of something.

"Now I'm starting to miss Fish & Chips," Miho commented, to which Maho and Shiho were both surprised as she said that.

"Isn't that a British food, Miho?" Maho asked as she halted eating for a moment.

"Yep," Miho then looked over to Maho. "I forgot to tell you that I was a girl of two countries."

"Wait, what?" Shiho asked as she looked over at her. "You're a citizen of two countries?"

"Yeah, beside my citizenship as a Japanese," Miho explained. "I have the citizenship as a British."

Maho's and Shiho's eyes went wide for that discovery. "Woah, I didn't see that coming. Why do you want to have a citizenship as a British?" Shiho asked curiously.

"The first time I arrived outside London," Miho explained. "An old man of mine called Macmillan, Director of the Special Air Service forces said that the agency called the MI5 wanted to interrogate me thoroughly about how I get here. I think you know what that means, mother."

Maho didn't understand what that meant, but Shiho's eyes widened and left her mouth open to understand what that means. "You mean…? O-okay."

"So… Macmillan offered me to have a citizenship as a British Citizen so the MI5 would leave me alone," Miho continued as she eats. "True to his words, they have left me alone and won't bother me anymore."

"*Sigh* good to hear that," Shiho replied gladly. "But then again, you're already working as a soldier."

"Yeah, that's true," Miho said with a nod. "For Emperor, Queen and Country."

Maho and Shiho gave a flat expression to her words of whom she served. "Alright… then," Maho replied awkwardly.

"How are you feeling today, dear Miho?" Shiho asked with a flat smile as she eat.

"Just a bit tired actually," Miho replied. "Barely got any sleep for almost a month that time."

"Miho, that's not healthy," Maho added in little concern.

"Don't worry about it, I'll be fine," Miho replied softly, trying to comfort her sister. "Besides, seeing the snow outside of this house. It reminds me of the good winter I had back in Russia."

"R-really?" Maho asked, but then smiled in comfort. "Sounds great!"

"Wow, you've been everywhere, haven't you?" Shiho asked as she was drinking her green tea.

"Yeah, been so far as Africa," Miho replied, which Maho and Shiho got choke on their food for that.

"Africa?!" Maho asked quickly. "Isn't it really hot there?"

"Yeah, but there's something worse than that," Miho replied with a tilted head. "Malaria"

Maho's and Shiho's skins went pale to hear that as they eat. "Nah could be worse than that," Miho added again, her sister and her mother felt much more uncomfortable again about Africa.

Maho then remembered about what she wanted to ask yesterday before. "Umm, about your Task Force and you coming back from the future. Isn't it kind of…. Dangerous to break a timeline of a history?" Maho asked as Shiho looked at her, agreed to her question.

"Actually in this case I'm breaking a timeline of another universe," Miho replied with a shrug, she then continued to eat. "Because of that Type 10 that Ami has back there. I'm not sure if I was to blame myself to break the timeline or blame the manufacturer of that tank for making the Type 10 exist faster."

"Nani? What do you mean by that?" Shiho asked confused, especially when she mentioned the Type 10 Hitomaru.

"The last time I checked on the other modern universe version of the tank," Miho replied, she then scratched her hair. "The Type 10 Hitomaru was already in service in 2012, not in the 1960s."

Maho and Shiho halted their eating and froze after Miho's statement. Knowing the fact that Miho said about the Type 10 that already is in service during the year 2012. They both really need to ask Ami about it.

"Hey, don't bother about asking Ami that problem," Miho said, breaking their frozen state. "I don't want Ami to talk shit to me after you ask her."

"Oh, okay then," Maho then decided to change topic. "I'm wondering… how did you become a captain of the Task Force 141?"

"It's quite a long story actually," Miho replied as she eats her ramen. "I was a recruit that time when I joined up. But when they learned that I was an expert commander of tankery, they asked me to teach the men of the Task Force about the Panzerfahren lessons. They quickly promoted me to a Lieutenant after they learned their ways around with their tanks even they know how to drift a tank by now. After the Third World War, I was raised to a Captain of the Task Force. More than that, the United States have also awarded me with the Medal Of Honor after I was ranked up because my fight was way beyond the call of duty. The Russian government also have awarded me the gold star medal titled 'Hero of the Russian Federation' for rescuing the Russian President, Mr. Boris Vorshevsky from the hands of the terrorists. Those are the two highest medal awards besides my Military Medal and Distinguished Service Order medals I got from the UK government."

Maho and Shiho were very impressed and felt very proud to hear what achievements she has received during her call of duty. "Wow, you fought a lot for those achievements," Shiho complimented, happy of her daughter.

"I know, but…" Miho frowned, making Shiho and Maho wondered why she's frowned. "I'm not sure…"

Maho then quickly interrupted her. "About teaching the Task Force of the Panzerfahren, do they have a name for it?" Maho asked.

"Panzerfahren of the 141?" Miho asked back. "Well… It's simply called, '141 Way Of the Tank'."

"Oh?" Maho and Shiho replied in unison. "Sounds good enough for us"

"You mates have any plans for today?" Miho asked, wondering what they will do for today.

"Well, I'm going to have a hangout with my commanders around Kumamoto," Maho replied. "You're in?"

"Well, yeah I'm in," Miho then looked over to her mother. "What about you, mom?"

"I'm afraid I have some business with the Sensha-Do foundation for the moment," Shiho replied. "Please be careful while you two are out there, alright?"

"Don't worry, I'll make sure we're doing fine out there," Miho replied with a nod of her head, the three then proceeded to finish up their breakfast.

Soon they're going to do their activities for today.

* * *

3000 feet above Kumamoto City. Japan.

Inside a Black Hawk chopper

11:00 AM

Chemo was with Chrome, the young Canadian white man with his cap facing to the backside of his head and blue eyes with short thin black hair. Nothing else was quite special from Chrome, except for his Canadian-like tradition that Chemo was always confused about. With them, are the three ladies and a man from the JGSDF and an official from the Sensha-Do Foundation. The first lady is of course, Ami Chōno. She managed to talk with the officers of the JGSDF and they were willing to meet with the 141 with the presence of a male officer and a female officer from the JGSDF to represent the JGSDF officials. And surprisingly Chiyo Shimada was also among them to meet the 141.

The male officer's name was Akashi Seijuro. A man with the rank of Major in the JGSDF. He was around his 40s, thick eye brows, no beard, tanned skin. Had a good sturdy body and short black hair and he was a little handsome for an officer.

The last who is with them besides Ami and Chiyo, was actually a best friend of Ami. She was a Lieutenant of the JGSDF. She had purple eyes, white skin like Ami's, slick eye brows. Her face was nearly as pretty as Ami and her orange-colored hair was tied into a ponytail. Her name was Amagiri Yuko.

It was the first time for these Japanese people to board a Black Hawk helicopter. Despite Ami that has her own helicopter, she thought it was best to ride the ones Ghost sent to respect him. Good thing the Black Hawk has 6 chairs inside, she and her other friends were able to sit comfortably inside. Ami was sitting next to Chrome and Chemo near the left side of the closed door of the helicopter, while the other three Japanese officials were sitting across them. Ami was looking out through the window of the left door, seeing the view of the city that was passing underneath them.

"It's a good view isn't it?" Chemo asked who was right beside her as she looked at him.

"Sure it is," Ami replied with a smile. "I've seen this sight many times but it never bores me."

"And so we are," Akashi added with a nod of agreement. "More than that, I didn't expect to meet a black man here."

"Sir, don't be racist to him, alright?" Chrome asked, Chemo only chuckled at him.

"Sorry, I'm just stating the fact actually, no offense," Akashi replied with his palm raised to him.

"What happened to last person who was being racist to him?" Yuko asked, wondering if that ever happened.

"The last person was a terrorist that time," Chrome answered as he leaned to her. "He insulted my buddy here just because he is black. And Chemo tied a rocket up the terrorist's back and Chemo sent him flying for about 1500 feet."

Ami, Akashi, Yuko and Chiyo were surprised of what Chemo did to the last guy with their voices of 'ah?!" "That's a sick way to make him fly," Chiyo commented.

"Heh, I taught him to fly that time," Chemo added with sarcasm. "He was one lucky bastard of course. He was able to survive that fly by landing into the river."

"Nani?" Ami asked in disbelieve. "That was 1500 feet!"

"I know," Chemo replied, agreeing with Ami with a thumbs up. "Hard-cracked terrorist I suppose."

They fell silent for a few moments as they looked around the helicopter. "So, where are we heading again?" Akashi asked, slightly forgeting about where they're heading.

"Just east side of Asagoyama Mountain, bro," Chrome replied, then he looked over to the pilot of the chopper by tilting and raising his head a little to see the pilot. "Hey, Hannibal, get us the cold ones when we reach there!"

"Oh come on, get them by yourself!" the pilot, Hannibal, replied with annoyance. "I have enough shit to do than your drinks!"

"Alright then, sorry!" Chrome replied, which confused the Japanese and Chemo on why he shouted out sorry to the pilot.

"Hey, no need to apologize, alright?" Hannibal replied, as he flew a turn with the chopper. "Just don't bother me until my free time when we get there."

"Alright then!" Chrome replied, before he comforted himself in his seat to his original position.

"Chrome, why do you have to say sorry despite he didn't need any apology?" Yuko asked.

"Because he's Canadian," Chemo replied, which made them much more puzzled.

"Uh? We don't get it," Akashi replied with winced eyes. "What it has to do with him being a Canadian?"

"We Canadians always said sorry," Chrome replied with a smile and widen arms. "whether it's very small or big trouble we caused. We always said sorry."

But then Chrome remembered what nationality Chemo was. "Wait, aren't you yourself a Canadian?"

"That was because my American father married a Canadian woman," Chemo replied annoyingly with his arms crossed. "I grew up in the US before I moved up to Canada by myself and worked for the Canadian Army."

"Oh, that make things clear," Ami commented in understood, awkwardly.

"You're saying that because it is the Canadians tradition?" Chemo asked whilst tilting his head to the right as he looked at Chrome, he never been taught of that tradition by his mother before.

"Yep," Chrome replied with a flat smile and a nod. "I even scratched the word 'sorry' on my bullets."

The Japanese and including Chemo were quite amazed to what Chrome said, but then it caught the attention of the pilot who was flying the chopper on the front. "Hang on, so you're the one who marked the all of the cannon shells and missiles with the word 'sorry' back in the base?!" Hannibal quickly asked aloud in shock.

"Yeah why you asking me that?" Chrome asked aloud back to Hannibal.

"Because most of our Russian friends are getting sick to get those kinds of spams!" Hannibal loudly replied. "They all were blaming all of the Canadians for that."

"Well, you can tell Vicek and the other Russians to kick this guy's ass," Chemo replied aloud, as he patted Chrome's shoulder.

"Oh, I will, Staff Sarge," Hannibal replied with a satisfying smile. "I will!"

"Alright, I want to know more about this 141," Akashi demanded. "More than it's just a multinational Task Force."

"It's the best handpicked soldiers in the Special Forces," Chemo explained as they listened to him. "Best warriors on the planet. 141 is a special Task Force that are composed of expert infantry, right now the numbers of the 141 are a battalion sized unit. The type of forces in the TF141 are Special Operations Force and Special Mission Unit, plus with Miho Nishizumi joining up amongst our ranks of the 141, the 141 has also developed into a Tankwondo Armored Division unit."

"Wow, for real?" Yuko asked in awe. "And by Miho Nishizumi, you mean….?"

"Yes, she's alive," Ami replied quickly with a smile. "The man who will meet you at the base will give you the details about it."

"And what about the Task Force 141's roles in combat?" Chiyo asked curiously.

"The top role of the 141 is clearly Spec ops, Direct Action, Special Reconnaissance, and Counter-Terrorism." Chrome explained. "More than that, 141 also play the roles in Hostage Rescue, Combat Search and Rescue, Unconventional Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Information Ops, Counter-Narcotics, Counter-Proliferation, Foreign Internal Defense and other types of roles we played in."

"Wow, that's a lot of roles for a Task Force," Ami commented quite impressed, the rest of them awed of the 141's roles, Akashi however smiled to hear that.

As they waited in silence for a moment again, Hannibal looked behind him and looked over to the passengers. "Alright people, welcome to the 141 Headquarter."

www. youtube. com (/ watch?v=ec0XKhAHR5I

Ami, Chiyo and Yuko were the ones who looked out the windows of the doors first. True to Miho's word, there was the 141 base below them. Quite a large base they made if they had to admit. The barracks were there, an airfield was present, and other facilities such as the training facilities and the command center near the airfield. Besides the strange American song that was playing, they were able to see some modern tanks they have never seen before besides their own Type 10 tank.

It was a remarkable thing for them to see. A large base with an organized Task Force from multiple countries. This was something the Japanese officers never had in mind.

"Flight Control, this is Yellow Birdie 2-1," Hannibal the pilot said as he made the chopper approach the Helipads. "Requesting permission to land, be advised we have Japanese government officials with us."

"Permission granted, proceed to helipad 2 for landing," Flight control replied, as Hannibal landed the helo on the helipad.

After the Black Hawk landed Chrome open up the heli door on the right side by sliding it open. "Alright people, let's get out from the chopper!" Chrome said aloud in cheer, as they proceed to get off the chopper one by one.

They then walked over to the nearby open hangar that was filled with ammo supplies and tables full of documents to get away from the cold weather of the snowy wind, they then stood there waiting for someone.

"So where is he?" Akashi asked, looking over to Chemo.

"Should be here any minute now, sir," Chemo replied they then looked forward. His words were true.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," Ghost shouted from a distance, walking towards them.

"That's him?" Yuko asked, surprised by his appearance with the skull mask.

"Yes, it's him," Chiyo replied, as Ghost already reached them and stood in front of them.

"Welcome to the home of the 141," Ghost said aloud as his arms widen to his sides. "May I know who am I talking to?"

"My name's Major Akashi Seijuro," he said as he shakes his hand with Ghost. "A pleasure to meet you"

"My name is Lieutenant Amagiri Yuko," she said as she shakes her hand with Ghost. "Just call me Yuko."

"It's an honor to meet you both, along with Ms. Ami and Ms. Chiyo," Ghost replied with a nod to them. "My name is Lieutenant Ghost, I´m second-in-command of this Task Force."

"It's an honor to meet you, Lieutenant," Akashi replied with a smile and a bow to him. "Um, may I ask why you're still wearing on your mask?"

They all fell silent for a moment, as Ghost only gave a blank stare to Akashi for a moment. "It's… another personal thing besides keeping my Identity anonymous."

"Ghost never opened up his mask if that's what you're asking," Chemo added to them, which earned a couple of confused glares from them about Ghost's lifestyle.

"Alright, may we have a tour around this base?" Ami asked to Ghost.

"Sure, follow me, ladies and gents," Ghost said as he gestured his right hand to follow him.

"By the way," Yuko added as they walked. "Where's Miho Nishizumi? She's here, right?"

"You mean Captain Miho Nishizumi?" Ghost corrected as he turned his head at her. "She's not here."

"Why?" Akashi asked as he looked at Chemo and Chrome who were with them.

"It's because she went home to the Nishizumi Residence in Kumamoto," Chrome replied, making Akashi and Yuko glare at him.

"I heard she was really stressed out since becoming a commanding field officer of this Task Force," Chiyo added, knowing what's what.

"So she kind of on a vacation for now," Ami added again, achieving an 'oh' from Akashi and Yuko.

"Yeah, we've been through the Third World War in our universe," Chemo replied. "And Miho had the worse anxiety during that time."

"I understand," Akashi replied, must've been hard for a girl.

When Ghost along with Chrome and Chemo gave them a tour around the base, they can say they were awed of what the 141 have around the base. Primarily they are interested about the tanks they have. Ghost said they were M1A1 Abrams, T90s, and Leopard 2 tanks. Those tanks they had in base were only for the people who learned about Tankwondo however.

When it comes to aircraft, it interested them much more. There were helicopters like Black Hawks, Little Birds, Sea Knights, Mi-24s, Mi-8s, and Pave Lows. For the jet aircrafts, however, they had a couple of A10s, F-15s, several MiGs, and there's one big plane they had on the runway. Ghost explained to them that the big plane they're looking at was the famous AC-130.

"One of the most scary and destructive planes in the entire air force. Used for air support on the ground. Armed with two 25 mm Gatling guns, in case if friendly and enemies troops are both were too close. 40 mm bofors auto-cannon making small explosions on the targets and fully automatic. Last but not least, the 105 mm howitzer cannon. One shot is enough to blow up any tanks in its sight."

As they took the tour further, they felt very eager to work with this Task Force for sure. After the tour, they stood by an armory to check out the weapons they had in store. Seeing how much armaments they had inside, they were very awed and impressed by this. And Akashi said this is something that made out from the future predicted movies (Which Ghost and the other Russians and Frenchies inside said 'what the fuck' in their hearts).

As Akashi, Yuko, and Chiyo talked with Chemo and Chrome about what's special with the armory. Ghost walked over to Ami who was watching the overview of the airfield runway. Ghost grabbed her shoulder and Ami yelped in surprise. When Ami sees Ghost's unseen expression underneath his mask, Ami wondered if there's something wrong.

"You were looking for me?" Ami asked to Ghost.

"Yeah, there's something I need to tell you about Miho," Ghost said as his right hand rested on the hip and his left hand scratched his neck.

"What's with her?" Ami asked, starting to concern about Miho.

"She might have…. Suicide tendencies to be honest," Ghost replied in doubt, Ami's eyes were wide to hear that. "Could you tell her mother… or at least her sister to keep an eye on her if you meet them?"

"Sure, I'll let them know when I meet them," Ami replied with a nod and a small smile.

"Good," Ghost then looked over to Yuko, Chiyo, and Akashi who are still talking to Chemo and Chrome. "Come on we have some business to discuss."

* * *

Kumamoto City, 14:00 PM

Miho was walking down the streets full of snow with her sister, Erika, Akaboshi, and the other four Kuromorimine commanders. They were at the south side of the town, visiting the sites of Kumamoto around. Miho felt a little disturb about what her 'old friends' and her sister were wearing. Despite the cold weather of snow outside they all were wearing their school uniforms with gloves and scarf's and without any protection against the cold for their legs, while Miho was wearing her long-sleeved black shirt and grey padded pants along with her black beanie, brown tactical gloves and straps around her torso. Her friends and Maho were still confused about why Miho was wearing something like that.

As they walked, the girls who were with her can see Miho was actually pulling out something out of her pocket. It looked like a small box that she was holding in her left hand.

Miho then took out her lighter from her right side of her pouch on the strap. Erika first thought that Miho wanted to burn something in that box. While the rest including Maho and Akaboshi, thought she wanted to burn the whole small box she was holding. Geshiko noticed that there was writing on the box Miho was holding. Something… Villa.

Miho then opened up the top of the small box, revealing some sort of brown sticks inside the box. They're not sure what that was inside the box. She took one of them and put back her box back inside her pocket and held the stick in her left hand. When she lights up the edge of the stick, that's when their realization got up quickly.

It was the first time to see Miho smoking.

After her cigar lighted up, she put it in her mouth and stashed her lighter away in her pouch. Erika and Maho observed Miho smoking, as the rest only kept their eyes forward and tried to ignore Miho's smoking habit. She inhaled in her cigar, before pulling it out from her mouth. Then blowing out the smoke from her mouth softly. She repeated her process of smoking as they walked down the street.

"Miho, why are you smoking?" Erika asked, bothered a little about the smoke.

"Stress relieve," Miho replied softly, she then looked over to Erika. "Why?"

"It's the first time we see you smoking, Miho-san," Akaboshi replied, Maho agreed to this with a nod. "And it's also not healthy."

Miho only chuckled as her cigar still stuck in her mouth. "Sometimes we have to die from something, Ms. Akaboshi."

Everyone then slowly glared at Miho in concern after that word she said. That word reminded them of something. The case of Akaboshi that was nearly killed along with her crew because they were drowning in their tank in the river, until the last second they were rescued by Miho. If that was the case Miho meant about then they had bad feeling about it.

"What if Akaboshi nearly died from drowning until you saved them?" Maho asked. "Isn't that what you meant about those words you say?"

Miho sighed with her eyes closed, then looked over to her sister. "What you're saying right there Сестра. Is an incident. Not someone that has died from something."

"Oh," everyone simply replied, they were wrong about it.

Then Mauko wondered about the name what Miho called to Maho. "Miho-san, you called Maho 'Sestra'. What does that mean?"

"It's a Russian word for 'sister', my friend," Miho replied with a smile as she smoked her cigar.

"Wait, you can speak Russian?" Sangou asked in surprise, along with the others.

"Да, я могу, мой друг," Miho replied, to which they don't understand what she said except the word yes.

It was quiet odd for them to know that Miho learned Russian language aside from Japanese, English and German. "From who did you learn that language?" Ritaiko asked as she leans her head ahead of Miho.

"I have a pal of mine, his name is Nikolai," Miho replied, she then tipped her cigar before continue to smoking. "He was a former Senior Sergeant during the Soviet-Afghan war. He was our ex-informant, best pilot, and best hacker. He taught me to learn Russian language for my own benefits in missions."

"Is he a nice guy?" Erika asked curiously, as her hands picking to each other on her chest.

"He's a good man," Miho replied as she looked at her. "More than that, he has a sense of humor and quite resourceful."

As they kept walking on, they noticed of how much the crowds were there than the streets they previously walked through. Most of the people were playing with the snow in the street as more cars were driving down the slippery road next to them. Well, well, a busy street as always in Kumamoto. They kept walking on and chatted to each other as they ignored everything in the street. They all also noticed that Miho just finished smoking her cigar and dumped the leftovers into a nearby dump after extinguishing it.

They kept walking forward, until they saw someone. Someone who is out of ordinary and did not look like most of the Japanese crowds around. The man they were looking at was in desert vest with pouches, dark blue long-sleeve shirt, black jeans and a black cap with his headphones on his head. That's when Miho immediately recognized that was Vicek, her friends were surprised to see Miho's face looked like she knew someone ahead of them.

"Привет, капитан Нишизуми!" Vicek greeted aloud with his hand waved to her and her group as they get close to him. "How are you doing?"

"Привет, Вичек," Miho replied as they walked up to him, and as they don't understand what Miho said to Vicek. "Какого черта ты здесь делаешь?"

"Just taking a tour around the city," Vicek replied with a shrug. "And I was about to see you back in your residence."

"I thought you were helping out Ghost back in the base," Miho stated to him.

"He actually asked me to see how you're holding up," Vicek asked, Miho could do nothing but face palm slowly to herself.

"I'm doing fine actually, thanks for that," Miho replied in annoyance.

"Who are you, sir?" Maho asked, they never met him before.

"My name is Vicek," he replied with a bow to Maho. "A good friend of Miho."

"And a Sergeant operator of the 141," Miho added.

"Капитан. Who are these girls with you?" Vicek asked as he eyed the girls with Miho.

"It's my old friends and my sister," Miho then waved her hand to her sister. "This is Maho Nishizumi, my sister."

"It's good to meet you, Ms. Maho Nishizumi," he said as he shook Maho's hand, who looked troubled to shake hands with him. "Heard about you and your charming words from Miho."

Maho blushed at the thought of what he said. "Charming? Wha-what do you mean?"

"He meant you sounded very nice and cute to him," Miho replied, making Maho feel even more shy about it.

"Umm…. thank you?" Maho replied awkwardly as she blushed.

Vicek then looked over to Miho's other friend and shook hands with them. "What's your name?"

"My name is Erika Itsumi, Vice-Kommandant of Maho's."

"Koume Akaboshi, commander of one of the Panther Tanks and a good friend of Miho."

"My name is Mauko, commander of Kuromorimines Maus Tank."

"The name's Ritaiko, commander of the Jagdpanther Tank."

"Sangou, commander of a Panzer III."

"My name's Geshiko, Kommandant of the Panther Tank."

"It's good to meet you all," Vicek replied with a smile as he looked around to his surroundings.

Miho recognized the look he made as he looked to his surroundings. "Looking for something to eat, aren't you?"

"Eh?" Vicek asked in surprised as he quickly looked at her. "How did you know?"

"I know that look when we were around Nikolai," Miho replied with a smirk. "But I hope you know there's no Russian food for your Russian mouth."

"It's Czech-Russian-, Captain," Vicek corrected, Miho's friends were surprised with wide eyes because of his nationality. "Por maldita real, capitão?"

"Sim, sim! Vamos encontrar um restaurante para você comer," Miho replied as she waved her hand to his face, her friends are now even more confused at their language as they decided to walk on.

Maho and the rest gave their winced eyes to them because of that language they never heard of before. "In what language are you talking to him just now?" Erika asked as her face was a mix of puzzle and disbelief.

"Portuguese," Miho replied as she looked behind her.

Only God knows how many languages she knew. How the bloody hell she can speaks Portuguese?

"What were you two talking about in Portuguese?" Akaboshi asked curiously.

"We're going to a restaurant," Vicek replied as he looked back at them.

After he mentioned that, everyone's stomach except Vicek and Miho grumbled. Forcing them all to stop in their tracks as Miho and Vicek blankly stare at them in amazement. They awkwardly chuckled to Miho and Vicek as they held their own stomachs. They felt very embarrassed for that unexpected sound from the crowd of hungry people.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me…" Miho commented slowly in irritation and disbelieve, they all flinched and were frightened to Miho's swearing.

"Uhh… Where do we eat?" Erika asked awkwardly as they waited for the answers from Vicek and Miho.

They have come across a good restaurant and entered inside. After the nine of them got seated on a ten chair-table, they picked what they like from the menus and waited for the waiter to come. As they waited with a bit of chatter amongst themselves including Vicek who was right across Miho, Miho only waited in silence as she looked around the restaurant. Quite a good looking restaurant they were in.

The walls and the ceilings of the restaurant were all made from elegant wood that makes this restaurant has a Japanese classy touch along with the box shaped wood holes around the walls. The floor of the restaurant was made with shiny black ceramics that gave a cool look if it reflects with light. The tables were T-like shape tables that gave spaces for legs and the chairs have cushions for their bottoms and their backs. Moreover, the restaurant's wall was decorated with arts of the Traditional Japanese Era, ranging from drawings to banners.

One thing that took Miho off-guard, was the sight of a small figure of a tank at the counter of the restaurant. The one that she recognized as the Panzer IV. From where the owner of the restaurant got that, she doesn't know. But now seeing that tank, she was reminded about how her friends from Ooarai were doing right now.

After their foods and drinks were served, they all picked up their chopsticks (except Vicek who used spoon and fork) and began eating. It was quite an enjoyable restaurant if they had to admit it. Miho only enjoyed her food in silence as the others ate and got lost in their conversation at the same time. After Erika who was sitting right next to Miho uncomfortably (forced by Maho with a threat to make Erika have some relationship with Miho), noticed Miho being silent as she eats. She decided to talk with her, with a bit of doubt after she remembered how her attitude to Miho was back in the old days.

"Miho, you okay?" Erika asked, as she noticed a bothered expression that Miho made. "You look like you are bothered by something."

As Vicek and the rest divert their attention to her, Miho sighed… then looked over to the Panzer IV figure at the counter in a distance. "There is something I'm wondering about."

"What is it, Shisutā?" Maho asked as they were waiting for Miho to answer.

"Those girls of my crew from Ooarai," her reply startled everyone as they blankly stared at her, except Vicek who was wondering who she is talking about. "Saori Takebe, Hana Isuzu, Yukari Akiyama and Mako Reizei. You know them?"

The girls of Kuromorimine slowly looked at each other in agitation, but then they nodded for the acknowledgement of the names as they looked back to Miho. "Y-Yes, we know them. They were the first ones who reported that you died in the river during the mock-up battle practice a year ago."

"How are they doing?" Miho asked again coldly, this time Miho looked at them with her full attention. They swear there were seeing something in her eyes that gave them the creeps. Vicek, only acted casual about it since she was the best 141 in the unit and the only captain of his Task Force.

"The last time I heard, they were devastated to know that you were gone," Akaboshi replied softly, a tone that comforted Miho a little. "Though, they are still studying in Ooarai High School until now."

Akaboshi rolled her eyes back uncomfortably and looked around the table a little bit faster, there was something in her eyes that she was hiding. "Are you okay, madam? You looked like you´re afraid to tell me something," Miho asked as she tried to be soft as she can towards Akaboshi.

"Erm, it was nothing," Akaboshi replied with a quick shook of her head.

"Are you sure, you're alright?" Miho asked, as she leans her head forward to Akaboshi to provoke her.

"Yeah, I'm fine, seriously," Akaboshi said, as she waved her palm to her with a 'forced' smile.

"It's just about the accident that happened in the restroom of our school," Sangou added as calmly as she can whilst fixing her glasses. "It was kind of an awkward situation… that time."

"What? Ritaiko accidentally slips and accidentally stripped Akaboshi of her clothes as you both accidentally destroyed a sink and then Geshiko found you in the restroom?" it was an unpleasant thing they heard from Miho, including Vicek. When they were starting to have that image in their heads, they quickly regretted that imagine as they blushed in embarrassment.

"Uhh… yeah, that!" Erika interrupted quickly with a pointed finger to her, Maho nearly face-palmed at Erika's answer. "That's what happened in the restroom!"

Miho could only blankly stare at her coldly, but then nodded. "Oookay then."

"Jesus, what the hell am I hearing?" Vicek commented in disbelieve.

Miho returned back to her eating routine along with Vicek and the others. Erika on the other hand, looked over to Maho in agitation. Maho did look at Erika, and gave a shook of her head to her. Erika only nodded in silently understanding as they both continued to eat. They both including the Kuromorimine girls actually lied to Miho about what's bothering Akaboshi, but they weren't ready to tell Miho about it, even though they were telling the truth about Miho's friends from Ooarai still studying there.

Maho then leaned forward to look over to Miho, she wanted to talk about something else. Something that is about her own family. Something that had Miho part ways from her own family at the time. And she knew it wasn't a pleasant thing to talk about.

"Miho, I want to talk you about something," Maho said as she looked at Miho in concern by leaning forward on the table.

"What is it?" Miho asked as she looked at her and took a drink of her soda.

"I just want to talk to you about…" Maho paused in doubt, then sighed. "It's about your disinheritance."

Maho and the rest including Vicek were expecting that Miho was surprised and choke on her drink. Instead, it was the opposite of it, which baffled them considering Miho herself was the one who dishonored the Nishizumi heritance. Miho only put her drink down and looked at Maho with a couple of cold eyes that made Maho flinch at Miho's personality, especially when looking straight into Miho's scarred eye.

"Why the bloody hell do you want to talk about that?"

It's the first time they heard this of tone of anger from her, they are starting to don't like it. "Well, it's just… I feel like to talk to you about it."

"So you can talk about it to our mother about it, correct?" Miho asked with raised brow.

"Erm, yeah," Maho replied, she then scratched her hair as her eyes rolled down to her bottom left. "Ever since you came back and… changed… it would be a good thing to know if you're following your heritance or not."

"Is it really that important to talk to her about that?" Vicek asked in annoyance about this heritance bullshit.

"Yeah, it's kind of important to us actually," Erika added with a nod. "We just want to know if you really agreed to the Nishizumi inheritance."

"What? No matter what befalls us, we must advance?" Miho asked in retort but kept her body calm. "And me saving Akaboshi and her crew from dying by drowning is a wrong fucking thing for me to do instead of advancing?"

"Miho, you did the right thing," Akaboshi replied as Miho quickly looked to her.

"I know what you say, Koume-san," Miho replied quickly, before looking at the rest of the commanders. "But I know the answers from the rest of you are bloody different than Akaboshi's."

"We-we know what we said back then, but-," Maho said nervously but then got cut off by Miho quickly.

"And what was your word that time in the TV a year ago?!" Miho asked in retort and sarcasm, nearly aloud as she pointed her index finger at her. "There is no running away in the Nishizumi-style. Guess what? Mine is very different than you and it includes running away if the situation is impossible!"

"B-but that does mean you don't have the heart to be a brave person to do something right?" Erika asked quickly, disagreeing with Miho's statement.

Miho only paused a moment as she coldly stared at Erika's eyes, then, she began softly and seriously to speak to them. "The difference between being a coward and a brave one, is not whether you're scared or not. It's what you do while you're scared."

They all fell silent to hear what she said as she took a drink of her soda again. "Even if you really have the courage to do something, wouldn't you have the logic if there are things that are not possible for you to do instead of doing it foolishly when there's zero chance you'll survive a bad event? Like when the surface of the ocean was calm while underneath the roaring waves that are thrashing back and forth."

Vicek nodded in agreement to his captain, as the rest felt awe and their minds were worked up to think about what Miho said. "Bravery is being the only one who knows that you're afraid."

There was something right about what Miho said. Especially what Miho said about the difference between a coward and a brave person. It was a good thing for Miho to remember and learn the quotes she heard most often while back in 2016. Miho also learned to speak like that from Captain Price in and after World War III.

After the girls of the Kuromorimine Academy thought for a moment of Miho's words, they all looked like they agreed to what Miho said to them. They have exchanged nods to each other as Vicek and Miho only kept silent to themselves, observing them. Miho did saw Akaboshi was smiling to Miho, she very much agreed to what Miho said. They all then looked back to Miho, Erika opened her mouth.

"You… you're right," Erika replied in defeat. "I should have pulled my words."

"I know," Miho replied softly, she then sighed toward Vicek. "You're just stating your opinion. I don't blame you about it."

"But not for that tournament, right?" Geshiko asked, wondering if she won't forget about it.

"Correct," Miho nodded, as she continued to eat.

As they all continued to eat again, there was someone who was wondering about something. Ritaiko was wondering about Miho's friend, Ghost. The mysterious person they met yesterday he was really a good guy but there was something bothering her. The only question about why Ghost kept his face anonymous.

"Hey, Miho, Vicek," Ritaiko called as they both looked over to her. "I was wondering about something…"

"What is it?" Vicek asked.

"It's about Ghost," Ritaiko replied. "Why does he never opens up his mask?"

Her question left everyone including Miho and Vicek speechless. For Vicek, he wasn't sure about how he should respond to that question. Miho however, looked quite surprised for Ritaiko to ask that.

"I don't know about that," Vicek then looked over to Miho, who was still looked surprised. "Captain? Why you look so surprised?"

"Well…. It's the first time I got a question like that," Miho replied awkwardly. "But I do know why."

"Wait, I thought he never told you about that," Vicek replied in slight surprise.

"Nah, he was quite open to me unlike with the others," Miho replied. "He did tell me why he is always wearing his mask."

"Really?" Mauko asked, and then Sangou continued. "Tell us why."

"He said he is always wearing his mask so he can remember about all the faces of death he sees every day from the results of his own hands."

If that was the other reason why he was called Ghost, they'll be scared shitless about it. But since he was a good friend of Miho's, they felt relaxed a bit to know that.

"So that's why," Maho commented, understand what Ghost always did.

"Yeah," Miho replied. "Quite unpleasant if you imagine the things he did."

"We know," Akaboshi replied with a smile. "All that matters, he is your friend."

Miho smiled as she looked at Akaboshi, but then looked down as she thought on one thing.

"Sometimes I wonder if I can meet my friends from Ooarai."


	10. Chapter 10 - Takedown

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Ghost: The Russians ain't going to let this massacre go unanswered. It's gonna get bloody.

Miho: Gotta agree with you on that.

Soap: Too right, mate. Now, in the eyes of the world, they're the victims. No one is gonna say a word when the Russians club every American they can reach.

Shepherd: Makarov was one move ahead of us. Now he left thousands of bodies at the feet of an American.

Miho: Who came up with the bright idea of sending a private who was a CIA agent to infiltrate his cell?

Roach: You should've asked that to the general right here.

Shepherd: I along with some of the officials had a plan about smuggling an American agent into Makarov's team. It was too late to know that Makarov found out who he is.

Soap: We're the only ones who know it was Makarov's op. Our credibility died with Allen. We need proof.

Shepherd: Follow the shell.

Identifying origin of bullet shell

Status: Searching…

Status: Match Found

Place of origin: Brazil

Tracking…

Located

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

High Value Target: Alejandro Rojas

Secondary High Value Target: Rojas's Assistant

Shepherd: Alejandro Rojas.

Miho: Along with his assistant.

Soap: Never heard of him sir.

Shepherd: You know him as Alex the Red. He supplied the assault.

Soap: One bullet to unleash the fury of a whole nation. Which means…

Shepherd: He's our ticket to Makarov.

Miho: Your orders sir?

Shepherd: Locate, prosecute the target and interrogate him. Squeeze any Intel out of him about Makarov's op.

Roach: Won't work unless we find his assistant first.

Ghost: Captain?

Soap: Tell Meat and Royce to prep up their gear, let's find this bastard.

* * *

"So this is one of your recordings of an actual mission?" Ami asked as they watched the screen of the recording from an LCD player from their seats inside a room. "This is getting interesting."

"And it's in Brazil." Akashi commented, not quite pleased about it. "I was expecting somewhere in a war."

"Nah, you wouldn't believe how the people of Brazil got their hands on a lot of weapons," Ghost replied back with a scoff.

"Uh? What do you mean by that?" Yuko asked, quite confused about that fact.

"How about we just watch?" Chiyo asked, they all then looked at the screen that showed the recording.

* * *

"Takedown"

Day 4 (August 13th 2016) – 15:08:21

Sgt. Gary Roach Sanderson

Task Force 141

Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

"Ghost, the plates are a match," Soap radioed as the four in a car followed a van that transported the secondary HVT.

"Copy, any signs of Rojas's right-hand man?" Ghost radioed back again.

"Negative, they stopped twice already, no sign of him," Soap radioed back again as they watched and followed closely to the van in front of them.

Soap, Miho and Roach along with their driver were inside a dark blue car, following the target van from behind. Roach was sitting next to the driver on the front, while Miho sat next to Soap behind the two. They still did not find the target they need. But soon he will show up.

The driver was a black man wearing a black shirt and his grey pants with knee protection, has his cap facing forward on his head with his tactical goggles on. He has his Kevlar vest around his upper body and only had his handgun on his belt.

Roach was wearing his TF 141 jacket with his Kevlar vest on. Wearing his helmet, goggles and balaclava. And also green combat pants with knee protection and black gloves. Miho wondered why the hell Roach was wearing his jacket here despite the hot weather. But then, it's what Roach wanted to wear.

Miho was wearing a buttoned long-sleeved grey shirt along with her black combat pants. She had her TF141 cap facing to behind her, and she has her tactical polarized military glasses over her eyes. She has her Kevlar vest on along with her knee padded protections and brown tactical gloves. She had her M9 Beretta on her belt while her G18s on the front of her Kevlar vest.

Soap on the other hand was wearing his black T-shirt with his blue jeans on. Wearing his Kevlar vest and pouches on his belt along with his green tactical gloves. He didn't wear anything to cover his head, only showing his Mohawk hair and face.

The van quickly parked to its right, right in front of a hotel. The driver of Soap's team did the same, but he parked it near a tree a little farther away from the hotel and a few inches away from the van. It looked the van reached its destination. They quickly took watch for it.

"Wait, they've stopped again, standby," Soap radioed as they saw someone was coming out from the hotel and the van.

"Kyaputen, it's him!" Miho quickly said as they saw the assistant and a couple of militia gunmen approached him intimidating with a gun.

"Got a positive ID!" Soap radioed as they watched what they're doing, they don't like it. "Whoever these guys are, they're not happy to see him…"

After the two gunmen were very close to the assistant. The assistant quickly pulled out his Desert Eagle out of nowhere and quickly gunned down the two gunmen in front of him by point blank range. A third gunman came out from the van on the opposite side of the door and took cover behind the van. Things did not go so well for now.

"Ghost, we have a situation here!" Soap radioed as the assistant managed to shot the gunman behind the van with two bullets and Roach tensed up.

It was then the time the bastard noticed Miho's team. "Говно! He spotted us!"

"GET DOWN! GET DOWN!" Soap shouted, as everyone quickly ducked down inside the car from the dashboard window to avoid his line of fire.

Everyone inside the car survived. Except for the driver of the car. He didn't get the time to get down quickly after his head and chest got shot multiple times by the bastard. Making him drop dead with his head hitting the horn on the wheel and left blood all over the dashboard and towards Roach. After they peeked out, Roach found that the bastard has made a run for it.

"Shit! We just lost our driver!" Miho shouted as she got back up on the backseat.

"He's getting away! Roach, let's go, let's go!" Soap said as he and Miho kicked the doors of the car and ran out while Roach did the same after he looked out through the front window.

* * *

"God, that's a bad way to die!" Ami commented in horror as the rest was terrified to see that the driver was killed like that.

"May his soul rest in peace," Akaboshi commented honorably, as they continued to watch.

* * *

Roach quickly cocked his rifle and followed Miho and Soap into a sprint. "Ghost, our driver's dead! We're on foot! Meet us at the Hotel Rio and cut him off if you can!" Soap radioed quickly as they took a turn to the right down the street.

"Roger, I'm on my way!" Ghost radioed quickly as they kept running.

After Roach and his team passed a bus and the fleeing civilians. He just hated the sight so much. Rojas's assistant, managed to destroyed and burn some cars around the streets and injuring civvies and ran away from the scene like that. Roach could sense Mihos anger from a mile away. He could tell that Miho was furious about it.

"Motherfucker!" Miho swore under her breathe as they ran. "How the hell did he create this much chaos so fast?!"

"We ask him when we got him," Roach replied, he and the others suddenly saw Ghost, Royce and Meat show up from their left side of the road. "There's Ghost!"

"The bastard took a turn through here!" Miho shouted as Roach and the rest followed her lead.

They saw where the bastard has gone to; Ghost was the first who saw him. "He went into the alley!"

"Non-lethal takedowns only! We need him alive!" Soap shouted as they went into the alley, Roach and Miho were the first ones to get in.

They quickly took a turn to the right and then stopped when they turned left. There's the bastard, he's making a run to the stairs that lead him to the Favela. They need to stop him right now. Luckily, Soap gave the authorization of deadly force.

"Roach, take the shot! Go for his legs!" Soap barked through the radio, Roach aimed his rifle at the bastard and pulled the trigger.

*BANG*

"He's down," Soap stated as the bastard fell forward to the concrete ground, as he was holding his wound on his leg in pain.

Miho quickly ran over to him and hit him in his face with her riffle butt. "Come here, motherfucker!" Miho barked in a low voice to the assistant as she was dragging him to Soap and the rest of the team.

2 minutes later

After they managed to tie the bastard to a chair. They put him inside an open garage in that alley, near where they forced the bastard to the ground. Soap and Ghost went inside the garage as they both prepped everything up to torture and interrogate him. Roach could sense the satisfying aura from Ghost who is lighting up the electricity on the cables attached to a battery car.

Roach didn't dare to know how much the power of that electricity was and what it was going to do if Ghost did that to him.

After they are both ready to torture the poor bastard, Soap then walked to the entrance of the garage and put his hands on the garage's door above his head. He looked over to Roach, Miho, Royce and Meat who were still waiting for the next order from their captain. He knew where the hell this bastard was heading for.

"Miho, Roach, this is going to take some time. Go with Meat and Royce and check out the Favela for any sign of Rojas – that's where this guy was headed," Soap then proceed to close the garage door and locked himself and Ghost inside to torture the bastard.

"Lock and Load, people," Miho said aloud, as they all quickly cocked their rifles at the ready.

"Let's go," Royce called, taking the lead of the team as they were heading up the stairs ahead of them in the alley. "Remember – there are civilians in the Favelas so watch your fire out there..."

"Copy," Roach replied as they went up the stairs.

They reached a wired fence part of the alley. And what's below and ahead of them was the whole village of the Favela. Looking down from the three meters drop of the fence, there were civilians near the small buildings that were playing ball amongst them. Despite the civilians that were living inside the Favelas, there were also reports of militia gunmen that are controlling this area. So right now, they have to shoot their way to Rojas.

"Meat, get the civvies out of here," Royce ordered, that also got Miho's glare of approval.

"Roger that," Meat replied before going down through the holed fence along with Miho.

"I'm coming with you first," Miho said to him as they jumped down.

After they jumped down, Meat and Miho quickly looked at the civilians and raised their ACR and MP5K in the air, then pulled the trigger as their weapons shot out some bullets to warn them as Roach and Royce watched them from up top.

"Este lugar não é seguro!" Meat shouted.

"Todos, dê o fora daqui agora!" Miho shouted as their rifles were still firing into the air. "Pressa! Dê o fora daqui! Um tiroteio vai acontecer!"

"Corra para um lugar seguro! Mova isso!" Meat shouted at last before Royce and Roach jumped down and took cover near a destroyed car and a small wall of tires along with Miho and Meat as the civilians screamed in fear and started to run the hell out of there.

They didn´t have to wait for long as they saw the militia showing up from the windows and the rooftops, they soon started the fireworks.

"Another day in the office!" Roach shouted as he peeked out from cover and shoot two bastards on the rooftops hitting them with six bullets.

"We need to push forward! Let's go!" Miho ordered as they quickly started shooting back and killed some enemies before going out from cover and continued to shoot as they marched.

* * *

"Wow, that's one way to start a fight," Ami commented as they were in awe to see that they were warning the civilians to get out from the area.

"And we never heard that language," Chiyo stated, didn't understand what Miho and Meat were yelling to the civilians in that record.

"What language were they speaking?" Yuko asked, as it interested her and Akashi.

"Portuguese," Ghost replied, their jaws dropping to hear his answer.

How the hell can Miho speak Portuguese?

"I wonder if I could have a language class here," Akashi said in wonder as they looked back to the screen.

"Oh, you will, sir."

* * *

As they moved up and took cover at the nearby buildings as best as they could. Roach could have said they were getting shoot at a lot. Hate to say it, but these bastards knew the place very well. Everything inside this goddamn Favela was nothing but a place full of ambushes.

Starting to wonder where the hell the militia got those RPGs.

"Roach, on your eleven!" Miho shouted to him, who was right next to him as she was shooting at the enemies in front of her. "Rooftops!"

Roach immediately aimed his rifle to his eleven o'clock towards the rooftop and popped two bastards in the head.

"Bravo Six, be advised – we've engaged enemy militia at the lower village!" Royce radioed as he killed three militias with his handgun out of cover. "Roach, Miho! I'm with you, go!"

As the three quickly ran out of cover followed up by Meat to the nearest building ahead, Miho and Roach jumped through the windows and took cover there as Royce and Meat took cover at the corner walls of the buildings. As Roach quickly shoot back at the enemy, a grenade came through a window in front of him and it startled him.

"Oh shit!" Roach quickly took the grenade from the floor and threw it out of the window to his right, killing 4 hostiles that were approaching their position. "Goddamn wanker!"

"LT! Hostiles on your 3 o'clock!" Royce shouted to Miho as he shoot the enemy hiding behind a door 10 feet away from him as Miho quickly jumped out of the window, doing an action roll, and shooting her rifle at the enemies ahead of her while in a crouch.

"Hostiles in the open!" Roach shouted as he managed to blow up 4 militias by simply shooting the explosive barrels near them through the window.

"Cover me! I'm moving up!" Meat shouted as he quickly moved up forward on the left side, Roach did the same as Miho and Royce marched up from the right side.

The numbers of enemies increased the longer they stayed this way.

"Royce, give me a sitrep, over!" Soap quickly radioed as the four had trouble shooting the bastards on the rooftops and avoid hitting the running civilians ahead.

"Lots of militia but no sign of Rojas over here, over!" Royce radioed as he shoots forward, Roach saw him nearly get flanked by the enemy from his right side if not for Miho who threw her knife hitting the bastard in the head.

"Copy that! Keep searching! Let me know if you see him! Out!" Soap quickly radioed before going dark.

"Roach! Move up! Let's go!" Royce said as they ran forward and stopped at cover whilst shooting back.

"Frag out!" Roach shouted as he threw a grenade ahead of them from cover, killing 3 of the militias, one of them flew through the window of a nearby building.

Roach quickly crouched down as some bullets went pass his head and shot 4 bastards who tried to shoot him, then reloading his rifle by tilting his rifle quickly to his right side before inserting a new mag. "Cover me!"

After they walked into the open, Roach saw Meat get shot multiple times by the militias showing up from their left, killing and dropping him to the ground hard. "Meat is down, I repeat! Meat is down!" Royce barked via radio as they quickly ran and crouched at the cover near the buildings.

"Goddamn!" Miho shouted angrily for their loss, she then tossed a flash bang out to the path in front of her it exploded and blinded around 9 militias on site. "Coma isso, seus bastardos!"

Roach saw her pull out her G18s in two hands quickly and mow them all down in about 3 seconds, before she quickly ran ahead on the left side of the lower village and jumped into cover at a small wall next to a building. Roach and Royce quickly moved forward on the left side to flank the bastards there. Roach went into a house, pulling out his M1014 shotgun and busted through the door. Roach randomly pulled the trigger and aimed at the enemies in front of him at point blank range. He managed to kill two and they both flew back from the buckshot. And then the other four who were gunned down by Roach and all of them did a back flip each in the air. Switching to his rifle, he looked through a window and saw Royce was standing out of his cover at the corner wall outside a building.

"I can't get a shot!" Miho radioed, Roach saw her from a distance trying to shoot some bastards in the building ahead of her with her G18s, she managed to kill 4 however after that they had to take cover from an incoming RPG.

"I got him!" Royce shouted as he took aim at the building Miho had to deal with. "AGH!"

Royce was shot by a militia member that popped up on the rooftop on his left with a rifle. Before the militia member was able to kill him, Roach aimed his rifle at him and shot him in the head. Roach jumped through the window and fired his grenade launcher ahead of both of them, blowing up 6 of them in a single explosion.

"Roach! I'm hit!" Royce shouted as Roach quickly dragged him to cover behind them.

"I got you covered!" Miho shouted as she from a distance ahead jumped out from cover and had a close-combat fight with three militia members with only her knife, a little overkill but she could handle it.

After Roach and Royce managed to get to safety, Roach quickly put Royce back to his feet and looked at his wounds. "You're doing fine, Royce!"

"Like hell I am!" Royce replied in annoyance, before they both reloaded their weapons. "Let's go!"

They both quickly walked out of their cover with their rifles aiming forward. Only to see Miho who just sorted out the three militia members. Two were already left dead on the ground, while the last one was kneeling and got his head stabbed by her knife right to his forehead. As they both approached her, she quickly pulled her knife out by swinging the knife along the dead man to her left, letting it out by itself as the dead man was thrown away from her. She was one deadly girl to mess with.

"You okay?" Miho quickly asked Royce as she holstered her knife and cocked her ACR.

"I'll live," Royce replied with a nod. "Let's go find Rojas."

"Alright, on me!" Miho ordered, as they slowly moved forward to the right which is west into a sprint, heading up above the lower village.

"Miho, Roach – we've got Rojas's location! He's headed west along the upper levels of the Favela!"

"Roger! We're heading straight there, Cap!" Miho radioed quickly as they ran faster.

"We'll keep him from doubling back on our side – keep going and cut him off up top!" Soap radioed again.

"Copy! We're cutting him off now!" Roach radioed as they kept running past a soccer field before going upstairs.

"There's no time for backup. You're gonna have to do this on your own. Good luck, out."

Knowing what Soap said at the end, they need to survive this shit show.

"Hostiles ahead! Take 'em down!" Miho barked as they quickly took cover at the small walls near the tennis field next to them with a dog in it.

They have to move forward to the west and take a path to the north after that. As they were shooting at each other, Roach noticed a dog was running at them from ahead. Roach quickly shot the dog down with his rifle, killing him as it dropped to the ground into a roll. Miho killed a bastard who took cover behind a window ahead as she walked out from cover and went past a building in a walking stance. Miho took an alley path on the right side of that building while Roach and Royce took the left one.

After killing two militias inside that alley, they both reached the end of that path. Royce quickly turned left with his rifle while Roach turned to the right, they found one enemy in that path. Before Roach killed him however, Miho was already behind the militia member and stabbed through his neck from behind him with her knife. Miho pulled the knife out the man's neck by force before holstering it and walking up the stairs to the north before turning left as they passed through high buildings on their left and right.

"Roach, Royce, Miho! This is their territory and they know it well! Keep an eye for ambush positions and check your corners!" Soap radioed, as Roach heard Soap that was actually chasing Rojas from the running sound his captain made.

"Ain't that great!" Royce commented in annoyance, as they quickly dodged the incoming bullets from the second story window before Roach finished him off with a grenade launcher to a window.

"Watch the rooftops! We've had a few close calls with RPGs and machine guns positioned up high!"

"Copy that, Captain!" Miho shouted via radio, as the of them three quickly entered a lower building to the left as they received fire from enemies up high by crossing boards.

Miho quickly looked around and saw that there was a flight of stairs inside the building they're in. "Roach! You go up the stairs, we'll provide covering fire from here!"

Roach quickly nodded and headed for the stair leading up to the roof of the building as Royce and Miho went forward in the house until they can't be seen. Before he reached up, he heard an explosion of a flash bang. Looks like Miho tossed another one towards the enemies to blind them as the enemies up high were shot down by the time Roach reached the roof.

As they had trouble shooting the enemies up high and on the street level, they can hear Soap radioing to them. "Miho, Roach! We're taking heavy fire from the militia here but I'm still tracking Rojas! He's gone into a building! Ghost, you see him?"

"Roger that, he's climbing onto a roof carrying a black duffel bag!" Ghost replied quickly, that was the time when Roach looked to his right and their target climbing the rooftops above 5 meters from him.

"Captain, I see him!" Roach barked via radio as he shoots at the enemy up front again.

"Well, that ought to slow him down! Miho, we're keeping him from doubling back! Moving to intercept! Go, go!"

"Copy that!" Miho shouted as Roach took out the last bastards on the rooftop on their right, narrowly dodging the incoming RPG. "Royce, Roach, let's go!"

"Aye!" Royce replied quickly, Roach jumped down to the roof with Miho and Royce who came out the building they're in before sprinting forward.

"Keep going! Rojas is still headed towards your side of the Favela!" Soap radioed before Miho went upstairs ahead while the other two 141s going right, Roach melees a militia by shoving the gun barrel of his Fal to the bastard's right at the corner turn and pulled him near Roach to meet a blade to his throat.

"Contacts, twelve o'clock!" Royce shouted as he quickly side stepped to his left and met a wall as he shot back at the multiple enemies ahead with Roach covering him from a corner wall next to him.

After Miho relieved Roach and Royce by showing up from the left alley ahead of them and shooting two militias that had RPGs with headshots, they quickly marched forward as they shoot at the enemies. "I'm lost sight of him again! Ghost, talk to me!" Soap radioed in annoyance as Roach heard Soap having some trouble with some militias through his radio.

"I'm onto him! He's trying to double back through the alleys below!" Ghost barked through the radio as they can hear Ghost was actually chasing down Rojas.

"Roger that! Stay on him!" Soap radioed back again as Roach's team went up hill and neutralized hostiles that took cover behind a small wall underneath the roof of the porch with a grenade.

"I got a visual on Rojas! He's cutting through the market!" Ghost shouted through the radio.

"Roger that I'll head to the rooftops and try to cut him off on the right! He's going to have no choice but to head west!" Soap radioed again as Roach and Miho cleared out the building near the small wall with their shotgun and G18s while Royce dealt with some bastards on the rooftop, Miho took a couple of hits to her stomach but she was fine thanks to her bulletproof vest.

"Good to hear that, Cap!" Roach shouted in relieve as he shot some bastards on the rooftop with his shotgun from a distance ahead.

"I'm taking a lot of fire from the militia, I don't think I can track him through the market! I'm going to have to find another way around!" Ghost radioed again, well that's just great.

"Ain't that great!" Royce commented sick to his gut because of this militia messing them up, as he tosses a frag into the enemy in the open, hitting one of them in the head before blowing up the three of them as he reloads his rifle.

"Be advised! I'm about a half a click east side of the market I can see Rojas running across the rooftops on my right side!" Ghost radioed as Roach's team advanced from their current position into the open, dealing with the bastards on the rooftops on their left up high.

"Roger that! Miho, Roach! We're corralling him closer to your side of the hill! Keep an eye out for Rojas! He's still making his way across the rooftops!"

"Roger that!" Miho radioed who was right next to Roach she killed 4 enemies on the rooftops on their left with accurate shots from her G18s.

Miho and Royce then moved up to the next building not far from the previous one and began cleaning up inside. Roach only stays outside as he put some rounds of his grenade launchers towards the incoming enemies that were going downstairs on his 11 o'clock. He moved to the wall of the building on his left side and soon he saw Miho and Royce come out that building from his right and provide cover fire until it's clear. They soon moved up as Ghost's radio sparkled to life.

"Sir, I've got Rojas in my sights! We can go for a clean leg shot! We can end it here!" Ghost radioed.

"Negative! We can't risk it! Keep chasing him!" Soap radioed quickly.

"Bollocks! Alright, I'm chasing him down!" Ghost radioed as Roach's team turned left, went up the stairs and entered the building and climbed up a ladder that lead them to the lower part of the rooftops and in the open, quickly taking cover by the nearby wall and bags of cement from the incoming enemy gun fire.

"Roach! I've spotted Rojas he's making a run for it! He's heading your way!" Soap radioed quickly, they all soon spotted a small glance of Rojas running on the rooftops on their right.

"Mactavish! I see Rojas on our right!" Miho radioed as they quickly shoot back at the enemy and advanced to a small wall and a corner wall.

"Roger that! And don't shoot him! We need him alive and unharmed!" Soap radioed quickly.

"Roger that!" Roach then spotted enemies on rooftops on a distance on their right. "Royce! 2 o'clock high!"

They quickly moved up after Miho dealt with the two militias shooting from the rooftops from their right. They walked forward quickly as they pulled their triggers aiming at the enemies on the rooftops relentlessly and ignoring the bullets that were flying past them. Quite efficient and had those bastards killed, one of them fell off the rooftop and nearly hit Miho.

"Miho! We're going to cut him off at the summit, keep pushing him that way, go go!" Soap radioed as they ran forward across the lower rooftops then turned right.

As they went upstairs and shot two militias with Roach's shotgun before turning right, Soap radioed to Ghost. "Ghost, he's going for that motorcycle!"

After Roach shot gunned the last militia inside a small building on their left, they turned right again and walked upstairs. They then heard Ghost on the radio, he was actually shooting the motorcycle Rojas was on. Then they heard a crash produced by the motorcycle Rojas was on. Ghost just shot down his motorcycle.

"No, he's not!" Ghost radioed as Roach's team were happy to hear Ghost immobilized Rojas's transport.

"Nice! He's breaking to the right again! Miho, Roach, if you see him, don't shoot him! I need him unharmed!" Soap radioed as they three faced up against as resistance popped out from the buildings on their left and right.

As they walked forward with their accurate aim at the militias ahead, Soap radioed again. "We've got eyes on Rojas – wait! Shite! He's headed back towards you!"

"Miho, he's on the move and headed towards you. Go! Go!" Soap radioed quickly after Roach along with his team managed to shoot them all in the heads and the chests of the militias.

"Roger, we're running toward him! Standby!" Miho radioed as the three quickly sprinted ahead towards the end right part of that hill.

"Miho! He's jumped another fence and he's headed towards your end of the Favela! Keep moving up! Go! Go!" Soap radioed as they run. "Ghost! I'm going far right!"

They quickly turned left and ran up a stair alley, before turning right into an intersection of alleys on that hill. "He's gonna get away!" Ghost radioed quickly as Roach's team saw Rojas was in front of them on the third floor balcony of that building.

"No, he's not," Soap radioed casually, before Roach and the rest just saw that he tackled Rojas by jumping right through the window on the left front side of the building, off the balcony.

Soap still holding Rojas tight until…

*BRAAK*

They both landed on a now-roof smashed car, landing Rojas's front body first with Soap behind him. Roach can tell, that jump really fucking hurts. Soap quickly pulled out his pistol as Ghost quickly showed up from the left side of the building on their level and aimed his rifle at Rojas who is now lying in defeat on the roof of the car. Roach, Miho and Royce aimed their rifles at Rojas who is gun-pointed very close to Soap. They have captured the HVT.

"That's one hell of a way to take him down," Miho commented, who received a 'yep' from Roach and Royce.

"That was bloody nothing," Soap replied quickly with a smirk.

"Frontrunner, this is Bravo Six. We've got the package. I repeat, we have got the package," Soap said into the radio as his aims never leave Rojas's head.

"Command, ready to dust off. Send the chopper. Coordinates to fol-" Ghost paused again, startled and shock to the command's reply through his radio. "Bollocks! The skies are clear! Send the chopper, now."

Record End

* * *

After the record ends, Ghost takes a look at the faces of the three women and a man who were the representatives of the Japan government. If he had to admit, all of them were in awe on how the 141 finished the job. Seven men of the 141, taking casualties of two members only, and five of them were able to make their way to their target through the horde of armed Brazilians militia forces who knew their own territory very well. The JGSDF never had soldiers that could do stuff like that and survive. Akashi really approved of this Task Force.

"Wow, that was the most intense kind of gunfight you people ever had," Akashi commented as they all get off their seats and clapped his hands slowly towards Ghost. "I couldn't believe you survived that."

"Me too," Ami added with a nod. "And it's the first time to see a record that Miho does that kind of mission."

"Aw Miho? She's really a cracked-nut soldier," Ghost replied as if he was teasing her quite bad with his flat tone. "And I can assure you, she's still a girl but you don't want to mess with her, don't even think about giving her a knife."

"We'll keep that in mind about her," Chiyo replied with a nod. "But now, seeing a record like that from your time in 2016s, we believed you are the best."

"Well, of course we want to see it for ourselves," Yuko added with her eyes closed. "But your Task Force will do enough to help the Japanese SDF for now."

"Good to hear that," Ghost replied with a nod, smiling underneath his mask.

"Your Task Force will do well with another country, right?" Akashi asked, wanting to make sure. "Since it is a multinational Task Force."

"Yeah, we are," Ghost replied with a nod and a thumbs up. "But since our current status is PMC, I don't even know how they will react about that."

"What's PMC?" Yuko asked as they all glared at Ghost, except Ami and Chiyo.

"Private Military Company," Ami replied, Yuko and Akashi were surprised if she knows that.

"True, this Task Force was originally established by the American, Australian, Canadian and the British government," Ghost replied with a nod and a shrug. "But after our Task Force was declared disavowed, our status was PMC at that time, and after our names were cleared our Task Force came back into being a operational Special Forces Group again. But reminding that Miho's intention to continue the legacy of this Task Force, it doesn't mean we're disavowed but our current status is PMC after we entered another kind of world different from ours, just because currently there are no countries that ever heard or recognized this Task Force."

"I see, and you just kept saying that your world is different," Yuko replied, a little puzzled on the word 'different'. "What's with that?"

"In their universe, there was no such thing as Sensha-Do," Chiyo replied, which earned the cringing face of Yuko and Akashi. "Umm, you okay?"

"Sorry, we just… can't believe to hear that," Akashi scratched his head as he looked at Ghost. "But I can't say that's not true of course."

"So… about helping us out getting job and funds?" Ghost asked, reminding them of their primary topic.

"Alright, we'll be heading back soon and talk to some officers about what we do with your people," Akashi stated as he looked over his phone. "Since this Task Force never been heard or recognized by any country except us, would you want to keep this Task Force as a classified military organization?"

"Sure, that would be helpful," Ghost replied with a nod. "We don't bother if our Task Force or what will be looked ever heard or seen. What we like to avoid is that people found out the classified information of this Task Force and our identities, only Japanese officials like you we're good with."

"Then everything is settled," Yuko replied with a smile. "But we will need someone from your organization to represent your Task Force."

"That would be me, and I just knew the man who will be with me," Ghost then looked to his left towards a corner of the briefing room and waved his hand to make a 'come here' gesture. "Royce, come here for a moment."

Soon, Royce came into their view and stood next to Ghost. It was quite surprising for them to see one of the surviving soldiers that just so happened to be from his mission in Brazil. Akashi, Ami, Yuko and Chiyo felt honored to meet him.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is Royce, one of our best man in the 141," Ghost introduced him to them as he patted Royce's shoulder.

"It's good to meet you all," Royce then turned his head to Ghost. "Do you need anything, sir?"

"Royce, you'll be going with me alongside them so we can be the representatives of the 141 in the face of the Japanese military officials," Ghost explained to him as he waved his hand to the Japanese. "Pack what you need and come to us. We're going to get a job soon enough."

"Roger, it's good to hear that," Royce said with a smile as he turned his head to the Japanese who were also smiling.

"Alright, people, let's settle out!"


	11. Chapter 11 - A Good Day To Be Off-Duty

Two days later, in the morning, Miho was currently having breakfast with her sister and her mother. You know, if Miho had to admit it right now, this kind of breakfast was quite a lot better than the breakfast they usually had back with the 141. Yeah, she knew the food back in 2016-17 wasn't that bad, but this was much better than the previous one. She was starting to think both Japanese and British food were her favorites for sure. She let that thought go away for now and finished up her food along with her sister and her mother.

A few minutes after breakfast, Miho alone left the room and headed outside the house. Too be exact, into the gardens of the Nishizumi residence. She took a couple of turns to the left and right and reached a door ahead in one of the rooms leading to the gardens. She slid the door open, revealing the backyard ahead. Before she sat down at the bottom left of the door, her left leg partially hanging out the door.

Right now, she was wearing her white pants like one of Cpt. Prices white combat pants. A black hoodie jacket with four pouches on the front. Underneath her jacket was her black blank T-shirt, supposedly became her favorite after Soap wore that kind of shirt during the mission in the Favela. Her tactical sunglasses were inside one of her jackets pouches. And her grey boonie hat was lying still next to her.

Her little sleepy eyes were watching out the backyard that is still drowning in an ocean of snow. Enjoying the breeze of the windy winter produced by the cloudy snow as snow was still falling down from the sky. It was quite the enjoyable sight she was seeing, like the winter back in Russia. Kind of ironic though, the winter in Russia is much colder than in Japan, at least by a few numbers Celsius. But want to know what's much colder than the winter itself? The time when you are swimming in the Siberian sea.

There was a reason actually, about why she's currently enjoying the breeze of the winter. She was annoyed about what her sister and her mother did in her room. When she already woke up on her bed an hour ago, she was a little surprised to see she was in between Maho and Shiho on her bed. Both of them weren't wearing anything that time as they both had their cameras pointing straight towards Miho. Shiho was saying that Miho had forgotten rule number 78 of the Nishizumi-Style: Mauser Under The Pillow. For the reason of having her guard down to have an intruder entered her room.

Miho, in annoyance and bad temper, had reached her hand under her pillow. Both Shiho and Maho didn't check out what was underneath her pillow that time. When her sister and her mother saw that Miho pulled out an actual grenade from under her pillow. Miho remembered both Maho's and Shiho's eyes widen in fear to see her holding a real frag grenade.

Miho had threatened them that they had five seconds to get out from her room before she would blow the room sky high. To make their fear increase even more is that she pulled out the grenade pin first, so letting her hand off the grenade was the only way to end their own lives. In a swift motion, they both quickly got get dressed and ran out of her room. It would be the last time for Miho to have something like that, because she was getting sick of it since she came back to Kumamoto for a long time. And she was swearing to God, Queen and Country that she will blow herself up if that happens.

After Miho remembered her grudge for that event, she pulled out her box of cigars and picked one. Putting the box into her pouch, Miho pulled out her lighter and lit the cigar on the front end of the cigar. After lighting it, she puts back her lighter and inhale in her cigar to make the front end of the cigar burned thoroughly. After that, she held her cigar on her right hand first to look at the sight of the snowy gardens. Before turning her head to the right side of the door she's in and smoked her cigar.

Aah… the taste of the Villa Clara's is good. Captain Price's and Captain Soap's favorite, Miho should remind herself if the 141 HQ had any cigars like this, because hopefully she can enjoy them until the last of it (in reality, she wanted it infinite). Soap bought her one in an old tobacco store that time after he invited her to watch a horse race. If horses didn't work, if a good day didn't work, smoking will, like what Soap said that time.

After a moment she was watching the snowy backyard, she heard some footsteps approaching her from behind. Without bothering to look who it was again, she knew that it was Maho and she was right to guess who was walking over to her. Miho breathed out the small fog of smoke from her mouth into the air, vanishing into nothingness with the wind. Maho then sat down next to Miho as she also watched the backyard as well. From what she could tell right now, now she was annoyed with the presence of her sister.

"Now what the bloody hell do you want, Maho?" Miho asked a bit peeved as she was not bothering to look at her, her sister was taken aback by Miho's reaction.

"J-just wanted to see how you are doing, Miho," Maho replied nervously and awkwardly as she was holding her hands to each other on her chest.

"Well, what do you think how I'm doing?" Miho asked sarcastically as she turned her head towards her.

"You still look upset from the look on your face," Maho replied in concern.

"I've been here for three days and I just got a fuckin' 'rule of the Nishizumi' bullshit just got back to my old home!" Miho retorted, Maho quickly flinched at her words. "Is that what you always do after someone who is a part of your family got back home after a god damn war, right in my fucking bed?"

"No, not really but-" Maho's words then eventually got cut off by Miho.

"Then don't," Miho replied quickly in annoyance. "You should be glad that I didn't blow us sky high with my grenade."

They both stared at each other for a moment, before Miho slowly turned her head towards the backyard again. Miho smoked as Maho was still staring at her little grown-up sister. But then Maho turned her head towards what Miho was looking at. The view of the snowy backyard of their home is actually something for them to feel relieve from. Maho reminded of something to see this.

The snowy garden reminded Maho of Pravda's place, including its battlefield. Because Pravda's place was in the most northern part of Japan, fucking hell the cold winter up north there was something she can't take on her legs (option to wear something to cover her legs was unconsidered). It would be fun actually, to see the Pravda students making snowmen, Igloos, and play by throwing snowballs. But for Maho, she didn't really think or wanted to have 'fun' with that. The only 'fun' she knew was her part in Panzerfahren.

After a moment of silence in between the two, Miho asked Maho without looking at her. "Why you're here?"

"Excuse me?" Maho asked as she looked at Miho.

"Why you're here?" Miho asked again as she continued to smoke and looked towards her sister.

"Just wanted to say we're sorry for what we did this morning," Maho then paused for a moment. "And I wanted to talk to you for now if you like."

"Hmpf," Miho then breathed out the smoke from her mouth. "Reminds you of Pravda, doesn't it?"

"Uh? Yeah…" Maho awkwardly replied. "Like that winter in Pravda's place."

"That reminds me of something," Miho said as she tilted her head to Maho. "Did they think that I was dead?"

"Oh, yes, they did," Maho replied with a nod. "Even Katyusha had to take back everything she said about you after hearing what you did to save your friends before you fell with the bridge."

"That's a good thing to hear," Miho replied with a smirk. "But now, we don't know how she will react to see that I'm actually still alive."

"I don't even want to know," Maho added with a soft smile. "Also there's someone who is new to Pravda High School."

"Hm? Who is she?" Miho asked, interested with the new girl she never heard of.

"Her name is Klara" Maho then showed a paper picture of Klara from her pocket of her shirt. "She is a transfer student from Novosibirsk, Russia."

"A Russian?" Miho asked, really happy to hear that there was another Russian in Japan besides her friends back in the 141. "Heh, good to hear that."

"Hang on, you have Russian friends too besides Vicek right?" Maho asked, very surprised of Miho's reaction.

"Three hundred of them, yeah," Miho replied with a nod as she smoked. "They were Loyalists long ago back in the 2000s. They participated in the Russian Second Civil War and the Third World War. Crazy wankers that´s for sure."

"I see," Maho replied with winced eyes in understanding.

"How's mother doing right now?" Miho asked, startling Maho with that question. "I'm sure she was still afraid of me after that grenade she saw."

"Well… she is…" Maho replied awkwardly. "But now she's going to work soon."

"So… planning to go somewhere?" Miho asked as she smoked.

"Well, along with Erika and Akaboshi only," Maho replied with a shrug. "You're in?"

"Yeah, I'm in," Miho replied, agreed as she nods to Maho.

* * *

Japan Sensha-Do Federation Department, 11:00 AM

The Japanese Sensha-Do Federation Department is a place where people worked to handle tank matches. It's also a place where the league produces the ammunition for the tanks. More than that, there are committees inside that they have worked on some sections that apply on what they can do. And Shiho? She's the Chairperson of the Pro-League Committee. And hence that's why the Nishizumis were a popular but also feared name in Japan.

The Director of the Federation would be Shichiro Kodama, a tall and well-built man with a thin moustache. He is bald and has brown eyes. He wears a cream-colored boater hat with a black ribbon whenever he's going outside. The Strengthening Committee would be Ami Chōno herself. Chiyo Shimada on the other hand, was actually the head of the University Sensha-Do team.

Shiho was walking down the hallway of the federation building. Shiho was currently heading for the committee meeting room after she was called in by PA systems. She did hear about Miho's Lieutenant and Second-In-Command that were coming to the Sensha-Do Federation to have a good argument regarding the 141 and the Japanese Government cooperation. She just heard it from Chiyo herself regarding about that.

But, there's one thing that kept bothering Shiho. Miho's Lieutenant, that guy called Ghost. She still doesn't know what Ghosts other valid reasons to wear that mask at all times was. It is really bothering her, plus with the sunglasses he was wearing, it was kind of scary if someone wanted to know what his face looks like despite the little personality he had. Shiho did stare into his eyes through his glasses, and she felt one thing from his eyes.

Death

Now, Shiho wasn't sure if she can trust him because he was a friend of her own daughter. Or not to trust him because of his back-story before joining up with the 141st. But then, she forced herself to decide to trust Ghost, since he was said to be a reliable and a trustworthy soldier according to Miho. Saying that he will do anything he can to get the job done. Heh, sounds like that's the 141 for Shiho.

A few minutes later, she reached the door of the committee meeting room. There was a sign of the committee meeting room next to the double doors and a banner of the Sensha-Do Federation above it. It's an easy way to know which room she needed to enter after an incident in the department that men went into the wrong room (you know what I mean). Shiho entered the room and looked around the room.

Besides the people from JGSDF and some committees who were waiting inside, it was a large room in blue and cyan color that formed a sea pattern. A large rectangle white table in the middle of the room and a lot of office chairs with wheels around the table. There was a white large blank screen that was hanging on one side of the meeting room's wall, and some sort of device left on the table. Turns out, when she asked Ami about it, she told her that it was an LCD Projector for presentation purposes, which actually still doesn't exist in this year. And there are some decorations related to the Sensha-Do Federation ranging from pictures to small plagues on the wall.

Shiho then walked over to her friends at the table. Chiyo, Ami and Shichiro were there, including Akashi and Yuko. Shiho was very glad that Renta Tsuji is nowhere in here. For his description, he is a tall, thin man with dark and large black hair, wearing rectangular spectacles. He wears a formal business suit and tie. He is a MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-Japan) official whose job is the administration of Japan's fleet of high school carrier ships. He has considerable influence in his field, in addition to having a hand in the legal branch of the Sensha-dō Federation (which gave Shiho the sick of it about that).

Why the hell the MEXT official is not here? It's clear, because he wasn't informed about this since he was a minister of Education involving dealing with school carriers, he does not have any involvement with the military, and if he even heard about this he won't be interested about it anyway even if it's important. Second reason, is that the presentation of the 141 has been restricted to only members of the military organization and the Sensha-Do Federation members, any ministers or other officials that are not the members of the military or the Sensha-Do organization have been forbidden to attend this meeting to maintain the 141 classified information from getting leaked by them (Shiho didn't know about this reason). Shiho will know they will be surprised as hell to know that the current commanding Field-Officer of the 141 right now would be her own daughter. Heck, don't know what will happen next if they all will found out that part.

"Gogo, min'na," Shiho greeted with a smile. "Is everyone already here?"

"Everyone except those 141, Shiho-fujin," Ami replied with a bow as the others nodded. "They'll be coming soon enough."

"I'm glad Renta isn't here," Shiho commented in relieve as she looked around. "I was thinking he would come to this room."

They all stared at her blankly, surprised by her comment. "Why are you looking at me like that?" Shiho asked as she was puzzled by their stares.

"You didn't hear it?" Chiyo asked as her head leans to Shiho. "The people who will attend this meeting are only restricted to military officials and the Sensha-Do members, ministers and other officials are forbidden to attend this meeting."

"Oh?" Shiho replied as she quickly leaning her head back. "I thought he will be coming as well, you do know he has a legal part in the Sensha-Do, right?"

"He's a minister of the MEXT, so he won't come," Shichiro added confidently with hetr eyes closed. "Besides, why would he come anyway? Military stuff doesn't interest him much."

"But, why with the restriction?" Shiho asked, as she wanted further details.

"The 141 wanted to have their information classified," Akashi replied as his hands were in the pockets of his pants. "They wanted that their information will not get leaked to the public by anyone else besides us."

"Yeah… besides…" Yuko trailed as she scratched her head. "It would be Captain Miho Nishizumi you'll be thinking of."

"Wait, Captain who?" Shichiro asked, as he felt that he misheard what Ami just said.

"Captain Miho Nishizumi," Yuko said to him, Shichiro eyes went wide and left his mouth hanging open.

"I thought she died a year ago in that mock-up battle accident in Ooarai," Shichiro stated as he felt disbelieve about it, he didn't get informed about Miho earlier before this meeting.

"She survived actually, but she disappeared into another universe at that time," Shiho replied to his statement.

Shichiro can do nothing but to glance at Shiho. "What do you mean she disappeared into another universe?"

"It would be better if the 141 to explain that to you," Chiyo answered to hold back his question.

"And how did Miho become a Captain of the 141st, isn't she supposed to be a commander in the Panzerfahren program?" Shichiro asked again, which made Chiyo, Ami and Shiho frown.

"It's a long story actually," Shiho replied. "But she is the currently the commanding Field-Officer of the 141st."

"What?!" Shichiro asked nearly aloud in shock as his head quickly leaned forward to Shiho. "I didn't see that coming."

After a moment of talking to each other, one of the people inside the meeting room noticed to hear and see a door open. An official officer of the Japanese military saw there were around four members of the 141 that entered the room. The four of them then walked over afar from table and stood there. The Japanese officer then said aloud.

"They're here."

All of the Japanese officials inside then turned their attention towards the four from the 141st, including Shiho's group. Besides Ghost, Shiho saw another three men she didn't recognize. One was a black man with thin hair with his helmet hanging on his Kevlar vest. One was a young white man with his cap facing to the back of his head. And the last one was a white man in his 30s, with his short black hair and his mustache and beard on his chin.

They all were fully surprised to see the 141st were fully equipped in their combat uniforms. But what was absent from them was their rifles (which Ghost and the others left to the security personnel) except their pistols that they had in their holsters. And If Shiho had to admit, Shichiro and some of the officials were quite awed to see a skull-masked man right in front of them. Shiho, Ami, Chiyo, Yuko and Akashi only smiled to see them.

"Good afternoon, everyone," Ghost started as his arms crossed. "Sorry if we're a little late."

"Don't worry about it," a Japanese Officer named Colonel Murai said, who was near Shiho's group. "You're just in time."

"Alright everyone, let's us introduce ourselves," Ghost then pointed his thumb to himself in front of his chest. "My name is Ghost, a Second-In-Command of the Task Force 141. You'll always remember me by the mask I'm always wearing."

Ghost then points to the black soldier who was next to him. "This man right here, his name is Chemo. One of my best man, and I'm giving a warning to you, DO NOT be racist to him unless you want to learn how to fly from him personally."

All of the Japanese knew exactly what Ghost meant by that, as they feared this black man. Ghost then pointed his head to the soldier with his cap. "This man on my right is Chrome. A good soldier and he's Canadian, always saying sorry to everyone until writing the word sorry on his bullets for his enemies."

 _"Do all Canadians do that?"_ Shiho and Shichiro thought as they give a cringed face to Chrome.

Ghost then pointed his finger to the last man on his very right. "And that last man on my very right is Royce. A hard-cracked Sergeant"

Five of the officials, four military including Akashi and Shichiro himself stepped forward to him. "It's good to know you all. My name is Shichiro Kodama, the Director of the Sensha-Do Federation."

"You know who I am," Akashi added. "These three officers who are beside me are Colonel Murai Kuichi, General Hiroshi Subaru, and Lieutenant General Kubo Yugoro."

"It's an honor to meet you, Ghost," General Hiroshi said as he shook hands with Ghost.

"The pleasure is also mine," Ghost replied with a soft tone, he then looked over to Shiho and the rest of her group. "Ms. Shiho, Ms. Ami, Ms. Chiyo and Lieutenant Yuko It is good to meet you again here."

"It's good to meet you, Ghost-san," Shiho replied with a smile and a bow.

"Just call me Ghost," he replied with open palms pointing to her. "There's no need for formalities for us."

"May I ask something, Ghost?" Colonel Murai asked. "Where's the commanding officer of the 141st right now, besides the Second-in-Command?"

"I'm afraid she's actually off-duty for now, so I'll be handling the 141st for now," Ghost replied, but all of them except Shiho's group were surprised on what he said.

"Hang on, 'she'?" Lt. General Kubo asked. "May we know who she is?"

"Her name and rank are Captain Miho Nishizumi, the commanding officer of the 141," Ghost replied, they all only stared blankly at him as they left their mouths open.

"Excuse me, Miho Nishizumi?" General Hiroshi asked in disbelieve with a small smile. "The daughter of Shiho Nishizumi? You've got to be kidding right?"

"I'm afraid he's not," Shiho answered with a flat tone, everyone quickly glanced at her. "I saw her with my own eyes and she's alive. She didn't die in that practice incident in Ooarai."

"If… that's what you said, then where is she?" Colonel Murai asked slowly as he stared at Shiho.

"She's at home in Kumamoto," Chiyo answered as she waved her fan to herself. "I heard she was hanging out with her sister and her old friends there."

"Oh? I see," General Hiroshi said in understanding.

"Yeah, we've been through world war 3 with Miho so…" Chemo said with a shrug, then paused. "I can't say how she might be doing after that."

"We understand," Ami replied with a nod. "So, when we will have your presentation?"

Ghost then looked over to his men with him and gave them the nod. "Yes sir," Ghost's men said with a nod and prepped everything for the presentation.

All Japanese officials of the military and the Sensha-Do federation then began to take their seats as they waited for Ghost and his men to prepped anything up. Shiho took her seat between Yuko and Chiyo, which then she had a conversation between the three of them. Chiyo is a best friend of Shiho, yes, but there is something else about Chiyo besides that. Shiho is really annoyed about Chiyo complaining about her daughter, so there will be on some occasions, talk like mad.

Chiyo have asked Shiho about how's Miho doing. Which in reply, Shiho said Miho's doing a little well. When Chiyo had a feeling about the word 'little', Chiyo asked her again what's wrong. When Shiho admitted what she and Maho did to Miho inside Miho's bedroom in the morning, Chiyo gave a scared and cringed face to her when she heard from Shiho that Miho nearly killed her and Maho with a grenade. They should remind themselves to not set Miho off after hearing that.

It took around six minutes for Ghost and his men to prepare everything up from their laptops and securing the office. Ghost then started his presentation via his laptop to the LCD projector and diverted everyone's attention towards him. Ghost made his presentation from introduction of the 141 until the part past how the 141 operates during missions. If Shiho had to admit, she along with the rest were quite pleased to listen to his presentation.

Ghost even gave them a video presentation of one of their missions. From the looks of it, the video was the continuation mission in the Favela for the video Chiyo, Ami, Yuko and Akashi watched yesterday. They were even glad to see Royce was in that video as well along with Chemo. They saw Captain Mactavish in the video, Ghost said he was the commanding Field-Officer of the 141 back in 2016. But their faces went wide in awe to see Miho, in her combat uniform and weapons at the ready and what she was doing in that video. If Shiho had to admit, Miho looked very awesome to be fighting with the 141.

They watched of how a handful of soldiers managed to get through a lot Brazil Militias, even with a few casualties. They watched how the fight through Roach's view. And they were frightened by the name of God that they saw Miho had shot gunned a lot of enemies ahead of them with her dual Model 1887 shotgun. After each shot Miho did, she flipped and twist her shotguns into a back flip to load in another shell by the safety trigger before taking aim to kill another enemy. Miho really was a professional, or even an expert soldier in that video.

When they watched until the part where Miho's team nearly reached the extraction point via rooftops. They jumped a gap of the rooftops and made it across, except for Roach himself as he fell off the ledge of the roofs and Soap nearly grabbed his hand before falling down. After Roach got up and ran through buildings to escape the militias to the rooftops. They heard Nikolai had informed Roach that he had thirty seconds before the chopper left because it was running out of fuel. Roach runs and jumps over the rooftops before quickly turning left to go down the rooftops. Roach then turned right twice and slid down the diagonal rooftops and then kept running after landing on a flat surface.

Roach kept running through a building, heading toward the edge of the area which was only cliff. The chopper showed up from above and dropped the ladder into the air. It was his last chance to escape as the Japanese who watched the video were felt very awed. After Soap yelled to Roach to jump, he jumped….And managed to hang on to the ladder. Quickly prompting Nikolai to fly the chopper away from the hostile area. They could hear that Miho felt very glad that he made it through the radio.

After the video, the presentation continued on. Don't know how long until it will finish. But Shiho knew it will be soon enough.

* * *

Kumamoto City Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. 13:00 PM

"No, I won't allow you to join up with them!"

"But, Miho, I wanted to…"

"That's a negative, sister. I don't want you to risk your life for that."

Miho is still wearing the same jacket, T-shirt and pants for now as the Kuromorimine girls wore their usual school outfit. Miho had her grey boonie hat on her head, much to Cpt. Price's style. It made the girls with her wonder why she loved boonie hats.

Miho was right now walking down the snowy streets of Kumamoto City, approximately on the north side of the city. She was walking with Maho, Erika and Akaboshi in the streets. Her mood has gone bad once again due to the request Maho had been asking a few days ago. It was not a good request actually, which made Miho worried about it.

Maho has been asking Miho to let her join up with the 141, which is out of the question. Even Maho's incredible recognition to be Japan's best Sensha-Do commander, Miho won't fucking allow it. She doesn't want anyone else like Maho to put her life at risk for this. Maho maybe knew how to handle weapons that the tank used, but not rifles and such. She had enough losing people if that was what you're asking.

Miho managed to shut Maho's mouth for now, seeing how pissed Miho was right now. Something that Erika would like to avoid too get from Miho, even though she doesn't know what Miho is capable of. Miho was walking in line with her group as they marched forward and looked around. The same usual things in the street, except for people that were doing renovations on a couple of the buildings.

Miho then looked over to Maho and opened her mouth as she lifted her boonie hat a little to give her a good sight. "Why the bloody hell do you keep asking about that?"

"Well…." Maho paused for a moment in thought. "Look I wanted to join up because I failed you as a sister. I should have followed you to Ooarai so I can prevent that but…. *sigh* I just wanted to be able to protect you and know how to fight. So I know how to save someone that I love."

Miho stopped walking, sighed. She looked down to the ground not knowing what to do with her eyes closed. If Maho's reason was that, Miho's the same. But one difference between Miho and Maho was one. And Maho won't gonna like it. Miho then lifted her head in a feeling of sorrow.

"Are you okay, Miho-san?" Erika asked in concern to her sorrowful face.

Miho paused for a moment she then looked over to Erika. "I don't know…. I'm just….."

Miho wasn't sure what to say to them right now, she was quite doubtful for now as she stood there in silence. "Miho? You alright?" Akaboshi asked as she looked at Miho's face

Miho didn't look at Akaboshi instead she just stared blankly ahead in silence. "Imouto-san?" Maho called, as she then fell silent to wait for Miho's reply.

Miho then looked up to Maho, as her face looked like someone who has been through hell. "Many people gave me reasons like that. Same as mine"

Maho, Erika and Akaboshi just stared at her in silence after hearing her reply, not sure whether to smile or not. "But I have one different reason why I joined up."

Maho raised her brow to that. "And what is it?"

Miho stayed silent for a moment, before she gave a cold reply. "Revenge"

All of the sudden, their spines felt cold after they heard that. Maho could only think on one thing why she wanted revenge. A revenge on her own family. But that would be crazy for Miho, knowing she is a good veteran officer. For Erika, Miho wanted revenge on Kuromorimine for what Erika had done to her. For Akaboshi, Miho must've been talking about someone from her own war in the other world.

"Miho…" Erika started, agitated. "You-you wanted revenge… from us?"

Miho glanced at Erika with winced eyebrows. "Even if I had a grudge against you and the rest of you, I don't have any reason to have revenge against you."

Maho and Erika raised their eyebrows in puzzlement. "So… who is it?" Erika asked.

"Is it someone from your own war?" Akaboshi asked to which Miho then glanced with a soft expression to her.

"Well… yeah…" Miho then sighed as she closed her eyes and looked away from them for a moment. "I do rather not talk about it."

"We understand," Maho replied, they then began to walk again.

They fell silent for a moment as they continued to walk, before Miho asked something to Maho. "You're not done about the 141 aren't you?"

Maho was silent for a moment as she glanced at Miho. "Well… yeah…"

"Alright how about this?" Miho stopped walking as the rest did the same, her whole body facing towards Maho. "So I can shut your mouth about it, I'll let you join up with the 141. But I want you to ask mother about it for approval. More than that, I don't want other friends to join up with the 141 except you. Understood?"

"Alright," Maho replied with a nod, but felt something in her words. "Umm, Miho. You sounded like you wanted to stay silent about the 141."

"I actually intended to keep Task Force 141 existence to be classified especially identities and other information," Miho explained as she shrugged. "Even if the 141st operates in a public area, anyone else won't know who the 141s are. And because you all know this I want you to keep silent about this, okay?"

"What's the 141?" A loud voice from behind them said, surprising them all.

They all then turned around to look behind them Miho actually felt annoyed to hear someone was tailing them. When they looked at who was following them, Maho, Erika and Akaboshi immediately recognized who that girl who followed them was. She was a girl from the Saunders University High School, and also the overall commander of that school. They know her as Kay (or Kei in Japanese), a girl with long blonde hair and a pair of light blue eyes. She was wearing the school's uniform, save for the jacket, which was untied and with the sleeves rolled up and a a pair of long white stockings in place of the usual short grey ones worn by the other schoolgirls from Saunders. From the looks of it, Kay only heard a little from what they were talking about, to be exact the last part of that conversation.

"Kay?" Erika asked in surprised. "We don't know you're here."

"Heh, I'm just paying a visit," Kay replied as her hand waved to them. "I actually wanted to meet with you guys."

"You're here on your own?" Akaboshi asked as she tilted her head.

"Yeah, Alisa and Naomi are still busy with their stuff back in my school," Kay then looked over to Maho and approached them. "Hey, Maho, that was a good match that time."

"Sure it is," Maho replied with a smile. "It's a bad thing that you didn't win."

"Ah, don't mind that," Kay replied playfully. "We did that for fun. Well, except Alisa I guess."

"Funny, I thought the Schwarzwaldspite girls were the ones who thought Panzerfahren as fun," Miho commented with a scoff underneath her boonie hat, which attracted everyone's attention including Kay.

"Oh, sorry I didn't notice you," Kay said awkwardly with a smile. "Maho, who is your friend here?"

"It's my sister, actually," Maho replied, Kay gave a look of surprise.

"Oh, really?" Kay asked as she looked over to the short red-haired girl with her grey Fedora. "Another sister of the Nishizumi eh?"

The Kuromorimine girls including Maho fell silent nervously and in agitation as Miho only silently glanced at Kay. Kay was waiting for their answers, but then got puzzled on why they all were silent. Kay saw Maho and Erika look at each other before looking down to Miho with blank eyes. Kay wasn't so sure what's wrong now. Kay only looked towards Miho who was glancing at her.

"So…? Who is she?" Kay asked again, waiting for their reply.

"Kay, this is…" Maho then paused in doubt, before continuing. "This is Miho Nishizumi."

When the name Miho entered Kay's brain. She quickly looked over to Maho in shock before looking back to Miho. She took a step back, because she felt taken back to see Miho was alive. She heard what happened in Ooarai a year ago. Seeing Miho alive in such a state is not something she had in mind, as her skin went pale and she gave a scared-of-ghost like expression to Miho.

"You're… alive?" Kay asked slowly as she was still shocked. "How's that… possible?"

"It's a long story actually," Miho replied softly. "I'll tell you… later about it."

Kay then calmed down and approached Miho. "Also what's with the 141 that you were talking about to keep it secret? And… what happened to your eye?"

They all soon glanced to Miho and looked right to her right eye as Miho only softly touched her large one-streak scar on her eye. "My eye got shot by a bullet. To be exact a bullet of a Russian made machine gun."

Kay fell silent for a moment as she was staring at Miho, before she gave a reply. "You better tell me everything about what happened to you, and also about the 141 you were talking about."

The five of them then decided to go to the nearest restaurant they could find in those streets. As they walked, Miho, Maho, Erika and Akaboshi explained everything about what they do know about the time everyone thought that Miho was dead. From how Miho survived the accident in Ooarai until what Miho told them about the Task Force 141. Hearing how Miho survived that and jumped into another world, Kay cannot believe what they told her. But when they said the world Miho entered doesn't have Sensha-Do even after the Second World War, Kay couldn't say anything but to give a terrified stare to them. Why the other world didn't want to have Sensha-Do apparently they had their own different reasons than the world they're living in. Makes Kay wonder why the other reality had those reasons that this reality had not.

Then when they explained everything about the Task Force 141. Kay was very surprised to found out that the Task Force 141 is not an actual Sensha-Do team of the Kuromorimine school. To which in this case, Miho face palmed quite hard and produced a *plak*. When the hell would Kuromorimine Girls Academy that is affiliated with Germany have such a team like that? And even if such a Task Force existed in that school, would they be willing to kill someone that is a bad guy? For Maho, Erika and Akaboshi, they're not sure what would happen if that existed and don't want to know about it because Miho is the one who runs this Task Force and probably the one who would train her men.

Kay had understood a lot from what were they talking about on the Task Force 141. She was in awe about what the roles of the 141 are, to hear it quite a lot is not something the JGSDF would be able to do perfectly. And heard some reasons about why Miho wanted to keep it confidential. After hearing that, Kay immediately asked Miho for her to join up because she wanted to do something exactly like what the 141 does, besides the same reason Maho just said before except with the other reason of defending herself (know how to fight and know to defend herself is a bloody different thing). But then again since she wanted Kay to not leak out the information of the 141 she got from them and to shut up about it. Miho had no choice but let her in the 141 with an agreement to keep any information of the 141 including Miho being the captain of the 141, and how she survived the accident in Ooarai and ended up in London. Bloody yanks, Miho supposed.

They soon reached a good restaurant after a few minutes and entered. The walls inside the restaurant were colored in white and some words were inscribed and hanging on the wall, saying about luck. Half third of the wall was covered with woods, while the ceiling was also colored in white except the lamps were shaped into a bowl like lamps which is beautiful. The tables were like those ones in the park except the wood was a bit more shining and the chairs were made from wood while the seating made from soft cotton. The counter of the restaurant was made of pure shining dark wood with the waiter waiting there and the cooks working beyond that counter in the kitchen.

Miho and the other four took a seat at a round table max for five people to sit. Miho sat between Kay and Maho while Erika and Akaboshi were sitting in front of her. They did take a seat and ordered the menu as Miho put down her bonnie hat beside her on the table. No less than five minutes later, the meals they ordered has been served and they started to eat. They ate as they had a conversation.

"So where you have been living for your year of disappearance?" Kay asked as she eats. "I mean in the other world?"

"In London for a year," Miho replied as she took a drink. "Later became a citizen of the United Kingdom."

"Wait, so you're saying that you're also a British besides being a Japanese?" Erika asked in surprise.

"Yeah, I forgot to tell you mates about it," Miho replied, Kay smiled after hearing about that.

"Well, she does sounds like a British," Kay commented, which everyone except Miho glared at her. "What? She really sounds like a British."

"So is there something interesting in London?" Akaboshi asked as she picked a fork of her Ramen.

"There's Victoria Memorial in the Westminster district," Miho replied with a smirk. "And there's also the Big Ben in Westminster."

"You saw them yourself?!" Akaboshi asked, quite disbelieving on what Miho was saying. "Sounds great! Wish I saw them myself."

"Maybe we can ask the St. Gloriana girls about that," Erika suggested, which achieved a nod from Miho.

"Yeah, also asked them about having an Earl Grey tea," Miho added, Maho and Kay then glared at her.

"Your favorite tea?" Maho asked.

"Yep," Miho replied with a nod, before eating her Katsu.

"How does it feel like to become a British?" Kay asked, curious about how her life in London had been.

"Really charming to be honest," Miho replied as she lifted her right hand. "The culture in the UK is much better than Japan."

"Can you give as an example about it?" Maho asked.

"The British are more multi-ethnic than Japan," Miho replied as she drinks.

"Oh?" Maho can't imagine how multi-ethnic it is in the UK. "That's sounds better than here."

They all smiled for a moment, until Kay noticed something coming out from underneath Miho's jacket, something that was around Miho's neck. "Is that your necklace, Miho?"

"Oh?" Miho glanced at her for a moment, before pulling her necklace out from underneath her jacket as they all looked at the necklace. "This? It's my cross actually. I'm a catholic."

"Wait, for real?" Kay asked again as she leaned her head towards Miho with the support of her hands on her cheeks.

"Yeah, but I'm not really religious though," Miho replied with a frown. "But I'm okay about it."

As they eat, suddenly they heard loud noises of a crowd near them. To make it worse, the noises were coming from inside the restaurant. Miho, Maho, Akaboshi, Erika and Kay slowly turned their heads to the source of the noise in the restaurant. They all looked directly at one corner of the restaurant on the right side of the restaurant behind Akaboshi. There were students in blue uniforms having a fight with each other near that corner.

They all including Miho recognized who those students were. They were the BC Freedom Students A French-like Japanese school. Those students were wearing blue sweaters with the logo of the BC Freedom school. Underneath their sweaters were the white shirts along with a dark blue black-like tie. While their skirts were also a dark blue.

If you were asking why the BC Freedom students were fighting with each other, it's because the students were actually came from two factions. One side is from the BC school and one side is from the Freedom school. They had their own carrier school once, due to administration blunders and funding cuts, both schools deteriorated to a point to where it was no longer considered economical for both schools to be kept afloat. It was then decided by the Administration to take advantage of the situation by promoting inter-school relationships with a union of two different, but similar schools. And thus, that's how BC Freedom High School was made.

As the matter of fact, the union of the BC Freedom had backfired that time, with the hatred and distrust between the two factions who had been forced to occupy a single school carrier. The nonexistent teamwork and power struggle has brought down the reputation of the Administrator even further and wasting more funds. The last time Maho heard about them, the Freedom Faction (Now Escalator Faction) had the upper hand in the fight against the BC Faction (Now Examination Faction) over their ship, but the fight still continued on. They know the two leaders of those two factions, one is Rena Andou, the black spiked hair and dark-tan skin girl from the Examination Faction. And the other is Ruko Oshida, a blonde girl with blue eyes from the Escalator Faction.

As they fight, they found out that there is one girl who wasn't bothered about this brawl. Instead, she actually cared more about eating her cake than the brawl in her seat at the corner of the restaurant. She is known as Marie, a short girl with long curled cotton candy colored hair. She might be the only girl and overall commander of the BC Freedom school that is a graceful and poised girl. Despite her spoiled and ignorant nature, Marie is a good strategist. She can handle the rivalries of the two factions just fine to beat her opponents. Miho was glad to see her not included in the fight, but right now the noisy brawl of the BC Freedom students was giving her an edge.

"They're fighting about seeing who is the better faction, eh?" Miho asked in annoyance with a cold tone.

"Yeah, seeing how much hatred and distrust is between them," Kay replied with a pitiful shrug. "It just makes things worse."

"At least their commander, Marie, is not annoyed by this brawl," Erika stated with a scratch on her head. "But those people would make a mess in here."

"Heh, fuckin' chav" Miho swore with a shook of her head and her closed eyes, as her friends got startled by her swearing and looked at her. "These cheese eating surrender monkeys Japs are much worse than the Frenches I have back in base."

"Cheese eating what?" Maho asked with a raised eye brow, she doesn't get that was an insult.

"It's an insulting word for a Frenchie, which now I refer to those students," Miho replied with an angry glare and cold tone as she was still watching the fight. "These are the worst kind."

"Something tells me it reminds you of something," Akaboshi added, curiously as she winced with her left eye closed.

"It looks like the Russians from the Loyalist and Ultranationalist factions had another civil war again," Miho replied, she then crossed her arms as she leaned her back against her seat. "At least the Russians had some real casualties unlike those students."

They all had to imagine how the Russian Civil War that Miho talked about looked like inside their heads. If they had to admit, it wasn't pretty. Oh, if those students from Examination and Escalator factions had a real civil war, now that's just gruesome. It would be all over the news if that happened, especially in their own school. And the only person who wouldn't involve herself in that fight was Marie herself.

"I can't say anything if that happens…" Akaboshi said as her tone was trailing off in fear.

Miho then looked over to the waiters and the owner at the counter of the restaurant. "Looks like the people who worked here need some help about this."

Miho then get off her seat to the surprise, Kay quickly grabbed Miho's arm to stop her. "Hey, they're a lot! You are only going to make it worse!" Kay said quickly in worry.

"The only thing that I need to worry about is putting bullets in their heads," Miho replied coldly, Kay released her arm as they were amazed by Miho's reply.

Miho then walked over to the counter as she watched those students fight from a distance. The owner and a waitress did notice Miho walking over to them. They were surprised to see that Miho was the only one who had a very cold, black and dreadful look besides the rest of their customers inside the restaurant who looked angry or annoyed. They were not sure what the red-haired girl wanted, seeing her face like that gave them a little creep than annoyed by the fight they're watching. Miho leaned her left arm on the counter after she reached it as the owner and the waitress came over to her behind the counter.

"Can I help you?" the waitress asked.

"Those students over there," Miho said as she pointed her right index finger to the fighting students. "Do they cause a lot of trouble here?"

The owner and the waitress looked over to those students again before looking back to Miho. "Quite a lot actually. We even had trouble kicking them out from this restaurant since this is their favorite place for the two factions of the BC Freedom school," the owner replied in melancholy

"They never shut up or apologize for making this mess, are they?" Miho asked, which the owner replied with a nod.

"Yes, they never do," the waitress replied. "We don't even know how we get them out of here before their fight get worse."

Miho stayed silent for a moment, before she pushed off the counter and slowly walked to the fighting students. "I'll handle it," Miho said casually, leaving the owner and the waitress staring at her in concern as she made her way to the fighting students.

Miho slowly approached those fighting students, as she heard Andou taunting Oshida angrily. "You Escalator idiots are the worst in our school! You do not deserve to be Marie's Vice-Commander!"

"Oh yeah?! You're a stupid woman can't even take responsibility on the battlefield!" Oshida retorted as she tried to punch Andou and blocked her fists.

"How dare you Escalators look down on us! I'm gonna hit you in the face!" Andou retorted as she tried to strike Oshidas face, only to get her attack blocked.

"Go ahead and try! You Examinations don't know how to fight either, chienne!" Oshida taunted as she tried to hit her stomach but then got blocked by Andou blocking her attack with her left arm.

"Shut up, Oshida! I'm better than you, idiot!" Andou retorted as she counter-attacked with a punch but then got blocked. "We Examinations are better than you licking your own tanks!"

"Oh, you la putain!" Oshida retorted again as she sends a blow from above her head, but failed after Andou blocked her attack by quickly swinging her own arm above her head. "I'll make sure you get a job as a janitor back in our school!"

As the fight continued, Miho stopped right in front of the crowd of fighting students and stood there. "Hey all of you!"

All the students of the BC Freedom quickly stopped fighting and looked toward Miho, Marie also looked to Miho after she heard her. "You all better fight somewhere else besides in here."

Andou and Oshida quickly looked at each other, smiled jokingly with a chuckle before looking back to Miho and slowly approach her as the rest of the students stood behind them both. "Who the hell are you, fille?" Andou asked jokingly.

"A girl who is very annoyed by your useless fight," Miho replied casually she watched them both at full attention. "I just want you all to get out from here and fight somewhere else."

"Oh really? Why is that?" Oshida asked with an evil smile.

"Everyone in here is trying to eat peacefully," Miho then looked over to anyone who had been eating are now watching them, Miho then looked back to Andou and Oshida. "Right now, they're uncomfortable with you fighting here and making a mess."

Andou laughed a little with her eyes closed as Oshida was still grinning and looked to Andou, before looking back to Miho. "Do you even know who you are talking to?"

"BC Freedom students," Miho answered, still keeping her calm. "You those cheese eating surrender monkeys" she added.

"Cheese eating what?" Oshida asked, both her and Andou were slightly confused by that.

"Don't mind what I just said," Miho said as she crossed her arms. "I'm asking you to get out of here right now."

"Oh no, don't you dare say that," Andou shook with an evil smile she then pointed her finger to Miho's chest. "Do you know where you're in right now?"

"Your favorite restaurant," Miho replied with a nod.

"Good, how about you're the one to get out from here, eh?" Oshida asked with a mocking tone as she and Andou stepped back from her. "Vous êtes une chienne stupide."

Miho only fell silent for a moment as she stared at them, Andou and Oshida on the other hand laughed because they knew that Miho can't speak French. "Such a shame you don't understand what I mean," Oshida mocked with a laugh, before her shoulder got hit by Andou for quitting it.

Miho paused for a moment for their reaction, Miho then scrunched up her eyebrows into an angry and cold look. "Bien essayé de m'insulter avec votre français"

Andou and Oshida stopped laughing after they hear that, they both were surprised to hear that as Maho and the rest of her friends who watched from afar were shocked to hear Miho understand yet another language. Maho was starting to wonder where the hell she learned those languages.

"How did you know that language?" Andou asked but then quickly shook her head to forget that question. "It doesn't matter, you're the one who better to get out from here!"

"No, you're getting out of here," Miho replied with a cold look.

"Do you want to get beat up by us?!" Oshida asked angrily, Miho's expression remained the same.

"You mean by us, girl?" Andou asked, taking advantage of the situation as the Examination faction.

Miho paused for a moment, she then allowed her eyes to fill with darkness. "Go ahead, try it."

Miho only stood there calmly as Andou looked over to Oshida. The look of temporary alliance from what Miho said, the first time she saw both factions of the BC Freedom working together. As Miho stood there, Andou and Oshida nodded to each other. Before they both looked back towards Miho. They thought Miho had decided to mess with the wrong school. In reality, they actually fucked with the wrong girl, correction, a soldier.

Andou slowly approached Miho much more. When she got close to her, she quickly raised her right fist from her side and swung it towards Miho's face. Miho saw this coming, and she quickly reacted to Andou's attack. She quickly swings her left arm to her left to block away Andou's fist and quick as lightning counter-attacked with her right fist striking Andou's neck. As Andou got choked by that attack, Miho held Andou's right arm after blocking her attack and quickly raised her fist and struck Andou's face very hard.

The students from BC Freedom, Marie, Maho and her friends, and along with everyone in the restaurant were shocked and amazed of Miho's self-defense capabilities. Miho hit Andou in face around three times each strike as hard as a brick. Before Miho let her right arm go and grabbed Andou's head by the back of her head with left hand. She quickly shoved her head down to Miho's right side until…

*BUAKK*

She bounced off after her head slammed into the table next to them. Andou fell quickly to the ground and laid down next to Miho who was standing next to her lying body. Andou was barely conscious, as her nose was bleeding and there were bruises around her face and a small scar below her mouth. Everyone in the restaurant including Marie and Oshida with the BC Freedom students and Maho's group left their jaws wide open and their eyes blankly staring towards Miho in disbelieve and horror, and a bead of sweat running down their foreheads. Miho demonstrated the brutality that she was willing to use to Andou very clearly.

Oshida and the students saw that Andou lifted her head a little, she was still aware a little from the counter-attack of Miho. Andou was trying to look at Miho while she was nearly KO as she kept her head in the air a little. Miho saw that, and she replied to Andou with a kick to the side of her face, forcing her head back down to the floor and knocking her out unconscious. The BC Freedom students were frightened by Miho's action as Miho took a step towards them, passing over the unconscious Andou slowly. The students slowly took a step back in fear along with Oshida as Miho is still taking steps forward. Until a few seconds later, Miho stopped walking and the students did the same.

The students looked at Miho's face, she was still looked like annoyed. But Oshida had a feeling from this girl she didn't recognize. It's actually more like the look of a cold-blooded killer than someone that was annoyed. And she was able to see into her eyes that are the part she felt uncomfortable about. Miho's black eyes told her otherwise.

"Is there anyone else who wants to beat me up?" Miho asked aloud coldly as she turned her head from the left to the right looking at all those students.

Oshida and the students stood there in silence and fear for now, Miho then shook her head and calmly said. "You say one more word about me…"

Miho then took a pencil that was lying on the table next to her, and raised it in front of her chest to show it to the students. "I'll stab your heart with a fucking pencil."

Miho quickly slammed the pencil into the table next to her by the sharp end of the pencil, frightening everyone in the restaurant. After Miho let go of the pencil, they saw the pencil was stuck there and went through the table as if it actually got stabbed. The students of BC Freedom's fear increased to see that. Miho only glared at them with a cold and threatening look. None of the students including Oshida dare to make a move or say anything as they occasionally looked back to Andou who was still lying unconscious behind Miho.

Before Miho did anything else, someone from the corner of the restaurant quickly ran up to them from behind the students. "Wait!"

Miho and the students looked over to who was running up to them and stopped in between them, to the BC Freedom students shock it was their overall commander, Marie. "Just stop, please."

Miho then looked over to Marie as the students were stunned to see Marie to be this worried for the first time, this time with a look of pity. "You're their commander?"

"Yes, I am," Marie replied quickly. "Please, there's no need for violence."

"Not when they started the trouble," Miho replied coldly as she glared her eyes showing her anger to Marie.

"Look, I know you still angry about them," Marie said in a begging tone as her hands folded on her chest, the students behind her can only look at her in stunned silence and agitation. "But they're my people, alright? Just leave them to me, I'll handle them. Just let them go, please…"

Miho paused for a moment as she was still staring at her in thought while the students only stood there in silence and shock to see their commander very worried caring about them for the first time, Miho has given her decision. "Alright, I'll let your people go for now."

But then Miho looked over to the students with a dreadful look. "All of you go back to your seats and enjoy your time in the restaurant. But if I hear or see you starting a fight in here ever again, I'm gonna drag your arses out of here and drag you all around the city until you get run over by traffic."

Scared of Miho's threat, they fearfully nodded a little and slowly turned away making their way back to their seats. Oshida was the last to turn around after she gulped and held her chest with her right hand. Oshida looked over to her commander in worry, before turning around. Miho can't let her go just like that.

"You!" Miho called, making Oshida stop dead in her tracks before she slowly and nervously turned around to Miho. "Come here."

Marie watched worriedly as Oshida approached Miho right in front of her. "What's your name?"

"O-Oshida," she replied with a gulp. "Her Vice-Commander."

Miho the put her index finger on Oshida's chest. "Oshida, I want you to take your friend who is still knocked out there to the restroom and get her back to her feet," Miho said as she pointed towards the unconscious Andou.

Marie and Oshida felt quite odd to hear the girl in black jacket and white pants to hear that. "But… why?"

"I don't like to see someone that is still knocked-out right now, especially in this restaurant," Miho replied coldly. "Now go pick up your friend."

Oshida took a few seconds to glance at Miho, before starting to walk past her to Andou. But then her arm quickly got grabbed and looked over to Miho. She wasn't done talking to her yet. Her sweat came down from her head to Miho's cold expression like this.

Miho look at her with cold and angry eyes, and gave a warning to her aloud. "And if I see your friend is still not up on her feet… I will see to it that I sent you to the hospital for the next ten years, getting ass-fucked. And if you didn't get send to the hospital because I didn't do enough damage to you, I will personally hire a man to ass-fuck you for the next ten years in your own house. So if you're an ass-fucking fan you better go ahead and mouth off. Understand that?"

Everyone in the restaurant all flinched and shocked by her threat, Miho really meant business. Maho's group, especially Kay, can really imagine what the hell Miho was talking about, and they really do not like it much. For the owner and the waitress at the counter, they felt disbelieve of her threat. For Marie, she was very disgusted by the threat. For Oshida, however, it was a fucking nightmare. Oshida's skin went very pale after Miho's threat, as she nodded very slowly and looked over to Andou.

Miho then let go of her arm, and she quickly ran over to Andou. Despite her hostility to Andou and her faction, seeing her in such a fatal state made Oshida worried about her health. Now with Miho in supervision, Oshida quickly picked Andou up by her shoulders and dragged her across the restaurant into the restroom. Oshida really needed to make sure that she got Andou back to her feet to avoid Miho's threat.

After watching them both enter the restroom, Miho turned around to Marie and saw her sigh in relieve. "Thank you for that. But also, I'm sorry about that."

"There's no need to apologize to me," Miho replied coldly with a nod. "I only do what I had to do."

Miho then looked over to the counter as Marie did the same. Miho walked back to the counter as Marie followed up behind her. They both turned their attention to the owner and the waitress at the counter. The waitress and the owner were actually smiling thankful for Miho's action.

"Disaster averted, sir," Miho confirmed with a nod.

"Good to hear that," the owner replied with a sigh of relieve. "I couldn't believe you handled them by yourself."

"Even though that was quite violent," the waitress added with a little frown, before smiling again. "We're glad that problem has been resolved. Thank you for that."

"No problem, ma'am," Miho replied with a thumbs up. "Now if you excuse me, I'll go back to my seat."

Both the waitress and the owner nodded and headed back to the restaurant kitchen. Miho then turned around and started to head back to her group. But then noticed that Marie was still following her, she turned her head around and looked at her. Marie looked quite nervous towards Miho, as she looked like she wanted to ask something.

"Got any trouble?" Miho asked, Marie yelped a little in surprise.

"Well…" Marie paused for a moment agitatedly. "Can I sit with you for a moment?"

Miho then turned her whole body around to her. "Why?"

"I just want to know who you are," Marie replied as she scratched her neck. "I hope you don't mind."

"You're okay about seating with Kuromorimine?" Miho asked, and received a surprising glare from Marie.

Marie then tilted her head to the girls that Miho meant about, when she's saw them she looked back to Miho again. "I'm-I'm fine."

Miho paused for a moment to stare at her. "Let's go then."

Marie nodded in reply and they both headed for Maho's group. The students of the BC Freedom were surprised to see Marie was with Miho and wanted to sit with the Kuromorimine girls plus a girl from Saunders. But then they understand why Marie wanted to do that, Marie actually wanted to know who this girl was. So they can figure out who it was they were messing with.

Marie took an empty seat from a random table and put it down between Erika and Akaboshi. Miho sitting down on her original chair as Marie sits in her own chair. Besides the surprising thing to see the overall commander of the BC Freedom was with them, they all actually remained alert to Miho's mood. After hearing and seeing what Miho did to those students, they're not sure what they were going to say about it.

It was a complete awkward silence amongst them, until Marie started. "It's… good to meet you all."

"It's good to meet you, Marie-san," Maho replied with a nod and an expressionless face. "Forgive us about what happened back there."

"It's alright, I'm glad to see you, Maho-san," Marie replied with a sincere smile. "I'm surprised to see you here too, Kay."

"Just paying a visit, Marie," Kay said with a thumbs up. "Nothing else than that"

"Naze koko ni iru nodesu ka?" Erika asked curiously. "I don't think you just came here only because this is your favorite place."

"Just got a break from Sensha-Do training," Marie replied, she then looked over to Maho. "You're here for a break too?"

"It's rather a hang out than a break," Akaboshi answered as Marie looked to her. "Honestly, we're having a good time."

Marie observed each of them first frankly she knew it wasn't a good time. "Your expressions say otherwise."

"…. It's complicated actually," Maho added, gripping her own hands on the table in front of her as she looked down to her bottom left. "So… I don't know where to start."

Marie then looked over to the red-haired girl across her. "May I know who are you?"

She paused for a moment along with the others, before giving her reply to Marie. "Miho… Miho Nishizumi."

Marie eyes slowly went wide, left her mouth open and slowly lean her back against her chair after hearing that reply. She couldn't believe to know that Miho was still alive and sitting right in front of her. She should have died a year ago. The news about the death of the Nishizumi went viral that time. If she wanted to not believe it she can't because she really is the younger sister of Maho Nishizumi that is sitting right in front of her.

"Nani? But… I though you died back in Ooarai about a year ago…" Marie said slowly as she slowly leans forward to straighten her back. "How did you…?"

"It's a long story," Miho replied, playing with her fingers on the table. "But I don't want to talk about it."

Marie understood why she said that, it was very personal matter. "How about, where you've been living for a year?"

"I've been living in London for a year," Miho replied as she drinks. "Personally became a British afterwards."

"Oh?" Marie responded in surprise. "What about how you learned French language? I thought Kuromorimine only teaches German besides Japanese and English."

"She had language classes personally if that's what you're asking," Erika added as she cleaned her mouth with a small cloth.

"Oh… no wonder you understood what Oshida said to you," Marie commented in impression.

"Yeah, she can even speak Russian," Kay added as she rubbed Miho's shoulder, Miho only smirked a little about it. "And other languages like Portuguese."

"Wait… Portuguese?" Marie asked, never hearing about that kind of language. "Can you give me an example of how it sounds like?"

Miho huffed a little annoyed to her right, before looking back to Marie. "Isso é suficiente para você?"

Marie just felt deadpanned to hear that, she just doesn't understand what Miho just said. "Aaalright then."

* * *

Japan Sensha-Do Department. 13:45 PM

Shiho is currently helping some administrators about the funding and planning problem. There is actually an announcement that there will be a Sensha-Do Exhibition match in a few weeks. For the where the place the match took place is still a question, but soon they will get a place for that match. It's been nearly an hour after the presentation from the 141 was over.

The result of the presentation was really great. Every official member from both military and the Sensha-Do Federation agreed to have the 141 to work with the Japanese Government. Shiho thought that Miho would be happy to hear her that the Task Force has received missions from the Japan military themselves. Miho and her men will be glad to know that the funding and supplying problem at the base near Asagoyama Mountain was over and done with as well.

As she was still helping the administrators about the funding and planning problem. She heard someone call her from behind. She turned around and saw Ami was coming over to her. She told the admins to wait a moment and came over to her.

"Hey, Ami-san" Shiho greeted with an open palm. "You're looking for me?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to let you know about something," Ami replied as she held her other hand below her stomach.

"What is it?" Shiho asked as she took a document and read it for a moment.

"It's about your daughter, Miho," Shiho only gave a sharp and worried look to Ami.

"What's wrong with Miho?" Shiho asked as she puts down the document she was holding.

"Her Lieutenant, Ghost, wanted to let you know that," Ami paused for a moment. "He asked you to keep an eye on her."

"Well, I'm keeping an eye on her-" Shiho replied but then got cut off by Ami again.

"No, the reason why he asked you to do that is…" Ami then looked over to her right in concern, before looking back to Shiho. "Miho may have suicide tendencies."

Shihos eyes went wide, feeling deadpanned to know how Miho is doing. "He-he is sure about that? I don't see is she really…"

"He was quite sure about it," Ami added with a nod. "She might've done it one day. That's why he asked you to keep an eye on her."

"Did you ask why she would do that?" Shiho asked, but received a shook from Ami.

"No, looks like either Ghost or Miho are not really open to talk about their personal past besides that World War three and Ghost's old childhood," Ami replied with a shrug of her shoulder and a shook of her head.

"I see…" Shiho then picked up the document from the table near her. "I'll keep that in mind. I better get back to work."

"Need some help?" Ami asked, Shiho smiled and looked at Ami.

"Sure, come help me on something."

* * *

Kumamoto City, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. Same time.

Marie was walking down the snowy streets after spending her time along with the rest of the BC Freedom students in the restaurant. However, Marie wasn't smiling or even being graceful for the moment. After finding out that Miho was still alive and she was right in front of her, the only thing she does is to think about how did Miho survive that incident in Ooarai. While Andou, Oshida along with the rest of the students were fighting with each other a little. They fight a little, after Andou got beaten up hard by a short red-haired girl.

As they fight, they along with Andou and Oshida occasionally looked back at their Overall Commander who was standing next to her Vice-Commanders. Their morale seemed to be dropping quickly to see that Marie was frowning and not smiling. Though Marie was still thinking about Miho, not caring about her girls who were fighting a little, they still thought she was saddened by their embarrassment to be defeated by that short red-haired girl.

And to think again about how Miho's appearance looked like, she was properly dressed like a tough girl rather than a student. Seeing Miho wearing her bonnie hat was something odd to see from a girl. And she had noticed the scar Miho had on her right eye, saying that her eye got scratched by a tiger. Marie didn't know that was a lie though, but she did know that Miho looks like keeping some personal things to herself as the rest of her friends did the same about Miho. Marie did ask if Miho was planning to go back to Kuromorimine, but she said no because she had her own 'job'. She did hear about Miho quitting Sensha-Do because of the 62nd tournament, but it wasn't Miho's reason that she faked her death accidentally.

"Marie, qu'est-ce qui ne va pas?" Andou asked in French and in worried. "Are you angry at us?"

"Hmm what?" Marie asked as she quickly snapping herself out from her thoughts.

Andou quickly pushed Oshida to force her to ask the same question as Andou held her own bruised face. "A-are you angry with us?"

"No, I'm not," Marie replied with a shook of her head, though she was still frowning. "I'm just lost in thought."

"What is it, Commander?" Oshida asked, as the students from both Examination and Escalator factions listened closely from behind the three.

"I'm just thinking about that girl who stopped you all from fighting and beat up Andou," Marie replied, Andou, Oshida and the rest felt deadpanned to forget to ask her about it.

"Oh yeah, you did sit with her," a student from the Examination Faction said from behind Andou. "Along with the Kuromorimine girls and the commander of Saunders"

Marie stopped walking as the rest quickly did the same, with some of them pushing each other because bumping into each other accidentally. Marie turned around and looked over to all 24 students including the vice-commanders. They saw her face was quite expressionless, but some can sense sincerity in her eyes. Marie stayed silent for a moment before asking them.

"Do you know who that girl was?"

None of them answer or say a single word, the only thing they are able to do was only to shake their heads.

"Who was that, Marie?" Andou and Oshida asked in unison.

Marie fell silent for a moment, before she gave her reply. "That was Miho Nishizumi."

"EEEEHHH?!"

They all quickly fell silent, as some fell quiet and some stared murmuring to each other. Andou and Oshida on the other hand left their jaws hang open and their eyes widen in shock. It was the first time they heard something like that.

"Yo-you sure that was Miho Nishizumi?!" Oshida asked as she looked terrified about it. "I heard that she was dead after an accident in a practice accident in Ooarai!"

"Yes, I'm sure that was Miho Nishizumi," Marie replied with a nod. "Maho Nishizumi was right by her side."

They all fell silent after that, finding out that Andou had attacked a Nishizumi family member. And she had attacked a Nishizumi member who just came back from death. Andou realized that she had messed up big time. If Shiho heard about this…..

"Uh oh…"


	12. Chapter 12 - Right Another Shit To Do

In the next morning, Miho, Maho and Shiho already had breakfast and their suits at the ready. Maho will be heading to school later after she put on her uniform, she only sat down in the meeting room along with her mother. They were actually spending their time doing what they were doing in that meeting room. She was actually playing Mahjong with her mother for the first time, which is fun for them both for now.

Earlier in the morning that time, about half an hour ago, Maho did come over to Miho's room. She wanted to see how she was doing at that time. Maho was quite shocked yesterday when she was told by her mother, Shiho, that Miho might have suicide tendencies. If Miho had suicide tendencies because of her job as a soldier, Maho had to keep an eye on her too when she soon was going to be a soldier as well.

She was expecting to see Miho pointing her gun to her head at that time, but it was the exact opposite of that. Maho had heard there was a sound, a sound unmistakably known as a violin song. It was a surprising thing for Maho to hear, she decided to entered Miho's room and see what she was listening to. Miho wasn't listening to anything instead, she was playing the violin herself. This was a very surprising thing for Maho, she didn't remember if Miho ever had played any instruments before.

Miho didn't tell her where she got the violin from, but Maho would've guessed that she got it back in London. Maho thought Miho was still training on playing the violin, she was wrong completely wrong about that. Miho playing it was quite beautiful to be honest. Maho even started shaking her head allowing her body to follow the rhythm of the song a little playfully. When Maho asked what song Miho was playing, she replied that the song was actually a cover of an original song from the future called Rolling in The Deep, sang by Adele. Miho even had her audio file song of the violin/bass/cello version of the song and uploaded it to Maho's phone.

(Rolling in the Deep - Adele (violin/cello/bass cover) - Simply Three)

Maho was glad that Miho wasn't showing her suicide tendencies for now, but then again she needs to expect that they might be coming. With that sorted out, she had one more thing to do. Asking her mother for approval to join up with the Task Force 141. Sometimes Maho wondered why her little sister is the one who was making this difficult instead of herself making things for Miho difficult. Her little sister has grown up really quick.

Maho lifted her head to her mother as she moved a piece of a mahjong to the matching on the table. "I'm still not good at this, Oka-san" Maho commented.

"It's alright, it's our first time," Shiho replied with a smile as she puts a piece of mahjong on the top of the pile to the same exact piece.

"Where did you buy this?" Maho asked as she puts in another of the mahjong.

"A store near the Sensha-Do Department," Shiho replied, her expression immediately changed into a look of remembering something. "That reminds me, I just met Ghost yesterday."

"Really?" Maho asked in surprise as she looked at her mother. "Did you meet him at the Department?"

"Yeah, along with three other men which are friends of Miho," Shiho replied with a nod. "Their names were Chrome, Chemo and Royce."

"What were they doing in the Department?" Maho asked, realizing this was more than a meeting.

"They were there yesterday to give us a presentation of their Task Force," Shiho responded as she took a sip of her tea on the table next to the mahjong pile. "It was quite pleasant to hear how they operate. But the presentation was restricted to only military and the Sensha-Do members."

"Oh, Miho wanted to keep information about the 141 stay confidential," Maho said, Shiho widen her eyes in surprise. "Miho just told me about it yesterday."

"She wanted only us to know this?" Shiho asked curiously.

"Yeah, kind of," Maho replied with a nod, then tilting her head to her right while scratching her neck. "Even including how Miho survived the accident and ended up in London, and also her job as a soldier. The only thing we didn't know about is only why she joined up with 141." Didn't she mention the word 'revenge' because it's still did not fit quite well for an explanation.

"Oh? You mean she tried to keep it secret from anyone else including the students from any school?" Shiho asked again with her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, yesterday we met Kay, that commander from Saunders," Maho replied. "Kay found out what we were talking about and Miho was able to keep her from spilling out her classified information."

"And how did she do it?" Shiho asked again, Maho didn't really like to say it.

"Miho let Kay join up with the 141 like she wanted," Shiho was ultimately shocked to hear that, she suddenly straightened her back and felt her heart stop for just a moment.

"Isn't Kay shouldn´t she be worried about what might happen to herself?" Shiho asked quickly in concern with her head leaning forward.

"She looked like she knew what she was doing," Maho replied with a concerned shrug. "I can't say anything about it."

"Is there anyone else you met with besides Kay?" Shiho asked again.

"Those students from BC Freedom at a restaurant, they started a fight in there," Maho replied as she checked her pieces of mahjong. "They fought in the restaurant it made Miho quite angry and had to deal with them. Andou, the BC Freedom Vice-Commander did try to hit Miho. But then Miho counter-attacked her very hard, she just hit Andous face three times before slamming her head into the table, after that Miho kicked her in the face to knock her out."

Shiho kept her gaze on Maho with an expression of horror. "Did she do more to those students?"

"Giving them a threat after that," Maho replied with winced eyes in disgust. "It was a very clear threat."

Maho paused for a moment before continuing. "But after the trouble had been resolved, Marie, that BC Freedom commander, came to sit with us so she could know more about Miho."

"And that was the time when Miho tried to keep it secret?" Shiho asked.

"Yeah, she even lied about the scar on her eye," Maho responded as she grips her hands on the table. "Saying her eye got scratched by a tiger."

They both fell silent for a moment staring at each other, before Maho continued. "There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" Shiho asked, nearly tilted her head.

"I have asked Miho that..." Maho paused for a moment, she gulped a little. "I wanted to join up with the 141, many times, until she has decided to let me join up. But she wanted me to ask you about first, if you're okay with this…"

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

Maho wasn't sure what her mother is going to do right now. The only thing Shiho did to stare at Maho as if she was freaked out. Besides her wide eyes and her pupils that went smaller, her skin went quite pale. Shiho thought Maho just lost her mind.

"W-why do you want to join up with them?!" Shiho asked quickly terrified.

Maho fell silent for a moment in thought, before replying with her eyes closed. "I… well… After what happened to Miho back in Ooarai… I just want to avoid that something like that to ever happen again. I just wanted to stay strong and know how to fight so I can protect my sister. I don't want to fail her again."

They both fell silent for a moment, before her mother responded. "Don't you realize you're risking your life for that?"

"I know, but… I just don't want to fail her again…"

If Shiho had to admit, Maho had taken it quite hard the loss of her sister at that time. She remembered that Maho locked herself in her room, crying all night for it. Shiho remembered that she tried to convince Maho to open the door for her, but she denied it, telling her to go away. Maho of course was still strong, but she had her own limits to be broken along with everyone else. Shiho knew that she was at fault for reprimanding Miho and made her change schools, so she can get that unforeseen consequences.

Shiho looked up to Maho's eyes in sincere, and opened her mouth. "Go ahead, join them."

"Nani?" Maho asked in surprised. "A-are you serious?"

"Yes, I am," Shiho replied. "I hope you know what you're doing. Just… promise me that you'll be fine."

Maho smiled gladly keeping in mind of her promise. "Thank you, Oka-san."

They suddenly heard a door slide open; they looked at the door and found that Miho entered the room. "Morning, guys."

"Konichiwa Miho-san," Maho and Shiho greeted in unison.

Miho then sat down on the floor at the table she then puts her arms on the table. "You both have any plans for the day?"

"Well, we both are actually heading for Kuromorimine school today," Shiho replied as she sips her tea.

"Oh…" Miho replied with her blank stare. "Right… I'll stay here and looked around the city."

Maho and Shiho slowly turned their heads and stared at Miho, in full attention. "Why are you two looking at me like that?"

"You know… why don't you come with us to Kuromorimine?" Shiho asked, Miho quietly winced her eyebrows moving towards each other due to that. "We can spend some time there."

"Why are we going there?" Miho asked in anger but with neutral tone.

"Well, we just want to show you new things to you after you came back, so…" Maho replied, but Miho knew where this was going.

"Dear sister, didn't we have an argument about this already?" Miho asked with angry sarcasm. "I'm not going there because of Sensha-Do."

"But what of the students-" Shiho then quickly got cut off by Miho.

"Look, I know you want to bring me there but I don't want to, alright?" Miho responded back. "I want to find my own peace of mind, not meeting those students so they can get over my head on everything."

"But, just why?" Shiho asked again.

"I just don't want to go there, alright?" Miho replied with a shook. "I'm not going back there."

"Miho, please….?" Maho begged, but Miho was getting angry about it by now.

"No, I'm not going back there."

* * *

Task Force 141 HQ, East of Asagoyama Mountain, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. 10:00 AM

(S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky Freedom Radio Music)

It's another good day in the 141st. As the soldiers inside are enjoying the acoustic song they got from some of their friends from Chernobyl, they're doing just fine working on logistics job and missions and weapons check.

Ghost was really relieved that the government accepted the cooperation with the 141. Hearing that they would be willing to give the 141 missions, funding and supplies they needed, it was really relieving. He heard Vicek and Chemo were glad to be back to being locked & loaded. The Russians were glad to have some jobs like their time back in Russia. The French, The British, The Czechs, The Australians, The Canadians, and other foreign nations people are really glad to hear that and soon prepped everything they have for the missions given by the Japanese Government. Such a shame though, there were no Japanese who were really from the 141.

This morning, Ghost already got some recruits who are the best straight from the JGSDF personally yesterday. They've got around 14 Japanese best recruits to the 141 in the field. Ami, Yuko and Akashi on the other hand decided to have their specialized 141 training from Ghost themselves. Those soldiers were doing quite well to go through with the training and become part of the 141. If Ghost had to admit, those soldiers including Yuko and Akashi were rigid at first, but then they got better afterwards.

It was break time for now for the new recruits of the 141. Ghost sat down with Chemo and Vicek while Ami, Yuko and Akashi were standing in front of them, all of them except the Japanese and Ghost drank their beers. All of them were having a good conversation with each other with laughter. They all just passed weapons range course and fire-team course.

When the first time the 141 showed them the training course, they were surprised to see the 141 fire team's movement in action that were much more coordinated and better than their usual fire team tactics. What was surprising for the Japanese including Ami, Yuko and Akashi themselves was the 141 abilities to run & gun accurately at the targets. Better than those soldiers from WW2 and the JGSDF. They were also impressed of how the 141 cleared out a course of breaching and clearing, they need to get more experience about it.

But, there was one moment when those Japanese soldiers were doing it wrong. There was this moment when two of the soldiers nearly doing the two-man fire team drill wrong. Saying that their movement were very wrong, said by a Russian. When those Japanese soldiers tried to explain to him, the Russian went mad about it. He suddenly was wearing a Russian WW2 uniform and his PPSH-41 assault rifle out of nowhere like magic as he was running through the Japanese and started to shoot things up. Seeing how the hell that Russian wore something out of thin air and shoot everything up in the course was something surprising and they wanted to avoid something like that after that, especially Ghost because he wanted to avoid any 'Diplomatic Incident'. Maybe this was the reason why Miho loved these Russians.

Ghost looked over to the field training course to see how the soldiers are doing as they have a break. "Good to see how the Japanese doing right now."

"I agree on that," Ami added with a thumbs up and a wink. "But your Russian pal you got back there…"

"I've never been quite freaked out to see him angry like that," Yuko added with a nod and an agitated frown. "How did he get those uniforms and that weapon out of thin air?"

"Well, Russians," Chemo replied with wide arms, they don't get it. "These Russians we got are crazy, so you know what I mean."

"Now I get it," Akashi replied in understood. "Is Miho okay with those Russians around?"

"She bloody loves them," Ghost replied with a wondered shook. "I don't know why the bloody hell she loves them, apart from the fact that they are magnificent people."

"From what I heard from… what's his name? Bazarov?" Yuko thought for a moment before continuing. "He and the Russians had a Second Civil War back in your old place. What happened back there?"

"The Second Russian Civil War was a conflict primarily based in Russia, Eastern Europe. It involved the Russian Loyalists, heavily supported by the American and British forces against the Ultranationalist rebels led by Imran Zakhaev and their Middle Eastern allies, codenamed OpFor/Opposing Force that was led by Khaled Al-Asad," Vicek explained to them, after taking a sip of his beer. "Even though the Loyalists got help from the British and the Americans, the Ultranationalist won the fight and seized control over Russia. That time, the remaining surviving Loyalists had gone underground to places like India and other foreign places."

"Wow, I know how that feels," Ami added, amazed and pity on how the Loyalists were able to survive until now.

"Yeah, I wish we could have helped them faster to beat them," Chemo responded with a scoff, then leans his back to his chair with his arms crossed. "Bad thing those bastards won."

Suddenly, Royce came into view walked towards Ghost. "Hey, Ghost. I just got called by Captain Miho. Got some news."

"Some news?" Ghost asked, glad to hear something from his CO. "What's the good news?"

"We got another two recruits for the 141," Royce replied as he put his phone in his pocket.

"Oh, that's great!" Akashi commented gladly.

"It's good to hear about an few more recruits for the 141," Vicek commented.

"But I got bad news as well," Royce added, they all quickly glared at him seriously.

"What's the bad news?" Ghost asked slowly, as he leans his head forward.

"These recruits are two girls," Royce replied as he cracked his hands into a fist. "One girl is from… Saunders…"

"Huh?" Ami knew what he meant. "You mean she is from Saunders University High School?"

"Yeah, her name is Kay," Royce replied, as Ghost, Chemo and Vicek were surprised and cringed at the word 'high school'. "You know her?"

"She's the overall commander of the Saunders University High School," Yuko replied, this made Ghost and his men overly shocked after hearing about that.

"Wait, you mean she's a bloody high schooler?!" Ghost asked furiously as he stood up quickly from his chair.

"Yeah, and also one girl from Kuromo… Karo…Kororo…" Royce got stammered at that hard name of a school.

"Kuromorimine Girls Academy?" Akashi corrected him.

"Yeah, that one," Royce said as he pointed his finger to him. "Guess who? The second girl was her own sister, Maho Nishizumi."

Ami, Yuko and Akashi felt their heart stop as Chemo spit out his beer quickly and Vicek dropped his beer as he seemed frozen. Ghost however, left his jaw open underneath his balaclava skull mask with his eyes underneath his glasses widen in shock. Things just got from better to shit. What the bloody hell was Miho doing?

"Are you telling me that Captain Nishizumi is starting to recruit high schoolers including her own sister?!" Ghost asked aloud and furiously, as Royce jumped at his question.

"No sir. I asked the same thing about that," Royce replied with a quick shook. "Apparently Maho and Kay themselves volunteered to join up with the 141 despite Miho trying to deny them. In Maho's case, she wanted to make sure that she didn't fail her sister, even though those other students from the… Kuromo-whatever knew about this, they won't sign up for this shit. While Kay on the other hand, eavesdropped on Miho's conversation with Maho about the 141 and asked her about it because she wanted to learn self-defense. If she denies them, they would leak our classified information about the 141 and Miho's true identity as a soldier. "

Ghost and the rest were speechless about it, until Vicek broke it up. "Черт побери! You gotta be kidding me!"

Ghost sighed in desperation as he looked down, before looking up to Royce again. "Looks like we don't have a choice about this. Tell Captain Nishizumi that we're ready to give them any training they might need."

"Yes sir," Royce nodded, before he quickly left them and headed for the barracks.

"Well, ain't that great," Chemo commented wide his hands waved to his sides. "Now we got high schoolers to teach."

"I don't know how they are doing after this," Ami commented with a frown.

"Yeah, let's that thing get off our heads for now," Ghost then turned around to the Japanese. "Hey, we are going to be testing out a UGV. An unmanned heavy armed vehicle with a mounted mini-gun and a grenade launcher. Care to join us?"

"Sure, why not?" Ami replied with a smile and her open palms in front of her, they all then headed to the hangar next to them to check it out. Momentarily forgetting about the new recruits for a while.

* * *

Kuromorimine Girls Academy Kuromorimine School Carrier. 12:00 AM.

"Alright, where the fuck are we?"

"We're at the tank hangars."

"Why?"

"Well, you´re gonna meet your old friends, Miho."

"Really, mother?"

Miho was wearing her dark blue long-sleeve buttoned shirt underneath her black jacket that had a pouch on each shoulder with the UK flag on the left shoulder, left zipped up. Her pants were also black, along with her black beanie on her head. When Maho and Shiho asked why she was wearing so much black clothing, she implied that it was her style back in the day. Moreover, she had her white bandana loose around her neck into a scarf that only covered her mouth and nose when she decided to put it on her face.

Miho was now with her mother and her sister at the school. To be exact the tank hangars of the Kuromorimine Girls Academy on the fields that were covered in a lot of snow. The three actually stood near the hangars, waiting for the students from the school to come out here. Miho was for the moment sitting down on the nearest chair near the hangar and playing her guitar for now. Maho and Shiho were a little surprised that she had a guitar too besides her violin.

Besides the guitar she was bringing, she also brought her gun to Kuromorimine. She told them it was her Five-Seven pistol. When asked why, she replied with 'safety precautions'. She was not going to take any chances when something bad might going to happen, that's all. Just hoping that Miho didn't use her gun to shoot one of the Kuromorimine students.

They all stay silent waited as Miho only cared to play her guitar. Shiho was expecting that she was playing her guitar really bad, but it was the opposite of it. It was an American song, yeah, but it was a good song like some good old jazz music. Shiho and Maho danced their heads as she heard Miho was also singing whilst playing her guitar.

"This is Ground Control to Major Tom

You've really made the grade

And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

But it's time to guide the capsule if you da-a-aaa-are"

You know? It really was not bad bringing Miho along with them. She really knows how to entertain someone with the songs she knew back from 2016-17. They don't care if the songs were not Japanese it´s really enjoyable to hear. And hearing Miho sings as well? Heh, it just made it a lot better.

They both watched Miho playing her guitar and sing. They both smiled with their eyes closed as they dances their heads. But they didn't notice that there was someone else watching them and coming over to them. To be exact, the students of Kuromorimine they had been waiting for were coming over to them.

Erika, Akaboshi, Ritaiko, Geshiko, Mauko, and Sangou were coming over to them from behind them along with their own crews of the Sensha-Do team. All of the students except Erika, Akaboshi, Ritaiko, Geshiko, Mauko, and Sangou were all shocked to see that Miho was alive right in front of them they thought that she died a year ago. They suddenly started murmured conversations with each other after seeing this.

"I-is that Miho?" a student asked.

"I thought she died a year ago," another student said in shocked.

"How did she survive the incident?" another student asked as she gave a cringed face.

"Hey, calm down, everyone," Erika said aloud to them, they quickly went quiet. "Let's just talk to them."

Besides that, they all were surprised to see Maho and her mother were there as well with her. They were listening and watching Miho playing her guitar and sing. When they already got close to them, they could hear Miho was playing the guitar really good and she was singing really beautiful.

"Here am I floating 'round my tin can

Far above the moon

Planet Earth is blue

And there's nothing I can do"

After a few moments later, Miho finished playing her guitar and singing, she then lifted her head to Maho and Shiho. She smirked to see that Shiho and Maho didn't notice most of Kuromorimine´s Sensha-Do team was standing right behind them. Miho shook her head for their unawareness.

Shiho and Maho were momentarily confused on why Miho reacted like that. But then, they had a feeling, they both turned around. They yelped a little in surprise to notice that Kuromorimine's Sensha-Do team and their crews were standing right behind them. Miho put her guitar down and walked over to her family and stood in front of the students. Yeah, they were still shocked to see Miho was alive until now.

"Minasan, kon'nichiwa," Maho greeted with a nod.

"Kon'nichiwa, Maho-san!" the students greeted along with Erika and the other commanders with a bow.

"Excuse me, but…" a student said "Is that Miho-san with you?"

"Yes, it's Miho," Shiho replied with a nod, the students just couldn't believe their eyes. "She survived that incident in Ooarai."

"But… how?" a student asked, Miho then looked over to Maho and Shiho.

Miho had to thought about this for a moment. The only ones who knew about this at first are the commanders of the Kuromorimine Sensha-Do team and her own family. She was highly doubting that telling her secret of how she had survived to the students of Kuromorimine. The risk was that her own real personal information will be leaked by them. But then again, they were very strict to keep some things secret according to Maho, which is actually true. But then again, Miho won't take any chances.

"Sorry, but I don't want to talk about it," Miho replied as she turned her head to her side. "It's… personal."

The students were disappointed about it, while Erika, Maho, Shiho and the other commanders understood why she needed to keep her secrecy. "Ooh, but what about where you have been living for a year?" another student asked, Miho was okay with answering this question.

"Well, I've been in London for a year," Miho replied with a shrug, they blankly stared at her. "It was a good year."

"Aaih?!" the students shouted. "There's no way you ended up there!" a student stated in disbelieve.

"Why?" Miho asked.

"You gonna look like those students from St. Gloriana," another student replied.

"I agree with that though," Mauko added with a nod, then put her hand on her chin.

"Are you trying to say you have any problems with the Brits?" Miho retorted quickly as she stepped forward to that specific student.

"N-no, but-"

"Then don't," Miho quickly replied with cold eyes and angry look. "Because you're talking to a British right now, ya bloody pricks!"

Everyone except Erika, Akaboshi, Maho and Shiho went wide eyed and leaned their heads forward in surprise. "But aren't you a Japanese yourself?" Geshiko asked with her eyebrows raised.

"A Japanese and a British citizen," Miho corrected with retort as she lifted two of her fingers one by one. "You got any problem with that?"

"Uh, no, we're just surprised that you never mentioned it before," Sangou replied with a shrug.

"Yeah, I forgot to mention that to you earlier about it," Erika added as she scratched her head, everyone then glared at her. "What?"

"Черт возьми, Эрика?" Miho asked in annoyance. "Я слышал еще хуже."

Everyone quickly deadpanned at Miho's language. "Did you just speak Russian?" a student asked as if she felt that she might have misheard it.

"Yeah, she can speak Russian," Shiho replied. "And some other…languages."

They paused for a moment as the students only talked to each other Akaboshi then had something in mind. "You might be helpful for us."

"Excuse me?" Maho and Miho asked in unison, as they didn´t get what Akaboshi meant.

"What she meant actually is that you might be able to tell us what Klara and Nonna were talking about in Russian," Ritaiko explained, Miho actually considered her idea.

"Huh, maybe I can help you with that," Miho replied. "If I met them myself that is."

"I see," Erika nodded in understood. "Umm, why are you here? The last time I heard from the Commandant was that you had an argument with her and don't want to come here."

Miho sighed deeply in annoyance with her eyes closed. "Let's just say my sister and my mother forced me to come here until they started begging for it."

Shiho and Maho quickly turned their heads to Miho, as they felt offended, but then again remembering how Miho was doing, they kept silent for now. "I… I see…" Erika said, awkwardly.

There were some students that were looking over to Miho, right on her scared eye. "Miho-san, what happened to your eye?" a student asked, catching Miho off-guard.

"Oh, well, my eye got scratched by a tiger," Miho replied, everyone stared her down in horror.

"Woah… glad you didn't lose an eye," Geshiko joked, which they though she was commenting Miho gladly.

"So… you're here to come back to Kuromorimine?" a student asked, and it made Miho frown.

"No actually. I'm just here to see how everyone´s doing right now," Miho replied, waving her arms to her sides.

"But she's here to try out if her Sensha-Do skills are not lost yet," Maho stated with a smile, everyone in shock quickly glared at Maho, including her mother, and including Miho who was already pissed to hear that and gave a dreadful look to her as she showed her teeth.

"You said what?" Shiho asked, surprised by what Maho said.

"Maho, I did not come here to do that shit!" Miho retorted as she pointed her finger down to the ground and small fog of hot air burst out her mouth, Maho only kept her cool. "You said I won't be doing that when we got here."

"I lied, Imouto-san," Maho replied, rolling her eyes back with a shrug as she smirked at Miho. "That's why we brought you here."

"You-…" Miho stopped talking as her rage exploded.

It was a moment of silence as Maho smiled in a sense of victory with her eyes closed. Until…

*CLICK-CLACK*

They all jumped after that sound, and the source was coming from Miho. They all looked to her as Miho kept staring at Maho, then looked down below her upper body. Everyone got freaked out, including Maho herself as she had some sweat that was falling from her fore head. Besides Miho's dreadful angry look on her face, there was something else that really freaked her out.

Miho already got her Five-Seven pistol in her right hand, locked and loaded.

Shiho, Erika, Akaboshi and the other commanders and the students slowly took a couple of steps back from Miho. While Maho, just stood there frozen like a statue as she was freaked out that made her skin turn a pale white. Now Miho gave a sharp dreadful look to her sister, Maho realized that she made a mistake. It was that moment before she knew, she fucked up.

"Maho… you have five seconds to run before I shoot you."

"Uh oh…"

* * *

BC Freedom High School, BC Freedom School Carrier. Same time.

Marie was walking around her school as she greeted the students both from the Examination and the Escalator factions. All the while she walked she was also eating her cake on the way that she bought from her favorite bakery store in the city of the school carrier as she enjoyed the snow that was falling above her head. It was the same thing for Marie to see every day around her. The Escalator Faction being noble and having a good conversation with each other. While the Examination Faction was working hard on the jobs that they had.

Not to forget to mention the fight between the Escalator and the Examination factions that is very apparent in the school. Examinations does demonstrations around while the Escalators are only disgusted by their act. More than that, some huge fights that would happen usually around the hangars of the tanks and in the school yards. That's how every BC Freedom students made it through their day every time. Struggling for power over the school was the main problem all around here.

But for today, it was different than Marie would have expected. Marie was about to tell her girls to start the practice, until the Sensha-Do team from the Examination Faction said that Vice-Commander Rena Andou wasn't present. Yeah, maybe she will have a fight with Oshida and the rest of her Escalators when she got back, but this just so wrong for Marie. If Marie had to guess, it must be because Andou found out that she had attacked a Nishizumi member yesterday. Maybe that's the reason why she didn't show up. The last time Marie checked on Andou yesterday, she was a little traumatized after Miho beaten her up so badly, with the added result that she hasn't taunted or had a fight with the Escalators except by her own faction after their trip to that restaurant.

Marie had to check from the nearest restaurant to the school yards, and until their cafeteria. And apparently she didn't find her anywhere. She even had to ask students from both factions if they saw where Andou went, but none of them saw or heard where she had gone. Marie was currently in the cafeteria as she was looking around for Andou and asked all the students inside if they saw Andou. The result was pointless at the end and she couldn´t find her.

She then decided to go ahead to the library. Marie went upstairs and looked around the lobby first. After she didn't find Andou in there, she went forward through the lobby. When she was halfway through the lobby, she met a student from the Examination Faction.

"Bonjour, mon ami," Marie greeted to the student with an open palm and smile.

"Bonjour Commandant Marie," the student greeted back with a nod. "Can I help you?"

"Did you see Andou around?" Marie asked, the student felt a little surprised to hear that.

"She's in the library, Commandant," the student replied, pointing her thumb to behind her.

"In the library? Is she reading?" Marie asked with her eyebrows raised. "I don't recall if she wanted to read any books in there."

"She's not actually," the student replied with a shook. "She just sits on her chair and looking out the window. Didn't even bother about the Escalators that were taunting her a while ago."

This was actually something new for Marie. "I see. I'll be on my way. Je vous remercie."

After Marie took some steps however, the student halted her for a moment. "Hang on I wanted to ask you something. Is it true that you really talked with Miho Nishizumi yesterday?"

Marie paused for a moment to her question. "Yes, I did. She was alive and well."

The student stared her in silence for a while, before she nodded. "Oh…okay, because the rumors about that were already spreading for now, thanks for answering my question."

The student then turned around and left Marie as she walked down the lobby. Marie watched her leave for a moment, before heading into the library. She reached and entered the library, she then looked around. Marie had to ask a few students inside to find her. They told her where Andou was and they led her to Andou.

When she found her, it was exactly what that student in the lobby had said. Andou was sitting on her chair, facing towards the large window as she looked out through it. As her back was leaning against the chair and her blue jacket was left carelessly on the table next to her. Andou wasn't currently showing her emotions of hatred or even anger, just being drowned in emotionless as she was not caring about anything that happened around her.

Seeing her like this, Marie decided to look around and took a random chair from another table. She then put it next to Andou and sat down there, also facing to the window. Andou didn't really react to her commander's presence, her eyes still locked on the window. Marie looked over Andous face for a moment to see how she is doing. For the least, her bruises on her face she got from Miho were healing. And something in Andous eyes was telling her that there was something bothering her.

"Andou?" Marie called, Andou didn't respond. "Andou?"

"Hm?" Andou quickly turned her head to her right in surprise. "Oh… Commandant Marie… sorry, I didn't notice you."

"It's alright," Marie replied, Andou sighed for a moment, and then turned her head to the window again. "You alright?"

Andou frowned she dropped her head and looked to the ground. "I don't know to be honest… I'm just not in the mood right now."

Marie paused for a moment, before rubbing her shoulder. "It's okay just tell me what's wrong."

Andou sighed with her eyes closed, before looking up to Marie. "It's… about that time I attacked a Nishizumi… I'm just… I don't know… hearing Miho is actually alive after that incident in Ooarai it still freaks me out."

"You mean like…?" Marie asked as she raised her left eyebrow.

"I just attacked someone who just came back from her grave," Andou added, she then breathed out with a sorrowful expression on her face with her eyes closed and facing forward. "I remembered that scar she had on her eye, I thought that was a fake but… did you ask her about the scar?"

"She said she got scratched by a tiger," Marie replied as she looked over to the bruises. "Why?"

"Oh, well, after I watched you sitting with her along with her sister and her friends…" Andou paused she then scratched her neck in doubt as she was still frowning. "There was something I saw in her eyes that keeps bothering me."

Marie was curious on what Andou was talking about. "What did you see in her eyes?"

"I think I was looking at someone who has just gone through hell… I'm not sure what kind of hell she has been through though," Andou admitted, they fell silent for a moment, before Andou continued. "After seeing her eyes like that after she beat me up I'm just… I think I don't want to have a fight with the Escalators for now, I'm still crept out and feel really guilty about it. I'm just… afraid for now… I had a nightmare yesterday about Miho and… God… I think I just witnessed her death in Ooarai school at that bridge… in my dream… I'm scared… now I just kept thinking about what I'm doing in my life despite my hatred and distrust to the Escalators… I just… I don't want to have any fight… I need to calm myself down for now."

From what Marie could tell, Andou was still traumatized about it. Even she was not fond about having a fight with someone, her encounter with Miho was the worst one she had. Now with the nightmares she had yesterday, Marie knew Andou must not be involved in any conflict regarding the fight between two factions of this school or else it will make Andou' mental condition that much worse. Seeing her like this and hearing something like this, Marie felt very sorry for Andou.

Andou was not sure what she wanted to do now. All she wanted for now is only to kept peace to herself for a few days. Remembering her nightmare yesterday was… gruesome. Watching Miho's death by herself in her dream was very fucking accurate to what Miho's Panzer IV crew described. Plus, with the fact that Miho got kicked out from Kuromorimine because she abandoned the flag tank to save a drowning crew of another tank, she felt as if she wanted to throw up. If that exact same thing happened to her in this school, God, she hoped that didn't happen. All she wanted to do right now was to meet Miho again and apologize to her. But that wasn´t going to happen today, at least she wanted to avoid any fights for now.

"I understand," Marie said softly as Andou was still drowning in sorrow, Marie then shook Andous shoulder. "Hey, we'll be having Sensha-Do training soon. You're coming?"

Andou turned her head to her in doubt, but then shook her head. "Nah… I'm not in the mood right now… I'm… well…"

"Easy," Marie cut her sentence. "Alright, just take your time, Andou. You can go back training with us after you think you're doing fine enough for us."

Andou fell silent for the moment, but then smiled in relieved. "Thank you, Commandant."

Marie smiled back to her as she stood up from her chair and patted her shoulder. "I'll give you some privacy."

Marie left the library as Andou watched her leave by turning her head to Marie with a smile. After she was out of view, Andou then turned her head to the window and looked through it. She then turned her smile to a frown, now she was all by herself. The thoughts of what happened yesterday still haunting her badly. At least she had her own time of peace.

* * *

"How are you doing down there, Miho?"

"What?! Sitting in this old rust bucket? I'm starting to have just enough of your shit!"

"Calm down. It's not that bad."

"Not that bad?! You fucking lied to me, you bloody wanker!"

Miho is right now inside Maho's Tiger I tank, competing in a full mock-up battle practice. She along with Maho and her crew in their tank were moving through a small forest along with Erika in her Tiger II tank who teamed up with them. Both of the crews have taken out six tanks after a few minutes post-fighting. And both of the tank crews were looking for another opponent that they could spot and take out. Maho's and Miho's mother on the other hand was looking out from the watchtower near the hangars on top with her binoculars.

All of the students of Kuromorimine including Maho and Shiho were all very glad that they were able to calm Miho down before doing this training. Miho's threat back there about giving Maho five seconds to run before getting shot was no bullshit. After Maho had ran to the nearest bushes covered in snow, Miho starting to take shots at the bushes where Maho had jumped in. It was a scary thing for them for the first time to see, with the fact Miho herself was the only person who had a real firearm. They were scared as piss that Miho was going to kill her own sister.

In reality however, Miho actually wanted to scare Maho for breaking the agreement they both had made. Yeah, maybe she'll put a couple of bullets into Maho's arm or leg. But killing her own sister is out of the question for her. Miho must've had shot around three full mags at Maho, as her mother, Erika, Akaboshi and the rest quickly walked over to her and tried to calm her down. Took her about a full two minutes to hear a lot of their pleas to stop shooting at Maho. After that, Miho holstered her pistol and called Maho to come over to her. Maho was very glad that she didn't get shot, but she has been given a warning to not 'fuck' with her sister.

Maho had ask to Miho with a please to join a full mock-up battle practice with her, and Miho reluctantly accept it. So after a few minutes later, Maho's crew (including Miho) teamed up with Erika and were able to destroy six tanks, three for each of both tanks. Maho the Commandant of her Tiger was on the overlook on top of the turret, Miho on the other hand was playing her role as the gunner of Maho's tank while the rest were the loader, radio operator and driver. And now Maho needed to make sure she didn't piss Miho even more off by saying anything wrong.

Putting that one aside Maho, Erika and the rest of the crews from both tanks were awed by Miho's accuracy. Maybe the Kuromorimine's Sensha-Do team had good aim, but Miho's aim was better. From what Maho saw, Miho was quite fond about turning the turret and firing the cannon while on the move. Miho managed to take out two tanks while on the move as the opponents were on the move with one shell each, and honestly her shot caused the opponents tanks to be instantly declared inoperable. While the last tank, it was got shot by Miho with their tank that only stood still on a hill far away from the enemy's tank around one kilometer. As the Tiger tank stood there with Maho watching the enemy tank run away, Miho took the shot without having an order from Maho to fire which surprisingly destroyed the enemy armor by putting a round on the air-shaft of the engine of the enemy's tank.

Erika, Maho and Shiho who was watching from the tower were all baffled about Miho's accuracy. Even if the enemy was one km away, there was no way Miho just shot it down with a round after just ten seconds of aiming her first shot. Maho had asked Miho why she was so accurate, Miho replied with 'tank sniper training'. This surprised Maho, Erika and Shiho as well, Kuromorimine didn't have that kind of training. Maho thought it was because Miho's training as part of the 141st made her have that sniper-like ability in tankery. Miho would say Cpt. Mactavish would be proud about that.

"Maho! Spotted anything?" Miho asked via her wireless military modern ear buds (they never remembered if such thing ever existed right now).

"I've got nothing here," Maho then radioed to Erika as her fog of breath ran out from her mouth. "Erika, found anything?"

"Got nothing here," Erika replied as she looked around from the top of the turret, her tank was behind Maho's. "Where do you think they were heading?"

"Probably to the small plateau near the forest ahead," Maho suggested as she checked on her map. "We probably will find the rest of them there."

"It would be nice if you took cover in the trees," Miho added as she looked through her gunner's scope. "It'll be our good advantage point while Erika flanks from the right on our mark."

"Sounds good, Miho," Maho replied with a nod, then turned around to Erika behind her tank. "Do what she says."

"Yes Commandant!" Erika then entered her head back in the turret. "Driver! To the right!"

After both of the tanks split up, Maho ordered the driver to go into the forest on their left. They advanced slowly through the forest, making sure to not rush ahead. Since they were still on the hill, Miho still had her vantage point there. Plus, with the forest covering around them, it will increase their chances to not get hit by a round of the enemy's cannon. They drove the tank slowly until they reached the edge part of that forest.

In front of them below the hill was the vast snow field as they looked from the cover of the snowy bushes in the forest. Maho was glad that they change the paint of her tank it really blended in with the environment. Miho and Maho can see the open plateau ahead of them with two boulders in that plateau. Guess what they found there, there all the remaining seven enemy tanks stood over there. Erika was baffled to know that the Maus tank wasn't there with the opponents. It was due to the fact that the last tank that Miho shot before was actually the Maus itself (which made Shiho baffled furiously to see that from the tower). Maho and Miho did saw Mauko came out from the top of the turret and looked over to the Tiger, before she smiled forcefully and slammed her face down on the turret in defeat, don't ask how Miho knew the Maus´s weakness.

They were around 500 meters away from the enemies, and Miho had her vantage point ready. She turned the cannon to one of the enemy tanks, the one next to Akaboshis Panther. The enemies made a mistake to operate their staging plan on the exposed small plateau in the open even if there are boulders in that plateau it wouldn't be enough to avoid Miho's shot. Maho then radioed to Erika.

"Erika, are you in position?"

"Yeah, on the enemy's right flank," Erika radioed back. "They don't know we're here, so we're waiting for your mark."

"Yes, Erika," Maho then get her head inside the turret and looked at Miho. "Take the shot, Miho."

"Copy…"

Akaboshi, Ritaiko, Geshiko and Sangou were in top of their tank turrets. They were talking to each other for devising a plan. Since six tanks were defeated by Maho's Tiger I and Erika's Tiger II, they needed to find a plan to defeat them. They all were baffled about one thing.

"Where's Mauko?" Geshiko asked as she looked around. "She should be here right?"

"Her Maus was shot down, Geshiko," Akaboshi replied, all quickly glared to her in terrified. "Maho's Tiger took it out."

"What?! How?!" Sangou asked in shock. "That is a sick tank we ever got! How was Maho able to shoot it down?!"

"Technically, it was Miho," Akaboshi replied, they all fell silent to hear that. "Miho is the gunner of Maho's Tiger tank. She took down the Maus with one round with her first shot."

"H-how?!" Ritaiko asked furiously. "That's impossible! How do you know Miho wasn't talking nonsense!?"

"Well, I was lucky to ask her about why she's become the gunner," Akaboshi puts her hand on the chin to remember for a moment. "She answered me that, she had some kind of… 'sniper tank training'. I never heard about that kind of training before."

…

…

They all just fell stupefied to hear that. "Like being a sniper in a tank?" Geshiko asked confusedly.

"Kind of," Akaboshi replied with a nod.

*BUMM-* *DUAAARRRMMM*

All the commanders quickly ducked down to the incoming attack of a tank round. After that, they all looked up to see what the incoming round hit at. They were shocked to see one of their tanks, the Jagdpanzer got shot in the back side which where the engines were. The small white flag quickly popped on top after that attack. Six tanks were left in the field.

"We're inoperable!" one of the crew inside the Jagdpanzer shouted through the radio.

The commanders quickly looked around trying to find their hidden opponents from the top of their turrets. "Where did that come from?!" Geshiko exclaimed as she was unnerved.

"Don't know, but it sounds like it was coming from a distance!" Sangou stated as she looked around.

*BUMM-* *DUAAARRR*

They all quickly ducked down again to the incoming attack. They all looked up again, only to see one of their tanks, the Panzer III destroyed. It was shot right on the left side of its hull the impact was very hard which caused the tank to pop out the white flag. Five tanks left in the field. What the fuck just happened?

"We've been defeated!" the commander inside the Panzer III shouted.

"Where the hell did that come from?!" Ritaiko shouted as they started to panic unable to find the source of the incoming rounds.

*BUMM-* *DUUAAAAARRRR*

They all jumped this time to the incoming shell. This time, the sound of the firing cannon was much closer instead of far. The attack just took out their Elephant, as the white flagged popped out on top of it. Now they had four tanks left, which are themselves. They all looked to their right flank, only to find Erika's Tiger II was there and ready to fire.

"All tanks! Scatter, scatter!" Akaboshi quickly ordered, immediately all of their tanks pumped to full throttle and avoided the next shot just in time.

*BAAAMM* *DUUUAARRR*

Erika missed her shot, and she proceeded to drive her tank forward. She turned her Tiger turret to Sangou and took the shot. Sangou´s Panzer III was shot and quickly crashed into a tree, before her white flag popped out on the roof of her turret. Sangou just face palmed for her defeat.

"Three to go!" Erika shouted as her Tiger turned the turret and aimed for the next target.

Akaboshi quickly stopped her tank as her Panther's cannon got lined up with Erika's Tiger. "Get ready to fire."

*BUM-* *DUAARRRR*

Her Panther got hit in a single shot and instantly destroyed her tank. The back of her tank quickly shifted to the left upon the impact, it got hit right in the back, making Akaboshi nearly jump out the hatch on the turret's roof. Akaboshis Panther then popped out the white flag for the defeat.

"We're defeated!" Akaboshi shouted in shock through radio.

"Ach du lieber Gott!" Geshiko shouted as her tank quickly moved up to Erika's right side of her tank. "They got Akaboshi! I'm firing at Erika now!"

"Not so fast!" Erika shouted back, which turned out that Erikas tank got her cannon aimed at Geshiko first.

*BUM-* *DUUUAAARR*

Erika fired her shot and hit Geshiko´s tank. Her panther got shot in the right side of the hull and got tilted to the left in the air. After that, Geshiko's tank got stabilized, but then because she was still at full throttle whilst tilting before. She crashed into a big boulder very hard, Geshiko was quickly thrown out on the turret roof and landed on the front hull of the tank. Soon a white flag popped out from the roof of the turret.

Ritaiko just got in time in turning her Jagpanther tank to Erika, as Erika looked at her and was in shock to see Ritaiko was going to shoot her from behind. "I got you now!"

Before Ritaiko was able to shoot Erika's Tiger, they heard a shout from Ritaiko's left side. "OY ASSHOLE!"

Erika and Ritaiko quickly looked over to their left, only to see something that horrified Ritaiko to see that Miho was on the roof of the turret of the Tiger I that was aiming towards her. "EAT THIS!" Miho shouted before took the shot was fired.

*BUUM*

"AAAAHHH!" Ritaiko screamed as her tank got shot.

*DUUUUUAAAARRRRR*

*SSSSHHHHHHH*

After that shot, Ritaiko was already leaning her upper body to the front of the turret door. Sighing in defeat as the white flag popped out next to her. Erika can't believe that Miho just saved her bacon. That was the best close call Erika ever had in her life. Erika didn't even hear or notice that Miho along with Maho's Tiger tank got there quickly. Miho only looked over to Erika who was still shaken by that close call.

"Hey, you're doing alright, mate?" Miho asked via wireless ear buds radio.

"Ja that was a close one," Erika replied with a nod from her tank. "Thank you for that."

"Nah, don't worry about it," Miho then get inside the turret and looked over to Maho, who was manning the cannon. "Nice shot, sis'."

"Danke Imouto-san," Maho replied, as she got off the scope of the gunner.

"That was awesome!" the driver of Maho's Tiger said as she turned her head to them. "And those shot are accurate. It's lucky to have you with us."

"Well, for now," Miho said as she slowly looked out through the cupola of the turret and looked around, she then observed the full result of the after-battle. "Nice job, people, you didn't even break a sweat! Let's go back to the hangars!"

fifteen minutes later

Miho, Maho, Erika, Akaboshi, Geshiko, Ritaiko, Mauko, Sangou and Shiho only stood near the hangar as the maintenance team who was responsible for towing the tank are brought in to the hangars. The rest of the students however were inside the hangars and doing repairs on the tanks. They watched the tanks that were destroyed in the battle were brought to the hangars while the commanders except Akaboshi who got defeated only stared at those tanks in disbelieve. While Miho, Maho and Erika only gave their flat smile to those tanks. They had a long awkward silence for this moment. Before they all looked back towards Miho.

"Miho…" Shiho called awkwardly. "I have to admit… you have an even more deadly accuracy than anyone else in here."

"And that was way beyond Ami's accuracy," Mauko added, her expression just like someone who had seen a ghost after what happened to her Maus. "How did you take out my Maus?"

"I shot your air-shafts of your engine from 1000 meters," Miho replied. "It's challenging, but I was able to do it."

"I gotta admit," Maho said with a nod and made an impressed face. "You are really one good sniper for sure."

"Heh, they don't call me part of the 141 for nothing," Miho replied with a smirk. "Took me a week to do that after I got done with my sniper training."

"That was crazy to be honest," Geshiko then remembered to ask something. "By the way, how many tanks Miho did shoot down?"

"Around six tanks for Miho," Shiho replied, they just can't believe what they were hearing. "Including the Maus, One tank for Maho however because she was the one who shot the last tank out."

"Hang on, Miho," Ritaiko called as she remembered something, Miho then looked over to her. "Why did you call me an asshole?"

They all soon glared back to Miho, Miho only scoffed at that. "I'm still a little bit pissed about you forcing me to join this battle practice. That's all."

"Oh…" Erika replied as they all only kept silent, yeah she was still angry about it. "That makes sense."

But then Maho was reminded of something. "Hey, Miho… about that 141…"

"I know, Maho," Miho paused for a moment as she stares at her. "They are ready to give any training to you under my orders."

Everyone except Shiho where shocked to hear that, they quickly glared at Maho with wide eyes. "WHAT?!" they asked aloud in unison.

"Maho-san!" Erika called worriedly. "What are you going to do with them?!"

"I'm joining up with the 141, Erika," Maho replied softly.

"But isn't that job that involves you to kill?" Sangou asked, worried about it.

"I know," Maho paused for a moment. "Look, I just don't want to fail Miho again after what happened a year ago. So… yeah… better this than that…"

They all stayed silent about it, before Miho added. "Because of this, I also wanted to ask you to keep this secret. I don't want any diplomatic incidents happen because of this. Alright?"

They were not sure if their Commandant will be alright, but they then reluctantly nodded. "Good…" Miho then looked over to the hangars in the school.

"I hope it didn't get worse."


	13. Chapter 13 - TOEDWY

Miho, Maho and Shiho are now in their residence, plus with Kay because Miho invited her. The four were sitting on the floor near the table in the meeting room. It was around seven o'clock in the evening for now, as the snow on the outside of the residence was ´starting to fall a little heavier. Miho sat next to Maho while Shiho was also next to Maho but only with the given distance between them both. Kay on the other hand was sitting on Miho's left side, leaning on Miho.

Between Shiho and Maho, on the table, there was a video projector that was turned on. In front of them on the wall was a large white screen hanging there. Maho and Shiho wanted to know about one of her missions that she did before. Not because they still didn´t believe Miho being part of the 141st, but rather curious on how she worked in the field (despite Shiho who saw a bit of that back in that department). After a moment of silence, the three looked to Miho who was prepping everything up.

"So, where's this mission take place, Imouto-san?" Maho asked.

"This mission took place on a oil platform in the middle of the sea in Russia," Miho replied, as she took a last check on the video projector. "Damn, the sea there was effing cold."

"What kind of mission?" Shiho asked, Miho chuckled on that as she looked to her.

"A two phase operation, I only can show you the first phase," Miho replied, she then turned her head to the screen. "Which is a hostage rescue mission while also neutralizing SAM sites and securing the oil platform."

"I see," Maho replied with a nod. "So, everything's ready?"

"Yeah," Miho then clicked the remote to play the video. "Here it goes…"

"Alright, let's see how you do your job!" Kay said excitedly, before they began to watch.

* * *

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Soap: Seems we've been heading for the wrong direction, sir. Shouldn't we be coming back to the fight?

Shepherd: Plenty of fight to go around, Mactavish.

Miho: Let's scratch Brazil from our fight list for now.

Roach: I agree.

Shepherd: Can't deny that. Glad you made it out from South America. You're meeting up with the 6th fleet. Leading the counter-strike.

.

Tracking High Value Individual

Stand by…

…

…

Target confirmed.

Location:

The Gulag, East side outside Petropavlovsk, Russia

Call sign: Prisoner #627

.

Shepherd: Prisoner 6-2-7. We believe that's who Makarov's got the mad-on for. But we can't get to him.

Scanning for possible SAM Sites:

…

…

SAM Sites located. East side of The Gulag in the sea, four oil rigs in Inner Circle's possession.

Soap: Oilrigs, sir?

Shepherd: Russians are using them as SAM Sites.

Scanning Oilrig Target Alpha

Result: Low defense

Shepherd: Oil workers are used as human shields. So we can't just blow up the rig wholesale. And this one is the least defended.

Miho: That's a shoddy way to set it up as SAM Site.

Ghost: But that doesn't mean this is quite enlightening.

Shepherd: Boys and girl. I know I'm sending you into a meat grinder on this one…

Soap: They're defending it, so it means we want it. Especially if it gets us to prisoner 627.

Miho: Alright, let's get geared up and meet up with the 6th fleet.

* * *

"The Only Easy Day… Was Yesterday"

Day 5 (August 14th) 2016 – 05:48:40

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Vikhorevka 36 Oil Platform, Russia

Miho along with both teams of Hotel Six and Team Two have gone traveled underwater via submersible-torpedo transport to reach the oilrig from beneath. Team Hotel Six are Miho, Roach, Ghost and Soap. While the men of Team two are actually Robot, Zach, Peasent, O'Connell, and Kenneth. All of them are all equipped in black combat uniforms modified for diving in the sea Ghost on the other hand was still keeping his skull balaclava underneath his oxygen mask.

After they reached their destination, they left their submersible underwater transports and swam up to the surface. God, Miho was glad she was going to be out from the water. This damn sea was very cold compared to that pool back in Afghanistan. After they reached the surface, Miho and Roach soon spotted a target on the platform ahead, his back facing towards Miho and Roach.

They slowly swam to the target until they were at the edge of the platform. The bastard was talking to another gunman who was talking to him from the other side of that platform. These bastards had no idea what was coming for them. After both Miho and Roach readied their knives, they heard Soap who was at the other side of the platform beneath the other bastard giving them their orders.

"We'll take them out at the same time… on your go."

"Roger that," Miho replied, then looked over to Roach and they both nodded.

They then extend their hands up to the platform and lifted themselves a little to see the other bastard at the other side by looking through the gap of the hostile's legs near them. Soap quickly attacked the hostile on the other side by jumping out of the water and quickly grabbing him by his belt before dragging him down into the water. The hostile where Miho and Roach where behind was very startled to see that, but was late to react after both Miho and Roach grabbed him from behind and pulled him down into the waters. As the target they pulled into the water was drowning and struggled to fight back, Roach stabbed him in the neck while Miho stabbed him in the chest. After the hostile was dead, they both pushed his corpse down to the depths of the Russian sea while his blood dirtied the waters.

* * *

"Oh… that just sick," Kay commented in disgust too see Miho and Roach killed him.

"But effective," Maho added as they continued to watch the recording.

* * *

They quickly looked at the other side of the platform underwater, to see the other bastard was already dead and made his way down to the deep of the sea while one of the Navy Seals was going onto the platform above. They both then went to surface and met two other Navy Seals troopers who were waiting for them. They gave their hands to them to help them to climb on the platform. Roach climbed with the help of the Navy Seals on his left, O'Connell, while Miho took the hand of the guy on her right, Zach. After they both climbed up, they soon met up with typically everyone on the platform they were already here like they were teleported.

Both Miho and Roach cocked their weapons Miho had her ACR Suppressed Grenadier with a Red Dot Sight with her secondary being her Vector Silenced with a Thermal Sight. While Roach on the on the other hand has his M4A1 SOPMOD with Red Dot Sight and Scar-H Silenced with Thermal Sight. There were reasons for why they both brought their thermal scopes. One, is because Soap told them to do so. Second, there was the probability of enemies using smoke grenades, that was the Intel Shepherd got from the 6th fleet.

"Two hostiles down in Section One-Alpha. Moving up to Section Two," Soap radioed as all Hotel Six members moved up to the stairs not far from the platform as Team Two stayed back for the moment.

"Roger that, Hotel Six," Sub Commander replied via radio as she along with her team walked up the stairs.

"Keep it tight, people," Soap warned after they reached the third level of the stairs.

They walked up the stairs until they reached an oil tank of some sort there. Soap and Ghost were the first to reach the floor. They soon turned left and took cover at the tank and the metal sheet left on the fences. In the middle of the room was a square hole leading down to the lower platform while on their left was a rectangular office with two windows and two doors. And on their right, they spotted something.

"Got a visual by the railing," Ghost stated as they took cover.

"Rules of engagement?" Roach asked as he along with Miho and Soap took cover behind the metal sheets.

"Free to engage. Suppressed weapons only," Soap replied as he took a look on the target who was at the fence ahead and looking down the hole.

"Roger, taking the shot," Miho replied, before pulling the trigger.

*CTAK*

The target got shot in the head and let out an "aagh!" before he fell down to the hole making a loud splash in the waters.

"We're clear," Ghost radioed as they went out of cover.

"Civilian hostages at your position watch your fire," Sub Commander radioed.

"Roger that, Team One (Hotel Six) moving to breach," Soap radioed back before they all stacked up at the two doors of that office.

Roach and Miho quickly stacked on the door on the far left while Ghost and Soap take the one on the far right. After they stacked up, Roach looked over to Soap to tell him they were ready. Soap gave the nod to Roach, before Roach gave the nod to Miho.

"Alright, breaching in 3," Miho counted. "2, 1."

Roach quickly planted the charge on the door and took cover to the wall next to it. After it exploded, Roach quickly went in followed up by Miho. Everything was slowing down as they were starting to shoot at the hostiles. Roach quickly taking out a hostile in front of him that was about to shoot the hostage's before shooting the other two near that bastard. Miho diverted her attention to the bastards on their right and took out two hostiles, one behind the barrel that one got shot in the head, and one on the far right got shot thrice and flew to the wall behind him as Ghost and Soap already breached through the door there. After a moment, their vision came back to normal and the hostages are secured.

"Clear," Miho radioed as she walked up to a hostage to make sure he's alright.

"We're clear," Ghost radioed as they checked on the hostages that are still alive.

"Hostages secured in Section Two-Echo," Soap radioed.

"Roger that Hotel Six, Team 2 will secure and handle evac continue your search topside," Sub Commander radioed back in confirmation.

Soon, the men of Team Two quickly went inside and took care of the hostages, Robot handled the hostage that Miho just checked before Miho and Roach left the office along with Soap and Ghost. "Ok, move upstairs, Control – we're advancing to Deck Two," Soap radioed as they headed to the stairs on the far right beside the office.

They walked up the stairs Miho was the last before turning left. They made sure they checked the corners of the small platform they're on first. Before they walked forward through that small platform before walking up the stairs again.

"Eyes open. Watch your sectors," Soap warned as they went up the stairs.

"Copy," Miho replied as they reached topside and entered a room ahead.

"Enemy helo patrolling the perimeter. Keep a low profile, Hotel Six," Sub Commander warned as they stacked at the empty doorway leading outside the room.

"Roger that," Soap radioed back, before they headed out of the room then turned to the right.

"If that was the same chopper from Kazakhstan, I'll be damned," Roach said in the radio in annoyance as Miho following up behind him.

"Roach, don't make me hope Nikolai was here," Soap warned as he had small grin about that thought.

"You almost got shot by missiles I imagine," Ghost said, which then they all stopped and all including Miho glared at him with empty eyes.

"Well, yeah," Miho replied with a sigh. "It was 'nearly killed by missiles'."

"It sounds like the same bloody thing for me," Ghost replied, Miho only shook in annoyance with a snort.

*WHIRRRRRR*

They quickly got up by that sound. "Enemy helo, get out of sight…" Soap radioed, as they quickly took cover behind some barrels and a tanker on that platform.

They waited for a moment for the enemy's Little Bird outside the oilrig to move away until they can hear it moved until it sounds can't be heard anymore. "Coast is clear, move up," Miho said as they quickly get off from cover and walked forward past a scaffolding before turning right.

They walked forward and reached an office ahead, and Sub Commander radioed in. "Hotel Six, more hostages at your position."

"Copy that," Soap replied as he and Miho stacked up at the door on the front, while Roach and Ghost go for the door on the left side of that rectangular office.

Miho looked over to Soap and gave the nod. "Breaching in 3, 2, 1," Miho counted before planting the door charge.

They took cover next to the door, before it exploded *BUAAM*. Miho quickly entered the office as Roach entered from the door on the far front on the right side. Miho' vision slowed down as she saw there was an enemy that kicked a hostage down to the ground on her left and other pinned and choked a hostage to the cabinet on her right with a pistol. She quickly swung her rifle and shot the bastards who tried to kill the hostages, one in the head and one in the neck and made both of those bastards get thrown sideways ahead. She quickly shot a bastard who shot back and took cover behind a desk on his head. The other two enemies ahead of her however were quickly mowed down by Roach the moment she breached the door. After a moment later, Miho's vision turned normal and they secured the room.

"Clear," Ghost said to everyone.

"Clear," Miho said to everyone as well as she looked around the room.

"Control – all Deck Two hostages secured," Soap radioed as Team Two quickly went inside and extracted the hostages out from the office.

Then they heard one of the enemy's radio came alive, got them up really quick. "Группа 5 приём. Ответьте Базе. Ваня, ты там? Ответь Базе! Высылаем группу вниз."

"Boys, they're sending a patrol squad to come here," Miho said as she looked up to them in worry. "We've got company."

"Set up for Plan B. Get some C4 on those bodies, go," Soap ordered, both Miho and Roach nodded and pulled out their C4s.

Miho planted one on a corpse and turned him around the floor so the enemies won't see it. While Roach planted one on an Ultranationalist corpse that was leaning against a wall behind them. Roach hid the C4 underneath the Kevlar vest so they won't expect is. After everything was done, Miho nodded to Ghost as he looked at their CO.

"C4 placed, sir," Ghost said to him with a nod.

"Get to an elevated position. We'll ambush them when they discover the bodies, go," Soap ordered, as all four headed out of the room and back to the scaffoldings they have passed before.

* * *

"Do you really have to plant the bombs on the bodies?" Shiho asked, uncomfortable with the idea of 'exploding bodies'.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Didn't we Japanese from the Second World War do that exact same thing to Americans?"

She had a point indeed, as they all stared her with empty eyes. "Oh yeah… I forgot about that," Kay replied awkwardly to that.

"But it's a quiet effective trap," Maho commented in impression, as they continue to watch.

* * *

After they all climbed up the scaffolds, they all went prone and aimed their weapons forward to the kill zone next to the office. They waited for a moment for the enemy's group to come. Just like Miho said, they would have some company. Soon, they spotted the enemy group ahead in the kill zone.

"There's the patrol. hold fire until they're closer," Soap ordered as they watched enemy's movements.

Roach got his detonator in his right hand as they waited for the terrorists to get closer to the office. "Standby…" Soap said as they watched them.

Three members of the 10-men enemy patrol then went inside the room on their left (right side of Miho's team) and looked around. As the enemies outside watched for any movements there, they really failed to notice Miho's team were on that scaffolding, covered in total darkness. Suddenly loud chatter was heard in both the Terrorists and Miho's team radios. It's time to hit 'em hard.

"Plan B. Do it," Soap ordered, as he looked at Roach.

"Here comes the fireworks," Roach said at last before clicking his detonator.

*KA-BOOOOMM*

A big explosion occurred inside the room ahead and the blast had gone through the window. The enemies outside quickly ducked down and faced away from the unexpected explosion. As there was one soldier from inside that room that flew out the window and died by that blast. It really was a glorious firework show.

"HERE'S THE MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN OF LONDON, YA' FUCKFACE!" Miho shouted very loud angrily, before they began to open fire on the bastards. Soap swears she sounded like she was pissed off and being badass.

* * *

Shiho, Maho and Kay blankly stared at Miho after they heard that taunt. "Something's wrong with me?"

"We never heard you taunt someone aloud like that," Maho stated awkwardly.

"If Darjeeling hears that, she's not sure what to say about it," Kay added awkwardly, remembered about Darjeeling's ladylike bullshits. "Since she's quite affiliated with British stuffs"

"These bastards we were pissing me off if that's what you're asking."

* * *

"Control, this is Hotel Six. Our cover is blown," Soap radioed after taking down the last bastard and they all jumped down the scaffolding as the alarm rang out loud continuously.

"Copy that, Intel still indicates hostages and possible explosives on the top deck," Sub Commander radioed back as they walked past the dead bodies on the ground. "Your team needs to secure that location before we can send in reinforcements to handle the SAM sites, over."

"Roger that. Will call for exfil in LZ Bravo," Soap radioed back before he turned to his team as they marched forward. "CentCom needs us to take the top deck ASAP so they can send in the Marines. Move"

"Roger, moving up!" Roach replied with a shout.

They stopped after passing the blown up office, taking cover at the metal sheet on the fence beside the office and a vertical pillar ahead as they engaged the enemies ahead and on their right. "Move!" Soap ordered as they engaged.

"Got him!" Miho said as she shot a target behind a corner in the head then looked to Ghost who was taking cover at the pillar as she reloads. "Ghost! Target 11 O'clock!"

"Roger!" Ghost quickly peeked out of cover and shot the bastard in that direction, almost falling down to the sea at the edge of the deck platform.

"Roach! On me!" Miho shouted as they went to the left of that platform, both her and Roach entered a doorway into a room for a quick flanking route.

Miho and Roach quickly stacked up at the doorway on their left and peeked and shoot the enemies who just went down the stairs from the top deck. Ghost and Soap soon followed up from the path to their left who were shooting the three hostiles who were at the top deck. After it's clear they went up the stair platforms three times before reaching the top deck. They then soon spotted a group of hostiles on their left and took cover behind piles of woods, barrels and steels. They to sprint and gun them down first before taking cover, they managed to score nine kills from that.

"Hotel Six, hostages from the lower decks are being extracted by Team 2. Proceed to the top deck ASAP to secure the rest, over," Sub Commander radioed, they all glad to hear that.

"Copy that, we're working on it. Out," Soap replied as Miho shot a grenade with her launcher at some enemies that were behind cover, killing six of them.

"Enemies behind those barrels on our left!" Roach shouted to Miho as they started shooting again.

"I see them!" Miho directed her attention to the enemies and shot them with her ACR, hitting them in the head. "Got 'em!"

They then moved up to the next concrete cover ahead, pushing the enemy back. But then suddenly a bright light shines upon them. They turned toward the light and found out what it was. Now the problems are getting heavier.

"Ah, bloody pillock! Enemy helicopter, find some cover!" Soap shouted as they all quickly ducked down from the minigun attack from the enemy's Little Bird.

Miho and Ghost were forced to run into the doorway on their right as Roach and Soap did a corner turn in their covers and ducked down from the enemy helicopter's gun fire. After Miho and Ghost ran inside, they encountered three enemies who were close to them. Miho charged the bastard ahead with her rifle raised to his stomach as she quickly pushed away his firing barrel away from her, pushing him back as she pulled the trigger and shooting through him to kill the other bastard behind him.

Ghost quickly pulled out his knife and charged at a bastard next to Miho. He grabbed his rifle and locked it in between them, before Ghost swatted the butt stock of the rifle up to the bastard's face. The bastard fell back down and Ghost quickly threw away the bastard's rifle before striking him down in his throat. Instantly killing him, before he pulls it out and holstered it and then cocked his rifle.

They both then walked down the hallway on their left with their rifles aimed forward. Soon a couple of hostiles came in, but were mowed down by Miho and Ghost with two bullets each. After they reached the end of the hallway, they took cover there for a moment as the sounds of the chopper's minigun was still ringing aloud. Then they heard Soap radioed in.

"We're getting shredded by that chopper. Look for some RPGs or rockets and take it down."

Miho and Ghost quickly looked around the room they're in, and saw something to do their favor. An AT4 rocket launcher was in there with them. Miho quickly let her rifle loosely hanging around her front body and took the AT4. She was strong enough to lift that thing around, which surprised Soap and Ghost for that. After seeing Soap and Roach taking cover and eliminates the rest of the foot-mobiles behind cover on her right, she quickly sprinted out the room and then crouched to sprint slide on the floor for a few feet with the AT4 already on her shoulder.

After the chopper quickly appeared in front of Miho and started to spin its gun. The pilot of that Little Bird was late to realize she was aiming her rocket launcher at him. She fired the rocket that flew straight to the chopper. *KA-BAAAAM* the chopper exploded in midair and left nothing but the remains of the chopper to fall down into the sea. Miho only stood up and dropped the rocket launcher to the floor while looking back at her teammates who were awed of her action, including Soap.

"That helo is history, nice shot," Ghost complimented before they moved up.

* * *

Shiho, Maho and Kay couldn't believe about what they just saw. "There's no way you dealt with the rocket like that," Kay stated with a shook as their eyes were empty.

"141 mate," Miho reminded, as they continued to watch.

* * *

"The clock's ticking. We need to get topside and secure any remaining hostages before we call in the Marines," Soap radioed as they marched forward then turned right.

They then took cover after they encountered and killed the enemy in the open, they marched forward afterwards. "Split up. We can flank through these hallways," Soap radioed, as Miho was following Soap up to the second floor of deck 3 to the hallway on their right while Ghost and Roach keep the bastards pinned at the ground floor of deck 3.

Miho and Soap quickly stacked up at the doorway to the hallway before entering one by one. They walked forward on the grating floors before walking downstairs to the ground floor. They stopped at the end of the hallway and peeked out from cover near the doorway. They both spotted a couple of enemies taking cover in front of them, and they started shooting them in the back. Ghost and Roach then marched on from their left as Soap and Miho walked out the doorway and headed to their right.

There was a staircase leading to Deck 4 facing to the tankers in front of them instead facing to the 141s. Before they were going up however, Miho shot a bastard who just came running down the stairs through the grated floors from behind. After he died and tumbled down the stairs, they all quickly went up and reached the second platform of that staircase. There were piles of F2000 rifles and an Intervention sniper, all equipped with thermal scope. The only person who swapped his rifle with the F2000 w/ Thermal Scope was Ghost, who forgot to bring his MP5 w/ Thermal Scope instead of his M4A1 w/ Hybrid Scope (Soap face palmed at this at the beginning of the mission).

"Move up. Let's go! Those hostages aren't going to rescue themselves," Soap ordered with sarcasm in his voice.

They all then quickly moved upstairs to Deck 4 and took cover at a nearby container and tankers, when smoke starting to appear in front of them. "Hostiles are popping smokescreen!" Ghost shouted via radio.

"Good thing you told us to bring thermal scopes!" Roach shouted gladly as the smokescreen filled the whole area into zero visibility ahead, as he switched to his Scar-H silenced w/ Thermal Scope while Miho switched to her Vector silenced with Thermal Scope.

"Yep! All teams be advised: these guys are a step up - they're using thermal to see through the smoke," Soap warned via radio before they began to shoot back at the enemies with their own thermal scopes.

Usually fighting enemies in a smokescreen is a pain in the ass. But with the help of thermal scopes, they can deal with the enemies outright. Because thermal scopes can detect heat of enemies and friendlies alike, except friendlies had blinking black dots to indicate themselves as ally. Like what Miho would say, another effing day in the office.

Miho took the left side of the area along with Roach while Soap and Ghost took the right. Before they marched forward, Miho and Roach had to take care of those bloody snipers on far front above on the rooftop of the building ahead. Roach managed to drop two of them in the head, Miho managed to shot one in the chest four four times before he fell off the roof and coincidentally landed hard on another terrorist who happens to walk by to the right side. He's probably dead after that guy fell on top of him. The last sniper was at last killed by Miho, hence she was pissed enough of this sniper, she shoot out a round of her grenade launcher and made him fly into the sea.

They both quickly moved up to the right and marched forward before taking cover near a caged tanker. Roach had shouted to her that he'll take the other path on their left and moved up there. Miho then peeked out of cover and shoot back, managing to kill one of the five before reloading her Vector by tilting it quickly to her right side before inserts a new mag and cocked it just as fast.

She quickly jumped out from cover to her left and into an action roll before shooting back in a crouching stance. She killed three of them with ease somehow as the incoming bullets from the enemies were missing Miho's body. Last enemy ahead, she quickly sprinted forward into the smoke and blindly threw out her throwing knife into the smoke. Which somehow the knife hit the enemy square in his head. She then raised her Vector up and marched forward.

She marched forward until she was out from the smoke she saw a doorway ahead of her. When she was about to enter, she quickly swung her SMG to her left after sensing someone was creeping up on her. Turns out, that was Roach. She nearly caused a friendly fire incident as Roach was still having his hands in the air.

Miho quickly lowered her weapon from him. "You freaked me out, Roach."

"For bloody real, mate?" Roach shouted back in annoyance, he then pointed his thumb to behind him. "I had to take three bullets to my stomach before getting shot by you. And you told me that I'm freaking you out?"

"You know what? Never mind" Miho replied with a shook. "Let's get this job done."

"Alright, LT," Roach then looked over to Soap and Ghost who came up from behind Miho. "Good to see you doing fine, lads."

"I was about to say the same thing," Soap added with a nod. "Let's go, this is the last room we need to clear out."

"Oorah," Miho said lowly, before entering the room and stacked up at the door on their right.

"Hotel Six, this is Team Two. We're at the other door of this room, ready to breach," Team Two radioed suddenly, it surprised Miho and Roach for that.

"Wait, how the bloody hell they got here this quick?" Roach asked in confusion.

"Let's not talk about it," Ghost replied with a sigh as they cocked their rifles at the ready.

"Hotel Six, be advised, hostages have been confirmed at your location along with possible explosives, over," Sub Commander radioed, they were glad they get a warning first.

"Copy that. All teams check your fire - we don't know what's behind these doors," Soap radioed to everyone in the channel.

"This is Team Two, roger that," Team Two radioed back.

"Miho," Soap looked at Miho as she did the same. "Frame charge on the door. On your go."

"Roger, breaching… now!" Miho quickly planted the charge on the door before taking cover and it explodes.

Miho quickly went inside the room as one of the Team Two member went in first as well. Her vision was coming to a slow after breaching in. She was shocked to see there were a lot of red barrels strapped with C4s behind the hostages and the hostiles. She shot a bastard who came up charging at her in the head with her Vector. Before she shot the next one who was crouching next to a hostage and tried to shoot back. She then aimed for the bastard on the far front, only for them to get mowed down by Team Two.

After the area was clear, Miho's vision quickly came back to normal as her team and Team Two went inside the room as well. "Clear," Ghost radioed as they secured the area filled with explosives.

"Room clear. Control, all hostages have been secured. I repeat - all hostages secured. proceeding to LZ Bravo...Over," Soap radioed as they went out the room through the door ahead of them while Team Two stayed behind to take care of the hostages.

"Good job, Hotel Six. Marine reinforcements are inserting now to dismantle the SAM sites. Get your team ready for phase two of the operation. Out," Sub Commander replied with a cheering tone as Miho and team Hotel Six made their way to the helipad ahead of them, and they heard the radio chatters.

"Punisher, this is Phoenix 1-1. Flight of two F-15s enroute to grid 257221. Proceed with mission. Requesting sitrep over."

"Phoenix 1-1, Punisher, Blue Sky. I repeat: Blue Sky. Come to heading 240 and continue on course to target area. Good hunting, over."

"Phoenix 1-1 copies, out."

After they rally at LZ Bravo where two F-15s fly overhead en route for a fire mission. The TF 141 team begins to boards Little Bird helicopters that land on the helipad platform. Roach, Soap and Miho board and pull out their M14 EBR sniper rifles. As they take off, Punisher begins to speak via the radio.

"Punisher to all flights in the vicinity of grid 255202, local airspace is secure. I repeat local airspace is secure. Proceed on course to target area on route November-Two."

Miho then saw there were Black Hawk helicopters are in the area and starting to rappel down US Marines to all over the rig. "I want these SAMs secured in five! Let's go! Move, move!" A marine shouted from the top of the oilrig platform after he rappelled down from the Black Hawk.

"Punisher, this is Hunter Actual, Hunter Two-Two is moving to secure the SAM site at the south-west corner of main deck. Hunter Two-Three is proceeding toward the nearest building to disarm the explosives,"

"Punisher Actual to all strike teams. All SAM sites neutralized. Repeat, all SAM sites have been neutralized. Blue Sky in effect."

After a moment later, they moved away from the oilrig platform and linked up with the other Little Birds with more men to perform an assault for the next phase. It was relieving to see them here with Miho's team. She smiled to them as they prepped their weapons.

"Hey, Miho Nishizumi How ya' doin'?" a soldier from another Little Bird greeted over radio.

"Doing fine, mate," Miho replied as Roach and Soap smirked at Miho's answer. "Ready for the next round?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the soldier replied. "We gonna sort 'em fast and hard!"

"Don't get cocky, lads," Soap added as he looked at Miho. "We still got a long way to go."

"Copy, Soap," Miho then changed her radio channel to all available 141 units on site. "All 141 this Lt. Nishizumi. Ready for the next round?"

"Yes, ma'am!" all of the 141 on site replied via radio.

"141, Hooraaah?" Miho shouted interrogatively, and everyone including Soap replied to that.

"HOOOORRAAAAHH!"

Record ends

* * *

"Whoa…" Kay sad in awe. "That… was… awesome…"

Miho then looked over to her mother, who looked very impressed and surprised to see Miho doing that kind of mission with success and alive. "You okay, mother?"

"Just seeing you take down a chopper right in front of it," Shiho then looked over to Miho in concern. "You're almost getting yourself killed!"

"I know…. I've been through worse," Miho replied with a sad sigh.

"So… that's how 141 operates…" Maho thought for a moment after that. "You are really more coordinated than Kuromorimine."

"Of course we are," Miho replied with a nod. "We'll make sure that we will get the job done."

"I have to admit to you," Kay said as she nudged to Miho. "It looks easy at the beginning, but then seeing they strapped bombs to the barrels and shooting through smoke, it's really harder than I thought."

"But you're still up to joining the Task Force?" Miho asked, Kay then smiled in confident and answered with a nod.

"Yeah, I'm up for it," Kay replied. "I want things that seem impossible to be possible. Especially if it benefits me to save people along the way"

"Alright," Miho nodded, then she looked to Maho who was looked concerned because of her choice. "You okay?"

"I'm just thinking for a moment about my choice," Maho replied with a doubtful tone, Miho sadly glanced to her.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Miho asked to make sure. "Along with Kay? *sigh* It's alright if you want to back out. I don't force you to do anything here."

Maho was silent for a moment as she looked down, but then looked up to Miho with determination. "I'm sure, I'm up for it. I don't want to fail you as my sister."

Miho nodded in silent, she then leaned forward and turned her head to her mother. "You're fine about this?"

"As long as she can handle herself, I'm fine about it," Shiho replied with a worried nod. "Just promise me you make sure she's alright."

Promise

She promised some things before, but only very few. She wasn't sure if her capabilities could keep Maho alive. She can't try to promise it because she was afraid. But then she looked up to Shiho and nodded.

"I'll try."

Shiho didn't have the time to think about what she just said, but she only smiled to her. "Okay… when does their training start?"

"Two days from now," Miho replied, Maho and Kay nodded in understanding. "But swear to me that you will keep silent about any information about the 141 and how I survived and ended up in London, especially about the year."

"We will, Miho," Kay replied as Maho nodded. "We will."


	14. Chapter 14 - Casualties Are Unacceptable

BC Freedom High School, BC Freedom School Carrier. 09:30 AM

Andou was walking up to the library after her classes were over. Apparently she was heading for the library to look over some books to solve her math bullshit. Because she got tired of searching for the answers in the math books she got currently, it was causing her a headache about that. Plus with the Escalators that might be lurking around the school so she can have someone to fight with.

But then again, she didn't want to fight with anyone in the school or outside the school. Like what she had said yesterday, she won't have any fights today after what happened two days ago. She was still on alert and pretty freaked out about finding out that Miho Nishizumi was actually alive and what Miho did to her that time. She was still bothered about Miho, especially the look Miho made in her eyes. She just had another bad nightmare yesterday, and it wasn't a pleasant one.

She wasn't sure what she was dreaming about at the time. The only thing she did remember from the dream she had been standing in an empty desert field with a few scattered corpses around that she found some of them had been soldiers oddly, she could swear that she found two corpses that were girls from BC Freedom. The dead girls she saw in her dream had bullet holes in their stomachs and chests, and she was shocked to know they looked as if they had been killed just recently. Andou remembered she turned around and someone was right in front of her, it was Miho Nishizumi herself. Miho was looking at her with angry cold look in her eyes that turned completely black like she was hell itself given human form. That's all what she can remember about her dream.

So after that dream she had, she didn't talk to anyone in her class especially talking to her own Examination Faction due to her trauma. What was odd for the school today that despite the fact the class she was in was a mix between the two rivaling factions, Andou wasn't involved in a fight or even talked to them. Every time her faction called her to help them or talk, Andou only looked over to them and shook her head to them. Every time the students from Escalator Faction taunted at her or telling her to fight them, Andou only ignored them and continued working on her schoolwork. Andou could be said that she was, very emotionless today according to the Examination Faction. Which on this account it was dropping the morale of the Examination Faction slightly.

Even after her class was over, she didn't talk to anyone from her own faction. She was confronted by her rival faction by getting her path blocked by them as they taunted her. Andou didn't flinch at that however and instead asked them to get out of her way. When they said no to Andou, Andou sighed sadly and decided to look for another way around them. True to what she said, she doesn't want to have a fight today due to her trauma and nightmares.

After she reached the library, she entered and immediately started to look for a book inside. Took her a minute to find the specialized math book on her own. She then slowly headed for a table nearby that was standing between the shelves and sat down there. She then opened up her writing book on the table along with the math book she got from the shelf and started to look for answers. She had written some formulas first before writing down the answer in her writing book.

"Hey, you!" a voice shouted from in front of her, Andou was slightly startled by that and lifted her head to look in front of her.

Andou quickly felt very uncomfortable to know that she was sitting with a group of Escalators including Oshida herself by accident, Andou sighed in deject. "What do you think you're doing here, Andou?" Oshida asked angrily, hostile towards Andou.

Andou simply stayed silent keeping to herself, as they were getting angrier at every second. "This table is not for you, Examination fool!" an Escalator shouted angrily.

"Even if I just want to write?" Andou asked somewhat calmly.

It may rather be the first time for them to see Andou was really relaxed by that statement, it was really odd for them but they did not care. "Yeah, you jerk! Go somewhere else than here you stupid Examination!" a student of the Escalator faction shouted angrily, inviting the attention of the Examination students who were angry because of the Escalators reaction to Andou.

Andou's expression was still the same, but then frowned in sorrow. "Alright…"

Andou simply stood up, took her books with her and headed for another table that was right next to the Escalators as they watched. Andou sat down limply and opened up her books and continue to write. Both the Escalators and the Examinations were all pretty confused by Andou's reaction to the Escalators threat she would be quite resistant against the Escalators if being shouted at like that. And it was rather weird for the Examinations to know that Andou didn't want to have a fight with the Escalators. The only thing they saw about what Andou is doing right now was working on her schoolwork seriously, and with an emotionless look on her face as if she had low blood pressure.

This was really an odd sight for them, as they were only staring at her being silent for a few seconds. Deciding to break up the silence, Oshida took off from her seat and headed for Andou. This time, she actually wanted to talk to her despite the hostilities between them. Before she could reach Andou however, she was quickly blocked by Andou's Examination Faction because they thought she wanted to threaten Andou. Andou only ignored them as she continued working on her schoolwork.

"Hey! What are you doing!?" A student of Examination asked aloud.

"I want to talk with her!" Oshida replied angrily as her Escalators friends from behind her followed up. "What's with that!?"

"We don't talk with bitches like you, Escalators!" another student of the Examination retorted.

"Hey how dare you say that to us!" an Escalator behind Oshida shouted angrily, the situation was getting intense. "Show some respect you Examinations!"

"Respect?! Well show us some respect as well, moron!" an Examination retorted again.

"You don't deserve some respect, you merde!" Oshida retorted as she pointed her finger to an Examination that retorted to them previously. "You can go lick our boots if you want that!"

"Oh you-!" an Examination shouted as she was about to hit Oshida, which went interrupted by a sound of a shifting chair that came from behind the Examination Faction.

They all looked back to Andou who already got off her chair and sighed emotionless. But then, she grabbed her books and slowly walked away from both factions in dejection. This was the first time for them to see Andou just walk away from her own faction and the rival faction like that instead of being hot-headed like Oshida. Oshida quickly ran up to her before the Examinations could run and grab her by her shoulder to stop her. Oshida forced her to turn around as Andou quickly looked up to her, looking somewhat tired from the expression on her face.

"Where do you think you're going, Andou?" Oshida asked with an angry glare. "We're not done here!"

"Somewhere else more quite than here," Andou replied with a sorrowful tone as she looked tired about it. "And somewhere else far from Examinations and you Escalators"

She wanted to be away from her own faction along with the rival faction that was not something you would normal going to hear from a BC Freedom student.

"Huh? But-" Oshida was confused and was about to ask, but Andou cut her off.

"Look, you can go ahead have a fight with them and taunt me whenever you want, I don't care," Andou explained calmly with a sad tone, they all could only glare at her confused. "But I don't want to have a fight with you or anyone else in here. And I don't want to be involved in the trouble between you and the Examinations that you have. I just want to get a bit of peace of mind. Go ahead, taunt me whatever you want, I won't listen."

Andou then hastily turned around and left them behind in a hurry, she was getting sick of this. Oshida and the rest of her own faction and the Examinations felt disbelieve and surprise to what they were hearing as they watched Andou leave. Oshida herself could not believe to hear that from Andou herself, this wasn't her. She felt there was something bothering Andou, putting aside about the troubles between Escalators and Examinations. Oshida only raised her eyebrows in confusion and concern on what was going on with her.

"What's wrong with her?"

* * *

 _"The Gulag"_

 _Day 5 (August 14th) 2016 – 08:28:24_

 _1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi_

 _Task Force 141_

 _Inside The Gulag, 40 miles east of Petropavlovsk, Russia_

 _"Ghost, we're in the old tunnel system heading south-southwest," Soap radioed as he along with Roach, Miho and Worm jumped down through the hole on the floor to get out from the shower rooms filled with hostiles._

 _"Ok, keep going along that tunnel," Ghost radioed back as they went up the small stairs of the sewers, walking forward and jumping sliding down the concrete slope of that sewer._

 _"Talk to me, Ghost… I don't want to be down here when those ships start firing again," Soap radioed in discomfort._

 _"I bloody hate these kinds of Yankees so much," Miho complained, due to their near-death experience back in the air. Back that time on the little bird, a jet fighter nearly crashed into it._

 _"At least I'm not included," Worm added, which all the British including Miho nodded as a reply._

 _"Yeah, you're not bad for us," Roach added with a smirk._

 _"Keep going, you're almost there," Ghost radioed with a tone of comfort._

 _They took a turn to the right and went up to the dry platform of the sewers. Then, Soap quickly stacked up at the wall on his left after he took a few steps forward, as the others behind him followed up._

 _"I'm detecting two heat signatures, one of them should be Prisoner 627," Ghost radioed. "They both are behind the wall you stacked up at."_

 _"Alright, Roach! Plant the charge and breach the wall!" Soap ordered as Miho quickly walked over to Roach's front side and stacked up on the wall there._

 _"Do it!" Miho ordered, Roach then planted the charge on the wall next to him, before he took cover…_

 _*DUUAARRR*_

 _Miho watched as Roach quickly entered the hole in the wall and started to shoot. They had to stay back for a moment to give Roach some time to clear the room. Roach had started to firing inside to shoot the hostile. But then they heard a hard punch like sound from inside. And to their shock, they saw a dead body of a Russian terrorist flung out from the hole in the wall along with a pair of handcuffs around his neck._

 _What was absent from the terrorist was…that his AK wasn't there._

 _Soap quickly pulled out his pistol and he and Miho both went inside the hole. They all were surprised to see Roach was quickly put down to the ground as they saw a man, call sign Prisoner 627 was aiming the AK straight at Roach's face. They both tensed up and aimed their weapons at him. Prisoner 627's body was trembling a little after he punched Roach in the face._

 _Soap quickly aimed his M1911 pistol on his head while Miho raised her suppressed ACR at him next to Soap. "Drop it!" Soap ordered._

 _Instead of dropping the gun, he looked surprised to hear Soap's voice he turned his head a little bit to his left. "Soap?" he asked softly and weakly._

 _Soap and Miho were both surprised for his acknowledgement of her CO's name, but Soap looked very shocked as he recognized the prisoner's voice. "Price?"_

 _Both Price and Soap looked towards each other, in shock, happy and thankful that they both have been united again. Miho on the other hand was very happy to see Captain Price was still alive, and he was like what Miho had dreamt about before. Soap lowered his M1911 from Price as Price lowered the AK from Roach who was still lying on the floor. Worm then entered the room and stood next to Price._

 _Soap then turned his pistol around and handed it over to Price, the rightful owner of the M1911 pistol. "This belongs to you, sir."_

 _Price with a smile took his gun back as he looked at it before looking up to his protégé. "It's good to see you back, son."_

 _"Who's Soap?" Worm asked, he didn't know Mactavish's other name._

 _"Captain Mactavish here is Soap," Miho replied, before Price looked over at her in awe._

 _"I don't remember that the 141 have a lady who is a soldier," Price commented which was true._

 _"Captain Price, this is my Lieutenant," Soap waved his hand to her. "Miho Nishizumi. Miho, this is Captain Price."_

 _Price then shook hands with Miho with a relieved glare. "It's good to know you," Price said to her._

 _"It's an honor to meet you, Captain Price," Miho replied with a smile. "I've heard about you from Captain Mactavish personally."_

 _Price nodded, then looked over at Soap. "You trust her?"_

 _"I vouch for her," Soap then looked over to Miho, before looking back to Price. "She made the 141 to be the pride of the world ones more."_

 _Price was relieved and glad to hear that, he looked over to Miho with an impressed nod. "That's the first time I heard that. And I'm proud of you."_

 _*BUUUAAARRRRR*_

 _"Shit! The fuck's happening!?" Miho asked aloud as they all quickly ducked a little from that explosion._

 _"They're bombing the gulag!" Worm shouted as he quickly pulled Roach up from the floor to his feet. "We need to get out from here, now!"_

 _"Come on, we gotta get outta here! Move move!" Soap shouted as they quickly turned around and ran down the hall behind them, before turning to the left as the debris started falling from the ceilings._

 _They kept running forward when they heard the message from Shepherd. "Bravo Six be advised. They started the bombardment early! Get the hell outta there now!"_

 _They quickly turned right and ran forward through the hallway. There was a bright hole at the end of the hallway. It was their escape route, their distance to it was about 100 meters. Ignoring the small debris that kept falling down on their heads, they kept running. Then they saw the little bird was waiting for them beyond that small hole._

 _"There's our evac! Keep running!" Miho shouted as they ran restlessly._

 _"I see it! There's the chopper! Get ready to jump!" Soap shouted as they ran closer to the exit ahead of them towards the chopper._

 _They kept running until at the distance of 50 meters between them and the exit. The ceilings ahead of them suddenly collapsed and large boulders of debris cut off their exit route. They all quickly stopped when that occurred, no casualties amongst them. Now they have to find another exit._

 _"Go back, go back! We'll find another way out!" Soap shouted as they quickly turned around and headed back to where they've came from._

 _"I'm gonna punch whoever told them to bombard us early!" Miho exclaimed angrily as they continued to run, which was agreed on by Price and Soap._

 _They kept running back to the path where they came from. And they spotted someone over there. It was a Russian hostile, but he was unarmed and wounded. Now with the Gulag collapsing, they left him alive so he suffered the fate to get buried alive. They all took a turn to the right and then right again. They then went up the stairs._

 _They entered the cafeteria with a large hole in the ceiling. There was an inactive bomb that must've gone through the ceiling. It was worse, after they entered and came near the inactive bomb and the hole in the ceiling. They just realized one thing._

 _There was no way out._

 _"It's a dead end!" Worm shouted as he stepped back to avoid the falling debris._

 _"Shit, call the chopper!" Miho shouted to Soap as she was holding Price to help him avoid the falling debris._

 _"Six-Four where the hell are you, over?!" Soap barked through the radio as he quickly looked around him for a way to get out from there._

 _"Bravo Six, there's too much smoke, I can't see you I can't see you-" Six-Four replied, before the debris that was falling from the ceiling was getting heavier._

 _Suddenly, Miho saw Roach getting his head hit by big rocks of debris. "Shite! Roach!"_

 _"Roach is down!" Soap shouted before Roach fell to the ground, buried by some debris. "Roach!"_

 _Miho and Price quickly ran over to the fallen Roach as Worm stood a little off to the side from Soap. Miho lifted the rocks along with Price from Roach. Miho and Price were glad to see him alright. But now, they needed to get out from here. Price quickly looked back to Soap as Miho was tending Roach for a moment before turning her head to behind her to Soap. Soap had his foot on the inactive bomb as he was loading a flare round into his M203 grenade launcher of his M4._

 _"Whatever you're gonna do, Soap, do it fast!" Price shouted as they both looked at what Soap was doing while he looked back to Price._

 _Soap then lifted his rifle, pointed straight up through the hole of the ceiling. It was their last shot. Soap pulled the trigger, and the flare fired through the hole. The flare was high enough if Miho saw from Soap's expression as he covered his eyes from the bright light of the flare while looking up through the hole. That's when they heard the pilot talk once more over the radio._

 _"Bravo Six, I see your flare. SPIE rig is on the way."_

 _Soap quickly took a step back off the inactive bomb and waited for a moment. Suddenly a long rope dropped through the ceilings. Their escape route was now available. They were going to make a run for it._

 _"Let's go! Let's go!" Price shouted as he and Miho put Roach back to his feet._

 _"Hook up!" Soap shouted as everyone quickly ran over to the rope and hooked up by their belts. "Go, go!"_

 _After they hooked up to the rope, they waited for a moment. With a jolt, Soap was the first to be lifted into the air, before being dragged up through the hole first. It's working._

 _"Hang on!" Price and Miho shouted in unison, before all of them one by one gone went up through the hole into the sky._

 _The moment they were going through the hole. A lot of explosions followed right around them. Miho, Price and Roach swore they nearly got hit by some kind of metal rods that were sticking out the edges of the hole. But it didn't matter they made it out through the hole and carried in the air with only a rope attached to their belts hanging from a helicopter._

 _"YEEESSSSSS!" Price shouted gladly, his agony of imprisonment had stopped at last._

 _Miho, Roach and Worm then looked down towards the hole. There was another massive explosion from inside the hole. It must be the inactive bomb back there. They were lucky they all quickly covered their heads with their arms. As the large explosion quickly burst into the sky and was about to hit them._

 _*BUUUUUAAAAARMRMRM*_

* * *

"Nnggh!" Miho quickly woke up with a grunt in her seat.

"Oh, Miho, you're awake," Erika said as Miho slowly turned her head to watch her surroundings and was reminded that they were in a bus, before looking up to Erika who sat beside her.

"We already there yet?" Miho asked as she looked over to her mother who was sitting across on her right.

"We'll be there in a moment," Shiho replied as she looked back at Miho.

"You're doing alright, Imouto-san?" Maho asked as she leaned forward a bit and looked past Shiho at Miho.

"Erm… Just had a nightmare I guess," Miho replied, reluctantly nodded. "I'm fine."

"What kind of nightmare?" Erika asked, curious about it.

"Something that blew you up in the end," Miho replied as she lazily turned her head to Erika while her head was leaning against her seat, Erika only cringed to hear that.

"Aaalright then…" Erika said awkwardly as her tone was trailing, not sure whether to worry about what Miho might do or what Maho would say to Miho.

After the bus reached their destination, Miho along with her family and Erika got off the bus and regrouped at the bus stop. After a moment they watched the bus leave, they headed out through the snowy sidewalk. Miho only sighed in relieve to smell the cold snow once again, always reminding her of the Russian winter. While the others only shrugged seeing Miho enjoying the snow.

It was not long until Shiho saw how Miho pulled out her cigar and lighted it up. Maho forgot to tell her mother about it, but then the problem was averted after Miho told them that she needed it as a stress relieve (probably). They think they just heard from Miho something about smoking her kind of cigar to the last. Shiho wasn't sure if she was really a heavy smoker or if she really liked the taste of it. But decided to go with the latter.

Right now, they were inside Yokohama city, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. It was around 12 PM right now after Miho checked her watch she has on her left wrist. Right now, Miho was wearing a light grey t-shirt underneath her zipped up black jacket that had a pouch on each shoulder with the UK flag on the left shoulder. She was wearing blue jeans with her military belt pouch that contained pistol ammo, tools, and oddly her grenade (Miho forgot to leave it at home) inside the small pouches. She had a pistol fully concealed inside a drop leg bag on her right leg, so people won't know that she was bringing a gun around. More than that, she had her black beanie on her head and her black gloves.

Maho, Shiho and Erika were wearing their casual clothes for winter. Maho has her yellow coat and red scarf covering her neck, besides her long-sleeved brown wool shirt and her medium-length skirt. Erika was wearing her white t-shirt underneath her blue sweater and light red trousers. She has her cream-colored gloves and her school hat on top. Shiho on the other hand was wearing her white long-sleeved buttoned shirt underneath her dark blue trench coat and wearing her black jodhpurs. Shiho also has her blue scarf around her neck.

They were in Yokohama city because Shiho wanted to see that Miho could spend her time with her family along with Erika. And Shiho actually has some business with her colleagues regarding the preparations for the Exhibition Match in the city. Shiho only told Miho and the rest that she had some urgent business to take care of later instead of preparations for the Exhibition Match and Maho was very glad to bring Miho out of Kumamoto for sure. Maho wanted to get Miho along with Erika to have a small trip around Japan.

Everything in the street was the same as back in Kumamoto to be honest. But an exception was that there are kids playing with and in the snow on the sidewalk. Miho thought she just saw a kid accidentally throw a snowball into someone's face pretty hard. Heh, kids these days. And also Miho noticed there were a lot students walking around the streets, especially the students of Anzio High School. Miho did wonder why they were here.

"So, how are you doing so far?" Shiho asked with a smile.

"Reminds me of my Christmas back in London," Miho replied as she stretched her arms behind her and smoked with only her lips.

"You were having Christmas with those soldiers from the 141st?" Shiho asked as she warmed herself by rubbing her hands on each other.

"Not only them, but also my mates from the Special Air Service," Miho replied as she smoked now with her hands. "Macmillan and Wallcroft were there as well, having good Christmas until I drank some alcohol."

Maho and Erika were wondering how did she didn't get drunk like what Ghost said before. "How did you didn't get drunk that time?" Erika asked curiously.

"I started to drink beers first long ago just to have some with the guys after a successful mission for a little fun," Miho replied as she looked around the street. "Then I started to drink Vodka until I got used to it."

"Miho, just make sure I don't see you drinking that's all," Shiho said in concern, afraid if she's drunk all of a sudden if they were back at home.

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," Miho replied with a nod.

They then turned left after reaching the end of the street they're on. "Interrogative: I'm wondering why we're walking instead of driving a car around here," Miho said, they were confused for a moment on how she said it, but Maho understood what she was asking.

"Nah, we like to give you a lot of time to tour and look around the city," Maho replied with a shook of her head as her left hand waved next to Miho's face. "It would be too quick if we're using any vehicle."

"But, mother. Didn't you say have some urgent business?" Miho asked her and Shiho nodded.

"E e, tashikani," Shiho replied as she looked at Miho with a smile. "But it's not time for it just yet actually."

"Hm?" Miho hummed in question, she then looked into her mother's eyes. "What kind of business?"

"Well, I can't tell you about it-" Shiho immediately got cut off by Miho.

"Just tell me, Okaa-san," Miho demanded with a cold tone, Shiho raised her eyebrows along with Erika and Maho at that.

Shiho paused for a moment, before replying. "There will be an Exhibition Match in a few weeks, so we are going to prepare for that."

"Huh?" Maho and Erika gasped in unison and surprise as they looked at Shiho. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Maho asked as she creased her eyebrows slightly.

"I thought the school would tell you about it," Shiho replied with a shrug. "But then again, you heard it from me now."

"Good to know, just remember don't involve me with that shit," Miho said with a groan of annoyance, Shiho flinched at her swearing. "I want to stay away from shooting someone else and commanding tanks for now."

"Oh, I want to involve you in that," Maho joked, which got Miho to glare at her seriously.

"Maho, remind me why didn't I shoot you," Miho said, which caused all three of them to glance at her with fear and empty eyes.

"Uhm, I pull my words," Maho said quickly, as Miho glared at her.

Miho paused for a moment staring at her, before replying. "Good."

Shiho looked over to her in concern as they continued to walk and Miho smoked. "You have a lot of scars from that war don't you?"

Miho stopped, they all followed suit, Miho then looked at Shiho as she smoked. "Bloody hell I do, at least I did a lot to stop the Third World War."

*BOOOOOOM*

They all were startled hearing the loud explosion from a distance Miho was the only one who reacted to it with a duck. The four quickly looked around to find the source of the loud explosion, but they couldn't find any. What they did see was how everyone around them was reacting the same way as Shiho, Maho and Erika. Miho then looked up to the sky ahead of them. After seeing a large black smoke cloud rising into the sky, she found the source of the explosion. It was around nine hundred meters away from their location.

"There's the smoke!" Miho said aloud as she pointed at it, Erika, Maho and Shiho looked up at what she was pointing.

"Scheisse! There's a building on fire?!" Erika asked in shock. "I thought someone fired with their tank in the city."

"I think it's more than likely that there's a gas leak over there," Maho said quickly as she watched the smoke.

Miho knew she was off-duty, but she won't leave those people in a burning building to fend for themselves saving civilians was part of her duty. "Dammit, I'm heading there now!"

Miho quickly ran forward through the streets, leaving Erika, Maho and Shiho behind as they watched Miho start running as it terrified them. "Miho! Wait!" Maho shouted but Miho didn't hear it, they all quickly proceed to run after her to catch up with Miho.

Miho had to run non-stop to get to the location of the burning building. She was running really fast, ignoring the little soreness she was feeling in her legs as she ran past a lot of people who were watching the big cloud of black smoke in the sky. Maho, Erika and Shiho on the other hand were running as fast as they could to get to Miho. They never for once in their lives run this fast and long to be honest. If they wanted to admit, Miho was one hell of a runner.

Miho still kept running passing a lot of people, she even shoved several students out of the way to get to the fire location with a shout. She even had to avoid bumping into anyone else on the sidewalk as she continued running forward. 400 meters left to the destination, Miho had to jump and slide over the hood of a car that was blocking her path. Shiho, Maho and Erika were still trying to catch up to her as they were trying to get their breathing under control on the way. They bummed a lot of people on the way as they shouted to Miho to stop they even had to go around the car that was blocking the path to catch up with her. They were starting to get tired of running for so long.

200 meters left, Miho kept running ahead passing a number of streets ahead. Her heart was pumping really fast almost as fast as during her days back in combat. She kept running and running, shoving people away who stood in her path. 100 meters, she was almost there. After reaching the edge of the street she's on, she immediately turned left towards the fire site and kept running. She can hear sirens from a distance and kept running as quickly as she can.

Shiho, Maho and Erika were barely able to catch up with Miho. They immediately turned left, following where Miho had gone. Well Shite they have never run this fast and this far, it was bloody exhausting. They saw Miho kept running towards the fire site ahead as the sirens of fire trucks can be heard from a distance. They kept running ahead to reach Miho.

"Why is she so fast?!" Maho thought in disbelieve as they continued to run.

After she reached the site, she saw a lot of people were watching the firemen putting out the fire as best as they can from a distance. Soon Shiho, Erika and Maho reached her and stopped running as they quickly put their arms hands down to their knees to get some air into their burning lungs due to their exhaustion. They soon lifted their heads to Miho and followed through a crowd of people and students in that area. They got through them and reached the very front side of the crowd and can see what was burning.

It was a three-story building in reddish-brown color that was on fire. To be precise, it was a three-story apartment building. The apartment building was burning from the top floor down until the whole bottom floor and the fire was huge until they saw the fire manage to reach out through the windows of the apartment. It was a bloody eerie sight for them. Miho along with her group quickly walked over to the nearest fireman who was keeping the crowd to stay away from the site.

"Sir, what happened here?" Miho asked sternly as the fireman looked up to her.

"There's a gas leak that caused this huge explosion!" the fireman replied quickly as he pointed to the burning building. "Please stay back! We can handle this!"

Suddenly they heard a lot of shouts coming from the burning building. They looked at the entrance of the double doors on that building and saw there were civilians running out of the building along with some firemen escorting them. Around six of the civilians were Anzio students that were gasping for breath. They all quickly ran over to the ambulances that were already on site as the paramedics began tending to them.

Then that's the time when she and the rest of them saw someone who caught their attention. There was a student who was waiting for the students in the burning apartment to get to the ambulances. There a girl with long pale green hair tied into twin ponytails and red-brown eyes. She was dressed in the Anzio student uniform, a white long sleeve T-shirt, a black pleated skirt, black tie and additionally a black mantle. Along with the two girls with her, one was a tall girl (seemingly taller than the pale green-haired girl) with long blonde hair and green eyes while the other one is a girl of medium height with short, spiky hair (with a braid on the left side) and light brown eyes.

The pale green-haired girl looked panic as she was asking her friends who got out from the burning building in time. "Amaretto! Where's Yanase?!" the pale green-haired girl asked to a girl of medium height with long, light-brown hair tied in a messy ponytail and light brown eyes.

"I can't find her, Anchovy!" Amaretto replied with a panicked shook. "The fire was too big and I can't find her anywhere! We had to get out from there before the fire's started getting bigger!"

"She's still in that building?!" the blonde girl asked in shock, Maho recognized her as Carpaccio.

"We have to go back in there!" the spiky-haired girl known as Pepperoni shouted in worry and panic. "We have to get her out from there!"

"No, I can't allow you to do that!" a fireman near them shouted with a shook of his head. "It's too dangerous! We want you to be safe here!"

"But what about Yanase!?" Anchovy cried as she started to panick as she took a step closer to him. "We can't leave her there!"

"We try as best as we can to get her out!" the fireman replied quickly. "Just stay here!"

"Lieutenant!" a firefighter shouted in a distance as he ran over to the LT fireman who was with the girls. "We got reports that there are people still stuck on the third floor!"

"Jigoku e no kamisama! Get the firefighters to the third floor now!" the LT fireman ordered.

"The fire's too big!" the firefighter replied, the LT fireman scoffed in agitation. "We need to cool it down first before we can get there!"

"Get those hoses working up!" the LT fireman shouted as he along with the firefighter ran to the fire trucks. "Get some water to the third floor now!"

Miho heard what they were saying as Maho, Erika and Shiho watched the burning building in terror. Knowing there were people stuck in the burning third floor was a critical situation. She didn´t believe that the firefighters will save them in time. Miho had no choice except one. Miho had to get inside the burning building.

Miho was about to run to the burning building, before she was halted by Shiho who grabbed her shoulder. "Wait, what are you doing?!"

"I need to get inside that building!" Miho said back aloud as she pointed to the building. "I have to save them!"

"Miho, it's dangerous!" Erika shouted worriedly, Miho then turned her head to her.

"I can't leave them!" Miho said back aloud in anger. "Civilians are my top priority!"

Miho quickly shrugged Shiho's hand off her shoulder and quickly ran past the firefighters who were shocked to see a girl that managed to get through the danger line. "Miho!" Maho shouted in horror as Miho ran towards the building.

Anchovy and the rest of her friends were shocked to see a girl who is not a firefighter ran to the burning building the firemen were shocked as well to see that. "Hey, stop! Don't enter the building!"

Miho ignored the warning and quickly breached in the building through the entrance of the double doors of the ground floor with her arm and shoulder. *BRAK* She quickly stopped on her path as a fire burst out from the room on her left, covering her face with her arm. She quickly looked around the hall and found half of the hallway was alight in fire except for the middle path of the hallway with the rooms on her left and right burning. She pressed forward and reached an open room where the reception table was placed, the whole room was burning. She looked to her front right and found a stairwell leading up to the second floor that was also lit on fire, thankfully the fire wasn't big enough to burn the stairs to the ground just yet.

She quickly ran to the stairs and ran up the stairs before making a U-turn on the stairs. After she almost reached the top of the stairs the stairs beneath her suddenly collapsed. Making Miho quickly grab the ledge of the floor in front of her with one hand as she started to fall and yelp in surprise. Miho was lucky to hold onto the ledge of the floor because when she looked down the ground floor the whole goddamn stair had collapsed into pile of burning wood. She looked up and quickly got her other hand onto the ledge and climbed up the floor as she grunted doing so.

"So much for structural integrity!" Miho complained in annoyance after she got her foot on the second floor. "I better keep going!"

Miho quickly ran ahead to her right and traversed the burning hallway to find another way up to the third floor. Miho did see there was water coming through the windows to put the flames out, but it was going to need a lot more water to put the fire out. Miho quickly forgot about it and ran forward then turned right again and there she found the stairs again. She found the bottom part of the stairs were lit on fire, but Miho managed to put it out after she found a bucket full of water that was left on the floor outside an apartment door on her left. She quickly ran upstairs and turned left after reaching the top floor.

She hastily looked around the halls and into each room as she tried to avoid getting burned by the fire lit on the floors and the ceilings and walls. There was a small explosion that burst out the room to her right, Miho quickly ducked and turned her head to behind her. She then turned her head forward and quickly passed the room that just exploded and kept moving up. She kept her arm in the air in front of her face to cover her face from the fog and fire as she walked on. She coughed from inhaling the fog but kept moving to the end of the hall.

That's when she heard a loud banging noise and a shout. "Help! Somebody help!"

Miho lifted her head a little from behind her arm she turned her head around her surroundings of flames. "Somebody heeelp!"

She quickly turned left running down the hall as she was getting closer to the source of the banging sound and the shouting. "Please! Help us!"

Miho quickly ran over to the wall on her left side of the hallway. Then she took medium-paced steps until she reached the source. She found a door that wasn't burned by the fire. It was the source of the noise, there are people trapped inside the room. She quickly banged on the door and shouted through it.

"Anyone in here!?"

"Thank God! We're here! Help! The door is stuck! We can't get through!" shouted a voice of a man inside.

"Is there anyone else inside?!" Miho shouted as she quickly took a look to her surroundings for any signs of incoming threat of the fire.

"I've got three people with me! One of them is a student and she's badly injured!" the man inside the room shouted back. "Get us out of here!"

"Hang on, step away from the door!" Miho then stepped back from the door and pulled out her pistol from inside her drop leg bag.

She aimed her pistol to the lock of the door before shooting it several times.

*DOR* *DOR* *DOR*

She then proceeded to kick the door down.

*BRAK*

She went in and quickly holstered her pistol back inside her drop leg bag. The room she's seeing right was not burning except for a few walls on the left and right side and the ceilings. She saw a man in front of her along with the three people in the middle room. An old man and a woman were actually treating an Anzio student who was badly injured. She's must be Yanase, the long light-blue haired-girl with green eyes.

"You okay?!" Miho asked as she quickly walked up to the man who banged on the door.

"I'm fine, please help!" he quickly pointed to the student lying on the floor. "She's injured!"

Miho and the man quickly ran over to the student who was accompanied by an old man and a woman. Miho looked at Yanase's wounds, and she didn't like what she was seeing. She got burn wounds on her right arm and her left leg, and she had wounds on her stomach and a wound on her chest. What was worse was, Yanase was bleeding badly from her wounds. Miho was lucky to bring some bandages with her, she pulled them out of her leg bag and opened them up. With the assistance of the three people with her, they bandaged all of her wounds as best as they could. Miho looked at her sorrowful eyes as blood was pouring out of Yanase's mouth.

"Ple-please…." Yanase begged weakly. "Help…"

"Easy, girl, easy," Miho assured her softly as she rubbed her head. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

The bandage weren't enough but it had to do for now. Right now they need to get the hell outta here. After making sure Yanase's bandaged wounds didn't get ruined, she slowly lifted her up to Miho's chest with both hands as Yanase locked her hands around Miho's neck and shoulder. Might be a bizarre thing for the people to see Miho picked up a girl like that, but reminded of the wounds Yanase had it better this way. Miho then proceeded to go out the room while carrying Yanase as the people behind her followed up.

"You guys ready?" Miho asked aloud to them, she received their nods.

But before they moved up, the old man asked. "Hang on, where are the firefighters?"

"They're busy putting the flames out!" Miho replied, then suddenly they felt the quake of the building as if it was about to collapse. "We've got no time, follow me!"

Miho quickly ran to the right twice as the other followed suit. Miho also had to make sure the Anzio girl she was carrying was still alive before she succumbed to her wounds by occasionally looking at her weak face. They marched forward past the burning hall, before they stopped for a moment after a room on their left exploded and flames burst out of the room. After covering themselves and Yanase from the explosion, they walking on until they reached the stairs unharmed. They quickly ran downstairs, after the old man was able to get his foot of the stairs, it quickly collapsed after that. Miho thanked God to let this old man's life be saved.

Miho quickly carried Yanase with the rest following from behind her to the left side of the stairs and then to the left again heading to where she climbed up the stairs. After they reached the first flight of stairs where Miho came from, they were shocked to see the stairs already collapsed before. They quickly looked for another way out as they traversed the current burning hall they were in. They soon found an open room on the right side of the wall and entered without thinking twice. To their convenience, the room they've entered had its floors collapse to the ground level and the collapsed floor made a makeshift ramp. They can safely walk down the ramp without any harm especially Yanase who was carried by Miho.

"Well, that was convenient," Miho stated softly, she then looked over to Yanase. "Stay with me, Yanase…"

They quickly ran down the ramp and got out the room of the ground floor. They immediately ran for the entrance of the double doors to get out. The halls they're in are right now was burning so badly and the flames were getting bigger on the walls, they need to be fast. Before they were able to reach the entrance however, the floor above the entrance collapsed quickly. They all stopped as Yanase nearly lost consciousness due to her wounds and almost lost her grip on Miho.

"What are we going to do now?!" the woman with them asked in panic, Miho quickly looked around to find a way out.

Miho quickly stepped back from the blocked entrance and headed to the burning door behind them on the right. She kicked it down and entered the room as the rest followed up and Miho made sure Yanase didn't lose her grip from Miho. After entering the room, they just found themselves in a dead end. There was no way out of the burning building. The people with her are starting to panic at this as they tried to avoid the fires.

"Now what are we gonna do!?" the man asked, Miho must think fast before they all died.

Miho quickly looked around her surroundings after she puts Yanase down on the ground carefully. She turned her head around many times for the sake of finding a way out as the rest did the same except the woman that was taking care of Yanase. Miho turned her head quickly to behind them, and something caught her attention. There were a couple of blow torches left on the table at the wall in the room along with a tape that wasn't burn. Seeing that, she quickly looked at the wall that was exactly next to the entrance. The structure of the wall was fragile, and she found a way of how the hell they're going to get out from there.

She quickly ran and pulled out her grenade from her bag and began crafting with the blow torches. The people with her didn't know what is she was up to except for taking care of Yanase. Took her a few seconds to make a makeshift modified-grenade. Miho quickly ran back to them and checked on how they were doing. She took a glance around them first to make sure none of the fire hit them or anything above them collapsed.

"I just found a way to get out of here!" Miho said aloud, they all quickly glanced at her in relive.

"Really? How?!" the woman asked.

Miho showed them the improvised grenade she had, and their smiles suddenly turned to frown. "I-is that a grenade?!" the old man asked in shock and worry.

"Yeah, do you trust me?" Miho asked as she held the grenade.

The three only stared at each other as Miho took a look on the wounded Yanase, before she asked again. "Do you trust me?"

The three took a moment to look at each other, before they all nodded in approval. "Alright, we trust you," the man replied with a nod to Miho.

"Alright, please don't tell anyone if I use this grenade to get us out of here," Miho said, and they all nodded.

* * *

Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako were at the site of the burning building in Yokohama city. Their recent trip to take a tour around the city has changed to an eerie sight for them after they heard the loud explosion from a distance. After they spotted the big black smoke in the air, they had to run to the site to see what was going on. After they reached the site, Saori quickly asked a nearby fireman what happened and he replied with a bad gas leak. They were worried about the victims of the burning building.

Yukari saw most of the rescued victims of the burning apartment building were the Anzio students stood. She along with her friends of Ooarai were glad to see that. But she did overhear from one of the firemen that there were still people stuck on the third floor. She hoped whoever was stuck on the third floor was still alive.

"How will they get out from there?" Hana asked worriedly as the firemen tried their best to put out the fire before going in.

"I don't know, I hope they can save them fast enough," Saori replied with doubt in her voice.

"I don't think they're the ones who will save them," Mako replied emotionlessly as ever, they all glanced at her in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Yukari asked as she glanced to Mako.

"I heard from a fireman that there was a girl that quickly rushed inside the burning building to save those people," Mako replied, they only gave their empty stares to their friend for that.

"Are you sure there was a girl try to save them?" Saori asked, hoping Mako didn't joke about it.

"Yeah, it just happened before we got here," Mako replied, they all then glanced back to the burning building.

Yukari somewhat diverted her eyes to look at the surroundings of the burning site as they can hear very small explosions coming from the building. There was something odd around here besides the Anzio students in presence. She saw Shiho, Maho and Erika in a distance ahead of them waiting at an ambulance alongside with Anchovy, Pepperoni and Carpaccio. She wasn't expecting to see this.

"Are those the Nishizumis?" Yukari asked as her friends glanced at the people she meant they were all shocked to see the Nishizumis.

"The Nishizumis along with Erika?" Hana gasped in question. "What are they doing here?"

"They must be here for someone they know inside the building!" Saori replied in concern as Mako held her from behind in fear.

"I don't want to know what happened to them…" Mako added in fear of the people's lives inside the burning building.

*BOOOOOOOM*

Everyone including the firemen were all startled by an explosion that brought down a wall on the right side of the building right next to the entrance. They all reacted either by retreating a little from the site or ducked down behind cover or in the open. They all looked back at the burning building right at the hole on the ground floor on the right side of the building. It was quite big enough to get people out of there. Furthermore, there was also fire coming out the hole by the ceiling and the hole was blocked by black fog of smoke and ash.

"What just happened?!" Saori shouted in fear after that explosion.

"Is the building going to fall down…?" Mako asked worriedly and in low voice.

They all waited for a moment, until they saw someone coming out from the hole and the black fog. A short red-haired girl with a scar on her right eye was carrying an injured long light blue-haired girl that had to be an Anzio student emerged from the hole. And then three survivors follow suit after they emerged from the hole and the fog. They can't believe at who they were looking at. Someone that they only meet about a year ago at the time.

"I-is that Miho?!" Yukari asked in shock, the rest followed suit after seeing that.

"Nani?!" Saori, Hana and Mako shouted in disbelieve. "Didn't she die in that incident?" Hana asked worriedly if they were hallucinating.

"Yeah, but how…?" Yukari asked as her tone trailed off whilst watching what Miho was doing.

Miho quickly carried Yanase to the nearest ambulance with the assistance of some firemen on site. Shiho, Maho, Erika, and the Anzio students can't believe Miho was able to save them out from the burning building, especially Yanase. Anchovy, Erika, Maho and Shiho quickly ran up to her and tried to help her taking care of Yanase. They were horrified by the wounds Yanase had even after Miho tried to bandage them. Miho knew she must not lose her.

"GET ME A STRETCHER, NOW!" Miho shouted as a couple of firemen were able to put a stretcher just outside of the ambulance.

Miho carefully put her down on the stretcher and held her wounds. Anchovy gripped Yanase's hand sadly while Maho, Shiho and Erika stood back and watched the firemen helping Miho tend to Yanase. Yanase was bleeding a lot and Miho feared she won't make it. She looked around and shouted.

"MEDIC!" Miho shouted to her surroundings then quickly looked back to Yanase. "Stay with me, Yanase. Stay with me!"

"Please, don't…" Anchovy cried as she gripped Yanase's hand harder.

Yanase looked at Anchovy slowly tears started to fall from her eyes. "I don't think…. I'll make it."

"Just rest, girl," Miho assured her as the firemen keep holding her wounds, Miho then looked to her surroundings again. "GET A MEDIC!"

Soon, a paramedic arrived quickly and ran over to Yanase as the firemen gave him some space to work. He did a quick look at Yanase's wound, but he frowned sadly. "She's not going to make it."

"DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!" Miho shouted as Anchovy was starting to cry, Miho looked over to Yanase again as she was succumbing to her wound. "Come on! Stay strong stay with me, Yanase!"

"Yanase, no…" Anchovy cried as her tears started flowing from her eyes, the paramedic did the best he could to keep her alive.

"Anchovy…" Yanase called weakly, Miho and Anchovy quickly looked over to her. "I'm…. sorry…."

Yanase finally let out her last breath, she has died on that stretcher. "YANASE! YANASE!" Miho shouted in panic as she tried to get her back alive.

"No, NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! YANASE!" Anchovy cried loudly, she was devastated. "NO! PLEASE BE ALIVE!"

"YANASE!" Miho shouted as she shook her body, she can't believe it, she was gone.

"NO! NO! I'm sorry, Yanase…" Anchovy fell to her knees and cried her hand fell away from Yanase's hand. "No…."

Shiho, Maho and Erika stood idly by as they watched. They had no tears falling from their eyes but it was a really saddening sight. They were very sorry for Anchovy's loss. Carpaccio and Pepperoni cried as well at Yanase's death. Yukari and her friends all gasped and felt very sorry for the Anzios that one of their friends has died, even with Miho trying to save her.

Miho could only leave her mouth hanging open and frown sadly, looking down to the dead body of Yanase. A single life of a civilian casualty it is a goddamn failure to her. She sighed in defeat and sorry. Before she backed off from the stretcher where Yanase was now lying on. The firemen and the paramedic then glanced at her.

"We're sorry," the paramedic said with a sad tone as he looked at Yanase, before looking up to Miho. "I know you did all you could, so are we…"

Miho only glanced at him in silence, before he added. "We'll get her to the hospital."

The paramedic and the firemen then proceed to load the dead girl into an ambulance, leaving Miho standing sadly and defeated there and Anchovy still kneeling on the ground. Carpaccio and Pepperoni then walked over to Anchovy and picked her up and walked back to their friends. Shiho, Maho and Erika walked over to Miho as she walked to the backside of another ambulance, leaning her arms to her front against the doors with her head bowed down. Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako only stood at where they are now as they watched.

"Should we…?" Hana asked, but then Yukari shook her head.

"No… not now," Yukari replied with a frown. "Too soon, we'll talk to her another time. Let's just watch."

Miho was still sighing sadly as a tear fell from her scarred eye. She swore she would save her, but it was too late. Miho was still leaning her arms against the ambulance doors as her head bowed and locked in between her arms, as her family and Erika walked closer to her. Shiho then tried to comfort her.

"Miho… we know what you feel right now," Shiho said softly. "But you need to stay strong."

"I know…" Miho replied sorrowfully, her posture still the same.

"Don't you… try to move on?" Maho asked softly in concern.

"How the bloody hell I'm gonna move on?" Miho asked with a small tone of anger in her voice, still having her same posture.

"You tried as best as you can," Erika added softly. "Try to get over it."

"You need to stay strong as a Nishizumi," Shiho added, but then Miho reacted to it with anger.

*BRAK*

Miho punched the door in front of her very hard, startling everyone on site as she quickly turned around on Shiho.

"DAMN YOUR GODDAMNED BULLSHIT ABOUT NISHIZUMI-STYLE!" Miho shouted furiously, then pointed with a finger at Shiho. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED UNDER MY FUCKING WATCH?!"

Everyone quickly flinched at her words. Anchovy, Carpaccio and Pepperoni were very shocked to hear that. Yukari, Hana´s, Saori´s and Mako´s eyes went wide leaving their mouths hang open in disbelieve and awe. Shiho, Maho and Erika were afraid of Miho's reaction. Miho paused for a moment as she lowered her arm.

"I CANNOT ACCEPT ANY GODDAMN CASUALTIES!"

Everyone on site fell silent as the firemen continued to put out the fire out on the building. Miho then sighed slowly, turned her back to the open door of the ambulance and sat down. They all felt what Miho meant, even though they didn't know what she has been through. Miho looked down at the ground, before looking back to Shiho, Maho and Erika. Miho was still angry for that one casualty.

"Now fuck off!" Miho ordered angrily, they flinched at her swearing.

Shiho, Maho and Erika stood in silence while staring at Miho in heavy concern. Not wanting to disturb her any further, Shiho held Maho's shoulder and gestured for her and Erika to leave her for a while. Miho slowly turned her head to see Shiho, Maho and Erika left her a little far from the site before looking back down to the ground in regret. She shook her head and sighed at the loss of a life. As the firemen around her kept dealing with the burning building, the Anzio students chattering continued about what had happened, and the people standing around took photos or chatted with each other about what was going on. All of that while the snow was still falling onto their heads.

Then there were three people that came over to her and stood in front of her idly. Miho felt their presence and looked up to them. They were the same whom she saved from the burning building back there. She straightened her back for them as they sadly frowned to know Miho failed to save the girl's life.

"This must be so hard for you," the man said, Miho sadly sighed as her eyes rolled back.

Miho only stayed silent, as she replied to him with a nod. "Why?" the woman asked, Miho then glanced at her in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Miho asked as her eyebrows raised a bit.

"Why would you try so hard just to save one girl's life?" the old man asked clearly. "I mean, you have saved us and were able to safely get her out the building. But why try so hard to keep her alive, despite the fact she might die at the end?"

Miho paused for a moment to his question, before she replied softly. "You heard what I said back there. I cannot take any casualties… I've been there before…" Miho then looked away from the old man and sadly closed her eyes with a sigh.

The three looked at each other in concern, but then nodded to each other before looking back to Miho. "Thank you for saving us, young lady," the woman thanked her with a smile.

Miho only glanced at her, and nodded. "No worries, madam. It is my duty."

They nodded with a smile and an expression of sorry, before they left Miho alone, heading outside the fire site. Miho watched as they left, before she diverted her attention to the Anzio students. Especially looking over to Anchovy, Pepperoni, Carpaccio and Amaretto who were still sad and crying for their loss. Miho slowly got off from the ambulance and slowly walked over to them, coming up from behind Anchovy and Amaretto.

Carpaccio and Pepperoni saw Miho coming to them and gestured Anchovy and Amaretto to look behind them. Anchovy was surprised as she cried to see Miho herself walking towards them, even though they didn't know what her name was except knowing that she could be either a member of Nishizumi Family or a student of Kuromorimine. Nevertheless, they could see her eyes that were full of sorrow and defeat as she looked at them. She sighed as she looked down, before she looked up at Anchovy again.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Miho said softly, then shrugged. "I tried to save her, but…. I'm sorry…"

Anchovy felt comforted at her words, she smiled as she cries. "It's… alright… you did all you could… I'm thankful for that…"

Miho stared at her for a moment, before she nodded. Miho then looked over to where her family and Erika were waiting, before looking back to Anchovy. "Excuse me… I must be going to… somewhere else… sorry for interrupting you."

Anchovy replied to that with a nod and watched her leave them. They could see Miho shook her head for having one casualty from that fire site. The Anzios especially Anchovy knew how hard the feelings Miho had were after she shouted those words very loud in anger. She now kept wondering what might have happened to her.

Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako on the other hand all felt very sorry for now to see what Miho did on site. They watched in disbelieve as Miho left the fire site. Aside from seeing Miho that was still alive after a year of her disappearance, such things like this were very rare to see for them. But they all asked themselves was just how many people had she lost in the past year.

"Wow, she's quite hard about someone's life," Hana said in awe, everyone agreed with a simply 'yoi'.

"I hope there will be some time in the future when we could meet her…" Mako added with a frown, Yukari then quickly looked at her.

"There will be, Mako. There will."


	15. Chapter 15 - New Recruits of 141

Pravda High School, Pravda School Carrier. 09:20 AM

Katyusha was in her own office, writing reports about everything regarding the stuffs of her school. Such as logistics, budgets, events, etc, etc. Yep, it's her duty to keep track of reports of how's everything doing in her school. But she has to be honest, she fucking hate these paperworks. She always kept wondering why Nonna really loves finishing these kind of reports instead being annoyed about it. But then again because Katyusha was the top commander and student of her school, she let that thought off from her head.

The office she was in has a big table full of documents, behind her were big glass windows. Pictures were hanging on the wall on her left and right. In front of her and the table were two chairs and a wide space of room for additional one oval table and a few of chairs. There was a couple of banner of her Russian-Japanese school, one hanged on the wall on her left while the other one hanged above the entrance to her office.

Katyusha occasionally looked outside the window of her office to see the falling snow outside her office. She could see there were some students were playing with the snow and making snowmen and igloos. There were also students dancing outside there, doing their Cossack dance. Considering this is a Russian-like school, it's actually a usual thing for them. Katyusha then focuses back on her job at the table.

She smiled on what job she's doing right now, but then frowned a little. There was one thing that bothered her for the moment. She quickly thought of what happened to Miho that time back in Ooarai. She remembered her time back in 62nd National Tank Tournament that time, the time how that incident happened. After shooting down the Panzer III that was right in front of Miho's tank, it fell down to the river and saw Miho abandoned her flag tank. After saw Miho ran down the cliff to dive down the river to save her friends, Katyusha saw that as an opportunity to take out the flag tank. Katyusha didn't care about it, she took the shot and ended Kuromorimine's victory streak in which everyone very outraged at this especially with the response that Pravda didn't break any rules to see this incident.

She remembered what the bad things she said about Miho that time in the tournament. Mocking Miho that she foolishly let themselves defeated because of that Panzer fell to the river. She all did that for her pride of Pravda. She shouldn't take the shot that time, because she didn't see this coming. After she heard the news that Miho who just moved to Ooarai School and had been forced by student councils to take up Panzerfahren, has been died in the tragedy of the mock-up practice. She was disbelieved at first, but then left speechless with widen eyes in shock to realize what the news meant.

Katyusha had heard from a student and one of the Kuromorimine's commander, Mauko, about that incident. When she asked about how's Maho doing, her heart felt dropped to hear that. Hearing Maho was very devastated about Miho's death, Katyusha had to close her mouth with her hand for it. Katyusha made Miho kicked out from Kuromorimine and end up to Ooarai only to die in the mock-up practice. Katyusha had quickly pulled out all the words she said about Miho in the public for she felt was the one who's fault for ending her up in this tragedy and given her apology to Maho via card message.

Though it's been a year after Miho's death/disappearance, she's still staying strong in her school and still became a pride. Even though she lost in the final round with the Kuromorimine, she's still a pride for the school and keep her arrogant and childlike personality up to forgot about Miho's death. But then again, it kept bothering her because there was the time she thought of her once in a while. She flew that thought off her brains before focusing back on her job. Until someone entered her office.

"Katyusha?" a voice called after she entered the door, it was Nonna. "How are you today?"

"I'm fine, Nonna," Katyusha replied with a smile. "How are you doing?"

"The same as you," Nonna replied, but then her eyes looked around the office. "Katyusha, have you seen Klara around?"

"Hет, I'm still stuck in this office dealing with this paperwork," Katyusha replied childishly as she plays her pen around the documents. "Why?"

"Oh, I just want to talk to her about something," Nonna said as her eyes still looking down, before rolling her eyes to Katyusha. "But I think I want to spend some time with you for now."

"Oh, you want to help me writing these paperwork?" Katyusha quickly asked, starting to get tired of her paperwork.

Nonna only smirked to that. "Isn't that supposed to be your job, Katyusha?"

"Aw, come on, pleeeaasse?" Katyusha begged as her upper body leaned forward to Nonna with wide eyes, it was really cute.

Nonna laughed a little to that and walked over to Katyusha. "Alright, I'll help you on the paperwork."

Nonna took one of the documents and examined it. "Financial documents?"

"Yeah, I think I'm getting tired to count all the numbers," Katyusha replied as she scratched her head. "Can you checked on it again in case I count it wrong?"

"Don't worry, I'll do everything to help you," Nonna replied with a smile, but then patted Katyusha's head softly.

"Nonna, stop it!" Katyusha said aloud as she had holds Nonna's hand to stop petting her. "You embarrassed me!"

Nonna could only laughed softly to the short-girl Katyusha, wondering why her height didn't raise by a millimeter.

"Katyusha?" a voice called, nearly made Katyusha and Nonna jumped to that after found out that Klara was entering the office. "Ты здесь?"

"Oh, Klara," Nonna acknowledged as she turns to her. "Я искал тебя."

"Да неужели?" Klara asked in surprise as her hand went for her chin. "Я думал, что ты занят."

"Ну, я просто хочу помочь Катюше здесь," Nonna replied, before Katyusha grabbed Nonna by her arm.

"Nonna! Klara!" Katyusha called in annoyance, she still can't speak Russian. "Can you not speak in Russian please?"

"Alright, Katyusha I need you to come with me," Klara said in a rush, Katyusha and Nonna raised their eyebrows to that.

"Klara, what's going on?" Katyusha asked uncomfortably.

"You should tell us what is this about," Nonna added as Katyusha continue on working on the paperwork, Klara paused for a moment to thought as she looked down.

Klara then lifted her head and looked at them. "Do you know Miho Nishizumi?"

Katyusha quickly lifted her head to Klara and stopped writing in shock as Nonna could stare at her in surprise. "Why do you bring that up, Klara? We knew you know how does she looked like and you never met her. She died a year ago, Klara," Nonna stated, but Klara shook her head.

"I think that news became a false for now," Klara replied, Katyusha and Nonna raised their eyebrows and gave their cringed faces to her.

"What do you mean by that?!" Katyusha asked in disbelieve aloud as Nonna tilted her head in confusion.

"You should see this," Klara said, before Nonna and Katyusha looked at each other and then followed Klara out the office.

They both followed Klara down to the cafeteria area of the school where there are most students still eat there. The reason why they headed to the cafeteria area is because there were televisions installed in the cafeteria. They can watch and hear most of the news from there, especially being excited about the news talking about the pride of Pravda. But right now, there was a different and surprising news wait for them. If it's about Miho like what Klara said, she'll be damned about it.

Klara, Nonna and Katyusha then stopped in the middle of the cafeteria and faced to a TV hanging on one of the pillars. As the students around them looked at what are they doing here, they along with Katyusha, Klara and Nonna then looked up at the television to watch the news. Now they only kept their silence as they watch the news. The first thing they saw was a burning building that was handled by the firemen back in Yokohama city. But then the TV changed view to the very far right of the building, besides the Anzio students there, there were also the Nishizumi Family and Erika.

They all were quiet shock to see Miho in her black jacket and her head covered with black beanie was with them.

"I-is that Miho?!" Katyusha asked in shock, as they all were couldn't believe their eyes to see her alive.

"I can't believe it!" Nonna added in disbelieve, then took a step close to the TV. "What is she doing there?"

They saw Miho was about to run to the building before Shiho halted her for a moment. They saw Miho had shouted back to them. After the camera of the TV changed view to near Miho and her group, they can hear what they're saying. Bad thing is, what she said wasn't clear enough before she sprinted into the burning building. They were quite shock to see Miho does that.

"The short light brown-haired teenage girl then quickly went inside the apartment building for she was trying to save the people who were still stuck in the third floor. The firemen on site were too late to stop the girl from entering the burning building and can do nothing but to keep sending water the building until the fire is smaller so that the firemen can enter the building, in which it didn't happen," the reporter explained, they all were aghast on what Miho was thinking.

"It's like that time in the 62nd National Tournament, but…" Katyusha paused for a moment in concern. "That could've killed her…"

"I wonder how she able to get out from there," Nonna said calmly, but the inside she was concerned.

After a brief explanation and recordings, they saw the part where the wall on the right side of the burning building blew up. And there were people emerged from it. They were shocked to see Miho was carrying an injured girl followed up with three people behind her whom she saved. They able to hear Miho have shouted to the firemen to get a stretcher for the injured Anzio schoolgirl she was carrying.

The camera changed up close to the firemen, along with Miho and there's Anchovy who was holding the girl's hand, Yanase, and crying. "MEDIC!" They heard her shouted to her surroundings in the TV, Miho sounds different somehow to Nonna and Katyusha.

"Is she trying to keep her alive?" Nonna asked, Klara then looked at her.

"It seems so, Nonna," Klara replied before looking back to the TV.

"GET A MEDIC!" they heard Miho shouted in the TV, before a paramedic came by to them to tend the injured girl.

They can't hear what the paramedic said to her, but they sure it wasn't good. "DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!" they heard Miho shouted, this time they can heard her tone was filled with anger.

They watched as Miho along with the firemen and the paramedic keep Yanase alive as Anchovy can't do nothing but to stood beside her. Klara and Nonna were hoping that the girl they're watching at is still alive while Katyusha felt speechless and her mind was lost. But then something happened, they just saw Yanase let out her last breath. They saw Miho quickly panicked by that.

"YANASE! YANASE!"

"No, NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! YANASE! NO! PLEASE BE ALIVE!" they heard from Anchovy's shouts, it was very sad to see Anchovy being devastated to her loss.

"YANASE!" they heard Miho shouted as she shook her body, they could saw the face Miho made in the TV, they saw she can't believe she's gone.

"NO! NO! I'm sorry, Yanase…" Anchovy fell to her knees and cried, her hand loose from Yanase's hand. Everyone who were watching the TV were all very sorry to see that.

They could saw Miho could only leave her mouth opened and frowned sadly, looking down to the dead body of Yanase. If they had to admit, the look Miho made that time in the TV is somehow slowly turning into a dreary look. The kind of look that made Katyusha gulped, while Klara and Nonna felt uncomfortable to look at her. After watching the firemen and the paramedic moved the dead girl to an another ambulance, they saw Miho leaned her arms to her front against the doors with her head bowed down in defeat. Her Nishizumi family and Erika then walked up to her and try to comfort her.

Katyusha and everyone in the cafeteria were very surprised about whatever Miho's family and friend said to her made her reaction to be backfired. They just saw Miho punched the ambulance door hard *BRAK*, and quickly turned around to Shiho.

"DAMN YOUR GODDAMNED BULLSHIT ABOUT NISHIZUMI-STYLE!" Miho shouted furiously, then pointed her finger to Shiho. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED UNDER MY FUCKING WATCH?!"

Katyusha, Nonna, Klara and anyone else from Pravda never saw that kind of anger coming from Miho Nishizumi herself once in their life. They know what Miho's attitude looks like. But this is out of the account from her personality. Katyusha felt something sharp hit her heart from Miho's words after hearing that. They never heard Miho would say such things like that. Saying Nishizumi-Style as a bullshit was something very offending for them to hear.

"I CANNOT ACCEPT ANY GODDAMN CASUALTIES!"

The last sentence she just said, they just can't believe what they were hearing. Katyusha, Nonna and Klara saw what came out from Miho. Her rage. Hearing Miho mentioned those words, they all started to think about how many people have died under her watch. Katyusha had to admit, seeing someone being this angry gave the creeps to her.

It's not the Miho she knew anymore.

"If she's alive…" Katyusha started as her hand held her chin. "Where is she living right now?"

"I can only assume she still lives in the Nishizumi residence," Klara replied with a shrug.

"That's a maybe, Klara," Nonna then turned around to Katyusha. "Maybe we could meet her- Katyusha? What's wrong?"

Katyusha paused for a moment as Klara and Nonna began to stare at her. "I'm not sure if I'm ready to meet her…"

* * *

Task Force 141 Headquarter, East side of Asagoyama Mountain, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. 10:00 AM

Miho, Maho and Kay were all right now inside the 141 base. Miho right now was wearing her grey jacket with the UK flag on her shoulder and zips on her arms. A winter boonie hat on her head, tactical black gloves and tactical sunglasses on her eyes. And a pair of winter camo combat pants. Her pistol is still on her holster on her leg while the belt has its pouches for ammo. Maho was wearing her blue trousers and a long sleeve black t-shirt underneath her blue jacket while Kay was wearing her cream-colored trousers and her dark-green t-shirt underneath her brown leather jacket with the star on her left shoulder that was supposed to use for Sensha-Do match.

As they walked in the base, Maho and Kay felt uncomfortable about all the men Miho had in the base. All eyes were looking at them, though not in a suspicious kind of look. Though, the men only stare at them for 3 seconds before going back to what are they doing plus with shaking their heads. They swear they saw some of the soldier gave their awed expression to see there were other girls who're going to join up with the 141. Miho comforted them by her men just wondering how good they are in this Task Force.

Besides the big base Miho has in this place, the Task Force also had a lot of arsenal at their disposals. Kay was really excited about seeing some big planes and helicopters that she never seen. Maho could left her jaw open to see them herself. Kay was excited with this A-10 jet fighter; which Miho would say that's one of the best air fighter they got in the Task Force. And Maho had her interest to one plane that looks like a cargo plane for them. Which Miho replied with:

"That's an AC-130, not a cargo plane. Very deadly for air support if you ask. Like heaven itself fell down to earth."

Maho quickly imagined what the bloody hell did Miho meant, and she was suddenly afraid to be the one who got shot by AC-130. Kay on the other hand, very-fucking-excited to fly that plane around. Miho needs to keep in mind that Kay should stay away from the AC-130. Miho and the rest of the Task Force don't want to have any incident that goes high profile. Ami and the rest of the JSDF would be pissed if that happens.

They walked on and they found some tanks parked at the field inside the base. There were a lot of them, especially the Abrams, Leopards and the T-90s. Maho and Kay wished they can get their hands on those tanks, but that would be for another time. Now, they need to be focus on the training they both will soon get from Miho and her men. They kept moving on to the hangar to find Ghost.

Once they found Ghost inside, they found out he was still training the recruits he got from JGSDF for the 141, men and women alike. But then there were something else surprised them including Miho. Shiho, Chiyo, Ami were there as well along with Ami's friends Yuko and Akashi. They along with Ghost then looked over to Miho and her friends as they walked over to Ghost and his group. Ghost tell the recruits that they can have a break for now before he greeted his CO.

"Good morning, Captain," Ghost greeted with a salute, Miho replied with the same salute. "Good to see you back in base."

"Me too, Ghost," Miho replied with a nod and shook hands with him, before looking up to her mother and the others behind him. "Mother, I though you said you were working back in that department."

"I did, then I came here with Chiyo and the others to see how your base looks like," Shiho replied as she points her thumb to Chiyo, Miho sighed in annoyance to that.

"I never thought I'll be seeing you, guys," Kay added with a scratch to her head as Shiho's group walked over to Ghost and the rest.

"And I never thought I'll be hearing you along with Maho to join up with the 141," Ami replied with sarcasm as she crossed her arms, Kay felt uncomfortable about it.

"May I know who you are?" Miho asked politely to the two Japanese Officials.

"My name is Major Akashi Seijuro," Akashi replied as he shook hands with her, before Miho shook her hands with the Japanese Lieutenant. "This Lt. Amagiri yuko."

"Oaidekiteureshīdesu," Yuko greeted with a smile after they shook hands.

"It's good to meet ya' too, mate," Miho replied with a smile. "What are you lads doing here?"

"Checking up on how the 141 doing," Akashi replied. "Also having some 'exercise' with Ghost."

Miho laughed at that as Maho and Kay cringed to that. "That's ironic, he's a Lieutenant and you're a Major."

"Hey, even the lower ranks can help teach the higher ranks on something they don't know of," Chiyo added, Miho couldn't help but to grin and shook her head.

"So, here is your sister and Kay," Ghost then looked over to them both. "You mates are up for this?"

"Jawohl," Maho replied with a nod as Kay nodded as well.

"And Ghost try to be easy with them will ya'?" Miho asked, Ghost only smirked under his mask.

"No problem, mate," Ghost replied with a thumbs up.

"Also, if you hear Maho starting to talk shit about me, you have the permission to shoot her."

…

…

…

…

"Wait… what?" Ghost asked slowly, as he and the rest including Maho herself dumbfounded by that.

"Did you shoot your own sister…?" Ami asked slowly in horrified as they were still dumbfounded.

"That was two days ago," Shiho replied, all quickly glanced to her in shock except for Miho and Maho. "It's true actually, and it happened in Kuromorimine school."

…

…

…

…

"The police didn't come to handle that, right?" Kay asked, hoping it didn't bring any trouble.

"Nope," Maho, Miho and Shiho replied in unison and a shook. "The school can keep their mouths shut about it," Shiho added which relieves them in their heart.

"Bloody hell, Miho," Ghost said in disbelieve as he massaged his forehead. "You were pissed off that time?"

"Yeah, I did," Miho replied as she waved her hands wide to her sides.

"Hm, also, there's this one news about you," Yuko said, Miho glared at her in confusion.

"What are you talking about?" Miho asked as she winced her eyes.

"That burning building in Yokomaha city," Chiyo added, now Miho remembered about it.

"Oh yeah, I just heard that kind of news this morning," Kay added as her hand was raised to in front of her chest.

"And if I have to say," Ami said as she rolled her eyes to Ghost. "It's the craziest news I ever heard about you."

"And the news went viral like wildfire," Ghost added as he tilted his head to Ami. "Looks like you're getting popular very soon."

"Great, looks like they knew my name after they say who I am," Miho replied in annoyance, but their expressions turned to a doubtful one.

"Umm, about that…" Shiho began as her hand was already on her chin. "The news didn't say your name was Miho."

Maho, Kay and Miho tilted their heads and gave their cringed faces to her. "What?" Miho asked in wonder.

"Yeah, you just left the scene along with your family and Erika before the interviewer able to reach you," Akashi replied as he massaged his neck. "The only thing the reporter would say is only you probably another secret member of the Nishizumi Family or an unknown student of Kuromorimine after you shout out those words in the public. They didn't able to recognize your face that time."

"Thought, the media was wondering about how many people died under your watch," Ami added, Miho got caught off-guard by that.

"Are you alright?" Kay asked as she looked over to her face, somehow looked angry about it.

"I'm fine…" Miho replied, her hand waved to Kay's face. "Just don't talk to me about the casualties I saw, alright?"

Ghost knew this was very sensitive, especially after what happened back in London. Those were dark days for her that time. At least she survived one of the incidents in London. And at least Makarov wasn't here.

"Alright, just calm down," Chiyo said with a nod. "We have no intention to make you angry."

Miho only stares at her but then nodded. "Okay, let's put that aside. Now, about the news of me. Maybe people don't know who I am but I'm sure there could be some of them recognize my face."

"Could be the Pravdas," Maho added, which they all nodded on that.

"Yeah, they knew Miho," Ami said in agreement. "I'm wondering how are their reactions to see her alive."

"Yeah, also there's been rumors about you after that fight in that restaurant," Kay added with her index finger raised as Miho looked at her. "Some students had to ask me if I did talk to you."

Miho only chuckled at that. "Good thing I wasn't in your school."

"Ehem," Ghost coughed aloud to attract everyone's attention especially Miho. "Shouldn't we start the training for them?"

"Okay, Ghost," Miho explained to him. "Start training them by the basics first, including shooting range and fire team demonstration. And give them a couple of courses to see how they're holding up."

"Okay, Miho," Ghost then looked over to Kay and Maho. "Alright you two, follow me."

Maho and Kay quickly walked over to him, before they both followed Ghost to the armory and left the rest behind. "Remember, Ghost! Be easy with them!" Miho shouted to him, Ghost only turned his head as they walk.

"Okay, Captain!" Ghost shouted back, before he along with Maho and Kay has left the hangar.

After watching them left Miho and the rest looked up to each other. "Well, he's charming to be honest," Ami commented with a smile, which everyone then glared at her.

"Don't tell me you fall in love with him," Akashi said with his empty eyes, Ami blushed a little by that.

"N-no, I'm not!" Ami retorted in annoyance. "I just like him."

"Your blushing face says the otherwise," Chiyo added as they all stared at her with empty eyes including Miho.

"No… but I've been wondering about one thing," Ami then looked to Miho. "Why does Ghost never opened up his mask?"

Miho casually raised her eyebrows, it was the same question Ritaiko asked. "You know why, Miho?" Akashi asked as he was surprised to see Miho's expression was like that.

"He's always wearing his mask so he can remember about all the faces of the death he sees every day from the result of his own hands."

They never thought the reason why Ghost still have his mask on was because of that. Shiho could tell, Ghost was quite open to her than anyone else in here. But when talking about sensitive information, Shiho and Ami could say both of them were quite alert about it and not willing to talk about it. It's better not to force them to talk about it if they don't want to anger them and lose relation with them.

"So that's why," Yuko said in understood.

"Yeah, he's a good and a hard bastard," Miho said with a smile. "I'm glad to have him around."

"I agree," Ami added with a nod and a smile. "He even happily showed us how to use the UGV."

Miho, Shiho and Chiyo then glanced at her at that name. "What's UGV?" Shiho asked in confusion.

"That's an Unmanned Ground Vehicle, has 2 centimeter armor plating, mounted mini-gun, and grenade launcher," Miho then puts her hands on her hip. "I imagine that was quiet satisfying for you?"

"Oh sure!" Akashi replied with a chuckle. "It's cute to see the mini-version of a real tank!"

Shiho and Chiyo then turned their gaze to Miho with their flat faces and empty eyes. "Mini-tanks…?" Chiyo asked in a dreadful tone, it was quiet offending for them both.

"Hey, don't ask me how did that thing got build up," Miho replied with a shook of annoyance. "I also don't have any intention to give that damn thing to Alice, alright?"

They all paused in silence, before Ami began. "Hey, should we have a bit shooting stuffs first?"

"Want to go to the shooting range?" Miho asked, and they all nodded. "Alright, let's see what you got."

3 hours later

It's been fun for Miho along with her mother and the rest while Kay and Maho been in training. Seeing how Akashi, Yuko and Ami shooting the rifles in the shooting range, it was exhilarating for them. Shiho and Chiyo only watched from their seats, and have to say they prefer to stick with tanks than this. After a while doing that, Ghost appeared on their sight and sat down next to Shiho.

Ami just dared to Miho to see who's the fastest to shoot 15 targets down with an M9 pistol. Miho just nodded and accept the challenge. When Ami shot down all 15 targets accurately, her record was 13.52 seconds. Then it was Miho's turn to shoot the targets, she only took her pistol and aims at the target. After she shot the targets, they just can't believe how fast Miho was. It took Miho around 5 seconds to shoot all the targets down accurately and fast as lightning.

Ami just can't believe Miho would be that fast to shoot the targets. Ami smiled but then she asked her if Miho can do anything else to shoot the targets with her pistol. Miho did only stare at her with her eyebrows raised, before she aims her pistol sideways with one hand without looking at the targets. Miho shoot the targets as her eyes still locking on Ami's eyes. Miho somehow able to shoot all the targets down without seeing what she was aiming at, which made Ami, Akashi, Shiho and Chiyo very baffled to see that.

As they were having fun, soon Kay and Maho came into view and walked up to them. Kay and Maho were drinking their water before took their seats across Shiho, Chiyo and Ghost. They were tired a little from those training but they're doing fine right now. Miho only leans her back against the stand of the shooting range and looked at them. As her men all around the base only kept working on what they do or having a good conversation with the other soldiers in the field.

"Hey, mates, how are you holding up?" Miho asked to Kay and Maho.

"Oh, we're doing fine, Miho," Kay replied as Maho shrugged. "Just need to get used to it."

"Ghost, how's their training?" Miho asked, Ghost only grinned underneath his mask.

"For these schoolgirls, I'll say they're better," Ghost replied with a nod. "But Kay knows how to handle weapons well than Maho."

Miho just huffed at that. "Good thing for you had something to do with the Yankees."

"Um, what? Yankees?" Chiyo asked in confusion as the rest confused to that as well.

"It's a slang for Americans," Ghost replied, then looked over to Maho and Kay. "Overall, you're both good at your training. Just need to keep your skill sharper."

"Jawohl," Maho replied with a nod and a small smile.

"Ghost, how's the 141 holding up right now?" Miho asked to him, and he chuckled to that.

"Oh, the 141 is doing better right now," Ghost replied as he leans his back against his chair. "Our Russians and the Czechs were quiet happy doing their job. The Canadians, the British, the Australians and the Frenches were doing their job with pleasure while the rest of the foreign soldiers were enjoying shooting stuffs up in the missions."

"Yeah, the 141 does make some of the missions that looked so hard," Akashi added as he lifted his hand above his thighs. "That they made it quite simple."

"Yeah, they even got a mission that is outside of Japan," Ami added with her arms crossed. "Exactly in Australia, dealing with a mission dealing the threats in Australia. It's a joint operation between the JSDF, 141 and the SASR (Special Air Service Regiment). Yuko and Ghost even participated in that mission."

"Wow, looks like the Japan-Australian relation is getting stronger by that," Shiho commented in impression but with her flat face.

"How's the SASR reactions to the 141?" Miho asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Frankly, they were very surprised to see the 141," Yuko replied. "Especially knowing it's a confidential Multinational Task Force instead of Japanese Task Force. And they were very astonished to see how armed the 141 is."

"And at least we able to keep our mouths shut about any information regarding about 141," Ghost added, but then paused awkwardly. "Well… except for recruitment."

"Well, I'm fine about it," Miho replied with a nod. "Just make sure they can keep their mouth shut about 141."

"Alright, Captain," Ghost replied, but then remembered something else. "And by the way, the rumors of 141 in the town is starting to spread slowly. Just letting ya' know."

"Especially about that drug bust by the 141 before the police arrived on site," Akashi added as he took a can of beer provided on site. "Though the police that time didn't know who busted those drug dealers that time because the 141 got away from that area in time."

"You're talking about that drug bust in Yamaka?" Kay asked, Maho and Miho surprised to hear Kay know the news. "Yeah, the police were very surprised that the drug dealers were either killed or knocked out cold when they got there. Plus, with the drugs and money being left behind just like that."

"That time the SDF has asked us to deal with a troublesome drug cartel that they were having a hard time to handle," Ghost added as he corrected his sunglasses. "Chemo was having fun back there. Shotgunning the bastards away."

"Heh, don't mess with a black man," Chiyo commented, but then everyone glared at her. "I'm not being racist, people."

"We know, Misutā Chiyo," Maho replied with an emotionless expression as everyone still staring at Chiyo. "We're just surprised to hear that for the first time from you."

"Except for those people in Somalia!" a voice shouted from behind them, it was Chemo. "They are real assholes compare to us!"

"That's bloody true, mate!" Miho shouted back in agreement, everyone including Ghost cringed at that. "No offense on that!"

"Eeyup!" Chemo shouted back with a thumbs up, before he left with an open smile.

"Well, that was awkward," Shiho commented as she shook her head as the rest looked back to each other.

"Erm, who was that?" Kay asked, it was a rare thing for her to see a black man around.

"That was Chemo," Yuko answered with her finger pointed to Chemo was leaving them. "That was the black man we were talking about."

"Oh, I see," Maho acknowledge with a nod, Miho then reminded on something.

"Hey, Maho," Miho called, Maho looked to her. "I want you to try out something."

"What is it?" Maho asked, wondering what is Miho up to while the rest think the same.

Miho then stood up, and took a Kevlar vest from a table nearby. "Wear this Kevlar up."

"Why?" Maho asked, everyone including starting to get uncomfortable on what is Miho doing.

"Just wear it," Miho said as she gives the Kevlar to Maho.

Maho wasn't sure what is Miho up to, but then she decides to follow what she says. Maho began wear up the Kevlar by wearing it through the bottom side of the Kevlar before her head and arms went through the holes for her head and arms. She strapped the sides of the Kevlar and patted it. Maho then turned around to Miho as she waits for further instruction. Everyone who were watching only kept silent as they watched.

"What now?" Maho asked as she raised and widen her hands to her sides.

"Now stand there," Miho points her finger to the empty field to their right (Behind the shooting stand on the right).

Maho walked and stood firmly at the position that Miho wanted her to be at. Now Ghost understands what is she up to. Well, he wouldn't mind about it. But he was sure the others going to be surprised as hell to see it.

Maho then faced her body to Miho as her eyes looked to her. "Now?"

"Just stand there and don't move," Miho ordered as she lazily turned her head to Shiho and the rest and her hand waved to Maho.

They all just stay silent as Maho stood there. Some of the men of the 141 starting to watch from afar to see what Miho is doing to Maho. For the Russians of the 141, they all quickly understand on what is Miho going to do to Maho, can be evidently see from the grins they made. Shiho and the rest didn't notice that while they were watching Miho stood there and not moving along with Maho who did the same from a distance.

Miho didn't make a move as her eyes only staring to each of the people with her starting from her mother until Yuko. Until Miho quickly turned her head to Maho as her pistol quickly pulled out from her holster and aimed at Maho with her left hand. Maho only reacted with raising her hands a little by that until…

*DOR*

They all including Kay and except Ghost quickly jumped off from their seats and from where they were standing after watched Miho just shot her own sister right in the chest. Maho fell back to the ground quickly after the shot. Miho just suddenly shot her own sister without any fucking reason. They all quickly ran to Miho who was lowering her gun to the ground as the men of the 141 laughed and felt sorry for that while Ghost only cringed to that.

"Miho, what the hell are you doing?!"

"Why did you shot her?!"

"That was your own sister!"

"Have you just lost your mind?!"

"What's wrong with you?!"

"The hell just happened?!"

They all shouted nearly in unison quickly in surprise, angry and worry. Starting from Kay, then Ami, Chiyo, Shiho, Yuko, and lastly Akashi. Miho just ignored their shouting as she was grinning to her own sister she shot. They continued to ask what the hell Miho is doing as Ghost and the men of the 141 were very entertained of the stupid show they just watched, plus with the Russians laughing at the distance for that. Oh, what a colorful day for Miho.

"Calm down, people! Calm down!" Miho said aloud as her hand gestured to them by lowering it down in front of her as her pistol still pointing at the ground. "I know what I'm doing."

"What the hell do you mean by that?!" Yuko asked furiously, she pointed her palm to Maho who's still lying on the ground. "You just shot your own sister!"

"I'm just giving her the first experience of getting shot," Miho replied calmly, they all only cringed as they left their jaw open.

"You didn't kill her, right?" Kay asked worriedly, Miho only grinned at that.

"Nah, she's alive," she simply replied as she holstered her pistol and looked at Maho. "She's just having a bad day from me."

"…what?" Chiyo asked as she and the rest only gave empty eyes and left a sweat from their foreheads.

Miho then began walking slowly towards Maho, as the rest began to follow up. Ghost only watched with a chuckle as the men of the 141 from afar just laughed to the fact that the Japanese didn't see that coming. After Miho reached Maho, she looked down to Maho who's still lying on the ground as the rest followed up to her and surround Maho. They all then looked down to Maho. The only thing that they can saw about Maho's expression was only shock and tensed up.

"Are you okay, mate?" Miho asked to Maho as Maho's eyes looked up to the sky instead of Miho's eyes.

Silence for a moment, until Maho opened her mouth. "It feels like I just got hit hard by a metal pipe," Maho replied with a trembling tone.

"You looked like doing okay for me," Miho then gave a hand to Maho. "Come on, get up."

Maho took Miho's hand and Miho pulled her up and get her back to her feet. "That's why I want you to try this out, this is what the Russians like to do when training," Miho said to Maho, she glanced at her in fear as the rest did the same.

"No wonder you like those Russians," Shiho commented, felt disgusted a little about it. "They're crazy."

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod as she looked over to Maho's chest that was covered with the Kevlar, the bullet was stuck there. "Yep, you're still fine, сестра. You can take off the Kevlar now."

"Arigato, Miho-san," Maho replied with a nod shakily, she then began to undone the Kevlar.

"Hey, Kay!" Ghost called from his seat, they all looked behind them. "You should be thankful you didn't get shot by Captain Nishizumi."

Kay paused for a moment as she glared to him in disbelieve. "I don't even know if I should be thankful about it!"

"I hope you're done about shooting Maho," Akashi said, wanted this shit to stop.

"Don't worry, I'm done," Miho replied with her hand waved to Akashi. "Now, I just want to work on something else."

Miho and the group then slowly walk back to their seats where Ghost was waiting as Maho put down the Kevlar on a random table on her right. After they got back there and sat down on their respective seats, Miho only pulled out her pistol and checked on it at a shooting stand nearby. Kay patted Maho's shoulder from the surprise that Miho has given as the rest began to talk to each other. Then suddenly, a soldier of the 141 came to them from behind as Miho still checking on her gun.

"Captain Nishizumi?" the soldier called, they all looked behind them to see the soldier, Miho recognized who was he.

"Dioxide," Miho greeted to the Mongolian 141 soldier. "You got something for me?"

"A pocket watch with a picture of Yanase Sakamoto like you asked," he then showed the watch to them, before Miho walked over to him and took it from him softly. "I'm sorry about what happened back in Yokohama city."

They all quickly remembered about what had happened, Miho only frowned as she opened and looked at the picture inside the pocket watch. "Баярлалаа, Диоксид."

"Таны мэндчилье, Aхмад," Dioxide replied, he then turned his head for a moment before looking back to Miho. "I must be going now, Ахмад Нишизуми."

Miho only nodded to him, he then left them as Miho only stood there and kept looking to the picture of the pocket watch. Yanase Sakamoto, was the dead victim of the burning apartment back in Yokohama city, a friend of Anchovy. Maybe Miho never met or knew her that time, but she doesn't care, no one deserves to die like that back there. Miho only closed the pocket watch and gripped it in her hands as her eyes slowly gazing down the snowy ground in front of her. She then lowers her hand which held the pocket watch down to her side.

"Are you okay, Miho?" Shiho asked, worried about Miho's still reeling from what happened yesterday.

Miho only slowly turned around to behind, averting her eyes to Shiho. "No, actually…"

"You actually never knew her though," Maho stated. "You're keeping that for yourself?"

Miho paused for a moment before replying with a shook. "No, I want to give it to someone."

Miho then turned head to behind her on her left in silent and with a frown, before looking back to them. "If you excuse me, I need to go somewhere…"

They all paused as they stare to Miho, before Ghost replied with a nod. "Take your time, mate. Let me know if you need anything."

Miho nodded in silent and with a frown for reply, before she turned to her left and walked away. As they watched her left, they were wondering about is she going to. Ghost knew that look Miho made. Ghost remembered about a year ago he was attending the funeral of those who died after that incident at Buckingham Palace, Miho was there as well beside him. Ghost only shook his head with a huff. As the people around him then glanced at him.

"What's the matter, Ghost?" Chiyo asked, thinking he knows where is Miho going to.

"I know the look she made," Ghost replied as he points his finger to Miho who just left, they all puzzled on what he was saying.

"Do you know where is she going?" Shiho asked with her eyebrows raised.

Ghost stared at her for a moment, before replying with a sad tone as he looked away from her. "She's going to pay her respect.

* * *

Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture. 16:00 PM

Anchovy was right now in the snowy graveyard, along with Carpaccio, Pepperoni and Amaretto. As the sun slowly sets to the west, the sunlight shines upon a grave of a friend whom Anchovy dears the most. Yanase Sakamoto, who died yesterday in Yokohama city, at the fire site of the burning apartment building. She died because she was succumbing to her heavily injured wounds, until she had let out her last breath despite she was rescued out from the building by an unknown girl. Chiyomi, or Anchovy her nickname was, can't believe this would happen.

They four stood there against the grave of her hometown, as Carpaccio and Anchovy sobbed for their loss as Amaretto and Pepperoni sniffed sadly as tears fell out from their eyes. Yanase didn't deserve to die like this, but it was too late. Yanase was a cheerful, polite and friendly girl she had in her school. Gladly she was not annoying like Pepperoni. More than that, she was a member of her Sensha-Do team. But now with her gone, she can't say anything else about it but to cry.

Carpaccio leaned herself to Anchovy's left shoulder and bowed her head down to cover her crying eyes. Anchovy closed her eyes with her hands as tears pouring out from her covered eyes. Amaretto and Pepperoni then looked to how is Anchovy doing as their tears didn't cease. It is a devastating day for them.

As they grieved for their loss, Pepperoni felt something in her heart. She felt an unknown presence amongst them. Pepperoni slowly turned around to behind them, and was surprised to see a girl was walking up to them. A girl in her black Jacket with UK flag on the left shoulder, winter boonie hat on her head, grey trousers with brownish color on the knee, and a green buttoned shirt underneath her jacket. She quickly recognized the short red-haired girl upon closer look from a distance.

Pepperoni quickly poked Anchovy and she turned at Peppa. "Anchovy, look."

Anchovy and the rest of the Anzio girls quickly turned around and looked at her, Anchovy opened her mouth in wonder as she cries. "O-oh, it's you… what are you doing here…?"

"I'm here to pay my respect," the red-haired girl replied as she stopped in front of them. "I think it's best if I'm… with you for the moment."

"O-oh?" Carpaccio asked, they were surprised for the kindness of the girl. "Yes, please… that's kind of you."

"B-but…" Amaretto paused for a moment as everyone glanced at her. "We never got the time to know your name…"

Miho stood in silence to them with her pity eyes, before she replied with a reluctant expression. "Miho… Miho Nishizumi…"

They all widen their eyes and gasped to who was in front of them as they cried, leaving their jaw open in disbelieve. "Y-you…? b-but… impossible…" Anchovy stammered as she was very disbelieved and shock about it as she cries.

"You fell to the river along with the bridge…" Carpaccio stated with a low voice and terrified. "How could you survive that?"

Miho could only lift her arms to her sides with doubt. "It's… a long story… but I don't want to talk about it."

They all didn't expect her answer will be that, but that's for another story. "How did you know we were here?" Anchovy asked as she sobbed.

"I asked some Anzio students around to know where were you," Miho answered softly as she steps closer to them. "So here I am."

Miho stopped right in front of Anchovy, before Pepperoni talk. "But- you don't know who Yanase is…"

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "But that doesn't mean I won't care about it, after what happened yesterday."

"Really?" Amaretto asked, they all surprised of her answer. "…You really are a kind person…"

Miho then looked over to the grave, looking by Anchovy's shoulder. She took a couple of steps passing them and stood in front of the grave. Those who were behind her turned around and looked down to the grave. Miho can feel it… this is a very sad sight for her. It reminded her of the funerals of the people who died back in London a year ago. They have built a memorial in the graveyard, a memorial for the hundreds of people who died in that incident in London. Miho had to let out a tear to Yanase's grave because she was reminded of that.

Miho crouched down to the grave, and took off her hat and put it in front of her chest to give her respect to Yanase's grave. Miho closed her eyes and bow her head down to the ground. Anchovy and the rest only looked at Miho is doing as they grieved Yanase. Miho then lifted her head up to the grave and decide to do a thing that she didn't have the time long ago.

"Let us pray," Miho said, everyone was eye-widening to hear that.

"In the name of the Father, and of the son, and the holy spirit…" Miho said lowly to herself as she made a cross-gesture from her head down to her chest and shoulders. "Amen."

Anchovy, Carpaccio, Pepperoni and Amaretto gripped their own hands as Miho prayed aloud. "Dear Lord above all, Lord Jesus Christ,

By your own three days in the tomb,

You hallowed the graves of all who believe in you,

And so made the grave a sign of hope,

That promises resurrection,

Even as it claims our mortal bodies.

Lord, those who die still live in Your presence,

Their lives change but do not end.

O Loving Father and Savior,

Send your angels to carry the soul of your servant from this earth to the heavenly place of eternal and everlasting life.

My sister in faith, I entrust you to God Who created you.

May you return to the One Who formed you from the dust of this earth.

May Mary, the angels, and all the saints come to meet you as you go forth from this life.

May Christ Who was crucified for you bring you freedom and peace.

May Christ, the Son of God, Who died for you take you into His kingdom.

May Christ, the Good Shepherd, give you a place within His flock.

May He forgive your sins and keep you among His people.

May you see your Redeemer face to face and enjoy the sight of God forever.

Oh Lord of Christ,

may she along with those who died rejoice in Your kingdom,

where all our tears are wiped away.

Unite us together again in one family,

to sing Your praise forever and ever. Amen."

"In the name of the Father, and of the son, and the holy spirit, Amen," Miho ended her prayers with a cross-gesture, it is the first time for the Anzios to hear her prayers like that and it was beautiful.

Miho looked back at the grave first, before standing up with her hat still on her chest. Anchovy and the rest then walked up to Miho from behind and looked over to her. Miho was still frowning sadly to the girl who died and failed to save. Miho let out a sigh, before putting back on her hat. She then looked up to Anchovy to her left.

Anchovy only nodded to her, before Miho looking back to the grave. "Requescat In Pace."

Anchovy, Pepperoni, Carpaccio and Amaretto smiled to hear that despite the tears falling out from their eyes. "Thank you for praying for her," Carpaccio said gladly as she wipes her tears.

"It's my pleasure, madam," Miho replied with a nod and a smile, such a formal thing to hear from her.

Anchovy and the rest did notice the scar on Miho's right eye, but decided it was the good time to ask. "May I ask? What happened to your… eye?"

Miho didn't surprise nor caught-off guard by that, but she knew she wants to keep it secret. "Got scratched by a tiger, don't worry about it."

They all quickly gasped by that, but the important thing was to see her doing fine. "I'm glad you're still alright, Miho," Anchovy replied with a nod and a smile.

"Thank you, Anchovy," Miho replied with a nod, but then reminded of something. "Oh yeah, there's something I want to give to you…"

"What is it?" Anchovy asked, wondering what she will give.

Miho then pulled out the pocket watch containing the picture of Yanase inside, opened. "This is for you, Anchovy. To remember her."

Anchovy slowly took the watch from Miho and looked at it by the picture inside, she sobbed to see it. "Mio dio… it's just like her… thank you, Miho-san."

"Don't worry, it's my pleasure," Miho nodded then looked out to behind her, it's her time to go. "Excuse me, my lady. But I should go, I'm needed elsewhere."

"Alright, thank you for your time to accompany us," Pepperoni replied with a nod, still sobbing a little.

Miho turned to behind her and began to walk away, but then halted by Anchovy. "Wait, umm… are you right now taking school in Kuromorimine… or elsewhere like Ooarai?"

Miho gave a shook to them. "No, I'm not taking any schools. I already have my own job, mate."

Miho then turned around again and walked away from them, walking towards the exit of the cemetery. It is really sad to see Miho leave after her mourning in the graveyard along with the Anzios. As they watch Miho leave, there was one thing that kept bothering Anchovy. Putting aside the death of her friend, she was wondering about what Miho had stated before. The thing that made her very angry about it.

 _"How many people did she watch died?"_

* * *

Nishi's Apartment, Chi-Ha-Tan school carrier. 18:00 PM.

Kuniyo Nishi was watching the TV with her schoolmates and members of her Sensha-Do team. The friends she had inside her apartment were around 8 girls including herself. They were Fukuda, Haru Tamada, Hosomi, Nagura, Hamada, Teramoto and Ikeda. They were having a good fun as they watched the TV, it was on the entertainment channel. Watching a show about a funny quiz show.

Nishi was glad to have Fukuda with her, kind of teaching her something new. Maybe Fukuda lack of confidence unlike everyone else with her, but it was fun. Now with everyone in presence, it made stuffs in the apartment sound much more fun. Nishi was sitting on a couch with Fukuda, Tamada and Hosomi while the rest sat their arses down on the floor as they watch the TV.

"Hahahahhahaha!" they all laughed watching the host of the show slipped to the floor. "That was awesome!" Tamada said aloud cheerfully.

"Yeah, how did that happened?" Fukuda asked as she wipes a tear of laughter.

"Who cares?! It's funny after all!" Hamada replied as she's still laughing.

"Hey, girls, is there any news today?" Nishi asked, decided to change the topic at first hand.

"Well, I don't hear any," Ikeda replied softly as she looked to Nishi, before looking to the others. "Any of you heard one?"

"Actually I heard one!" Nagura quickly replied as she raised her hand up. "And it's a fun one!"

"What is it, Nagura-san?" Hosomi asked as they glanced at her with their curious expressions.

"I heard there will be an Exhibition Match in a few weeks!" Nagura quickly said back with an open smile, they all quickly gasped in excitement.

"An Exhibition Match?!" Nishi asked in excited as she leans forward to her. "Who will we be teamed up with?"

"Umm, we're not in the Exhibition Match to be honest" Nagura paused for a moment as everyone disappointed with that.

"Alright, that's for another time, everyone," Nishi stated as she tried to cheer her up. "So, who will be having the match?"

"One team are Saunders, Ooarai and Kuromorimine," they all quickly stopped smiling when she said that, all were in shock.

"W-why they're with the Kuromorimine?" Teramoto asked as she cringed to her. "I thought Kuromorimine didn't like Ooarai that much."

"I don't know," Nagura replied, her hands raised up to shoulder with a cringed face. "Maybe try to improve relations a bit."

"At least the Saunders were nice with Ooarai," Tamada stated, the Chi-Ha-Tan along with the Saunders were the most school who were kind to Ooarai. "How about the team they will be up against?"

"The St. Gloriana, The Pravda, and the BC Freedom," Nagura replied, they felt uncomfortable hearing the word Pravda.

"Oh, I just don't like the time to see Ooarai got wrecked by the Pravda," Fukuda stated, yeah, Ooarai was lost to the Pravdas that time back in the 63rd Tournament. "It's a bad memory for them all that time."

"I know," Nishi agreed with a frowned nod. "I hope things were better for Ooarai, and for us."

They all fell silent as they continued to watch the show. The show went as no one had to laughed about what they remember about Ooarai. Then the show began to bring up topic about the Nishizumi, which the topic had struck to Fukuda's head. She heard some rumors about it. She then looked up to Nishi who just turned her head to Fukuda.

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

"You know, what the show said reminds me of something…" Fukuda replied as she scratched her head, they all began to looked up to her.

"About what?" Ikeda asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Have you girls heard about the rumors of Miho Nishizumi?" Fukuda asked, they all quickly taken back by it, only Nishi, Hosomi and Tamada who didn't know about it.

"Wait, why did you bring that up?" Hosomi asked in confusion. "She's dead a year ago."

"I don't think so, Hosomi-san," Teramoto replied, Nishi, Hosomi and Tamada quickly glanced at her in surprise.

"What do you mean by that, Teramoto-san!?" Tamada asked, demanding for explanation.

"There was a rumor started in Kumamoto," Fukuda said with her index finger raised. "Rena Andou, the Vice Commander of the BC Freedom got beaten up by a girl because the BC Freedom's started the mess first in a restaurant before threatening the girl to get out the restaurant, apparently the girl was Miho herself."

"NANI?!" everyone quickly asked aloud in shock except for those who heard the rumors.

"It's true," Nagura said with a nod. "What do you think will happen with Miho alive?"

"I don't know," Nishi replied with a shrug. "But I hope I can meet her personally to know more."


	16. Extra 1 - Miho's Induction To 141

_"Where am I?"_ Miho thought as she moved through the dark area. Suddenly, the area became a base, which she remember

 _"_ _Isn't this when I first arrived at the SAS recruitment center?"_ Miho asked to herself thoughtfully as she saw the building where she was wearing casuals. _'the Sergeant.'_ she remembered.

"Ms. Nishizumi, please wait here." A male soldier said as he left. Miho heard shouting from the room she was leaning against.

"What do you mean I have to train that brat!"

"Are you serious? Who would authorize..."

"She's just a kid! You're joking."

"I can't train a minor, less a person who never experienced the army!"

"You wouldn't dare..."

"Fine. What do you suggest."

"Training takes three months!"

"What do you mean I have to make it in a month and two weeks?"

"Are you trying to kill the girl?"

"So, you're saying I have to make her a SAS soldier in a month and two weeks?"

"You're saying she also has to take martial arts!"

"Fine. Anything else?"

"You're serious. Training her to go against a terrorist Mastermind who controls the ultranationalists."

"She wants it, huh."

"Fine. I'll make sure she survives and passes the training."

"I will also ensure she is able to survive should she encounter the bastard himself and gets caught by him."

'end call'

The Sargeant exited his room.

"Sorry about making you wait. Oh. You're the brat I have to train. Come on. Let's get you ready."

 _"That time, it was when I began the SAS training."_

* * *

Phase one

"I remember this. This was the time when I was training for the SAS, so that I can join the Task Force." Miho muttered. She saw the green landscape, saw herself carrying the heavy bag and marching. The Sargeant was there, the man who encouraged her to move on.

"Step it up, soldier! Faster now!" The drill sergeant shouted as Miho struggled to keep moving. The heavy bag was slowing her down, while the climbing uphill made it harder for her to move. Since it wasn't the time when the SAS chose candidates, she was the only one in the course.

"I can't go on..." Miho complained weakly.

"Makarov's not going to wait for a lowlife like you! If you don't finish this course, he will be farther and farther from your grasp!" He shouted.

Miho's eyes burned with rage. The reminder of Makarov's made her want to make sure she finishes this course, to pass and kill him.

"You're dead, Makarov. You're gonna pay for the deaths of those people in London you piece of shit!" Miho shouted as she ran.

 _"I just kept as fast as a dog on a run to bite a bastard's neck, and eventually... I made it. That time was hard. I'm surprised that I passed."_

* * *

Phase two

 _"_ _The Jungles of Brunei… That week was hard, but at least I was able to finish."_

Miho was now in the jungle of Brunei. The three before, she took SWAT training, martial arts ranging from Judo, Taekwondo, Kung-Fu, and a range of others. Medicare came in handy, as she was now bleeding from a fall injury.

"What are you doing, recruit?!" The Sergeant shouted at her as she bandaged herself.

"Applying first aid, Sir!" She replied, but manage to be stoic.

"Hurry up! If you don't move, you won't be joining the 141!"

 _"The Jungles. It was a nightmarish two weeks. However, it was nothing compared to the last week."_

* * *

Phase 3

Miho was currently being interrogated, taking the interrogation exam. They were behind time, so she only had a week to finish this. Because of this, her exam was harder, to make it similar to an exam that a normal SAS recruit would take in a similar period of time.

"So where is the package?" The Sargeant asked one more time.

"Miho Nishizumi, recruit, ####-###-#### birth XX, XX, XX." She didn't say anything else. This was the seventh day that she was asked this. And surprisingly, she didn't retort of being interrogated this way and manage to stay calm despite the hard interrogation she had.

"Fine. You passed." The Sergeant said as she was released. Being tied to the chair and starved for 2 days and being forced to watch one of those horrible reality shows…

 _"The interrogation. It was a hard time. And somehow, I managed to pass the test, surprisingly. I'll be damn if there's going another hard test similar to this on my list."_

* * *

Last day

"Miho Nishizumi. You have passed the training, despite not having any army records. Your army record starts here." The Sergeant said as he pinned a badge on her, the famous SAS badge.

"Thank you, Sergeant." Miho replied with a smile.

"You know, private, I would like you to know something." The Sergeant said.

"What is it, sir?" Miho asked.

"When you first came, I didn't want to train you, considering that men fail, even die in the SAS examination. You are only 17. This makes it worse, as even if I won't be held responsible, I don't want to let an innocent girl like you die. You proved me wrong by passing and even exceeding my expectations."

"Thank you. Sir." Miho replied, with only a nod and a flat smile.

Though, the Sergeant noticed this. "I understand you hate this kind of tests, but... it's mandatory. I hope you understand that."

"You're right about that, but I understand," Miho replied again with a nod, but also with a smile. "I just hope I won't have to get through those kind of tests again."

"Though, what surprises me is that how calm you are when you had those tests unlike your first days," the Sergeant added. "May I ask why are you so calm about it?"

Miho paused for a moment to him, and then looked down with a frowned. "I'm... I'm not myself anymore."

The Sergeant didn't expect to that kind of answer, but softly smiles to her. He then landed his hand on her shoulder to comfort her. "You'll be fine, Private. You'll be fine."

He then lets go of her shoulder and added. "I've had a fun time training you, recruit. Be careful. Makarov's a dangerous man. There are rumors that he is responsible for the Nuclear strike that killed thirty thousand marines years before you came."

Miho knew what he meant. Soap told her about his mission to disable the nuclear missile and destroy any launched warheads.

"I will. Soap promised to watch my back."

"Good luck, and be careful." The Sergeant said as Miho left the building. As she was waiting for the bus, she saw a paper that was turning in an oil drum. She approached it, and it was a psychological evaluation. She couldn't read it clearly, but the words urgent, obsession and therapist was the words she recognized. She did remember having a psychological evaluation before, but this was in London after the massacre.

'Probably nothing' she thought as she left. The Humvee just arrived to pick her up and bring her to the Task Force 141 base.

 _"That was the last day. I remember. The day before I was officially inducted into the 141."_

* * *

 **Checking in. It's me, Chittatos.**

 **I have decided to insert an extra here after I checked my reviews. Maybe this one could give you a small view about Miho herself. Maybe I will make an omake every 15 chapters.**


	17. Chapter 16 - What's Inside Her Mind

(John Legend - All of Me - Fingerstyle Guitar Cover-Eddie van der Meer)

"Ohayōgozaimasu, watashi no shin'ainaru musume."

"Ohayō, hahaoya. Did you call me?"

"Yes, I did. I just want to talk to you for a moment."

"About what?"

Miho was in the meeting room, sitting at the table on the floor. In front of her across the table was her mother, Shiho. A couple of tea have been served on the table, with a document of what Shiho is working on at the table. They left the door on the left side of the room open to let the windy breeze of the cold snow to come in the house. Cold, yes, but it was also relieving. Miho just hoped after the winter is over, she didn't get a hot season like that time in Africa. It was fucking hot and it roasted her foot that time.

Shiho can see Miho was right now wearing her dark blue T-shirt with a folded collar on her neck. Her black jeans along with her military belt pouch. There were her usual leather straps along with some pouches on her upper body and didn't wear any hat except for her black scarf on her neck. Her tactical glass was left hanging on the front collar of her shirt. And she was wearing black tight gloves on her hands.

Shiho just wanted to halt on her work for a moment for wanting a good relation with Miho. After what happened to Miho a year ago and saw her came back to her life, Shiho felt guilty actually. She was the one to make her left for Ooarai only to get involved in the incident. She didn't leave a tear that time, but she had been drinking a lot of alcoholic sake that time and had a hangover. More than that after that incident, she had noticed Maho's lack of trust to Shiho afterwards and blaming her that Shiho made this happened. Shiho didn't have to argue that time but felt speechless about it, she knew it was the sake for her family heritance but now… things have changed.

She took her time to think over again, after seeing Miho was still alive. Yes, she did dishonor their heritance but it was because Miho was doing the right thing, which Shiho has wronged her. She did bring Kuromorimine to defeat because Miho's will to make sure everyone is alright. Everyone including the Kuromorimine gone outrage and blamed Miho for it, and Shiho reprimanded her very hard. But now, Shiho knew that herself along with the rest who blamed her were wrong about Miho. They can go ahead and tell what they want about Miho, but be assured that Miho doesn't care about it even about the heritage bullshit and Miho is not someone to mess with anymore. Because she was a soldier and a Field Officer of the 141.

Shiho took a moment of silent, before looking up to Miho's eyes. "It's about… your heritance."

Miho just sighed, took her cup of tea and sipped it before putting it back to the table. "That's why you called me here?"

"Yes, Miho," Shiho nodded with a frown.

"You do know I had enough bullshit about it, right?" Miho asked in anger, but kept her calm.

"Yes, I know," Shiho replied back with a nod.

"Then why bring that up?" Miho asked again in annoyance and anger, it's not like she was fighting with her mother but she really hated to talk about it after those bad incidents she had.

Shiho rolled her eyes to her bottom left, before looking back to her. "Look, I know you're still angry about what happened a year ago and about what I said to you-"

"Just because I was doing the right thing," Miho quickly cut her off, Shiho flinched a little. "Why the fuck… you didn't proud about that aside from the victory streak and the goddamn heritage?"

Shiho was starting to not like this as she was worried to anger her. "I tried to make sure our reputation didn't degraded because of that-"

"Reputation and pride, is that what you fucking care about?" Miho quickly cut as she hit the table hard in anger and leans forward to Shiho. "I know we Nishizumi are victory-oriented, but do you gave a shit about the people who will lose their lives for some unnecessary bullshit?"

"But, Miho…" before Shiho could say more, Miho continued.

"Tell me, mother," Miho said in anger, but somehow with a soft tone. "You did see Akaboshi along with her crew in the tank fell to the river."

"Yeah?" Shiho nodded interrogatively.

"Then tell me," Miho paused as she looked through her eyes. "Did you ever had a thought of what will happened to them?"

Shiho had been silent for a moment as she froze with her eyes locked to her own daughter to recall the event, before she replies. "No, I didn't…"

Miho shook her head, and huffed sadly. "It saddens me to know that's all you cared about… you made me disappointed…"

Shiho felt very taken back with a worried frown, this would be the first time to hear that from her own daughter. Shiho understands her position as the head of her family and the ones who take cares of the family. But no, she had Miho kicked out from the family just because dishonoring the heritage whilst doing the right thing. She just wanted this to go the way around, but it would be late to do that.

Shiho then only looked up sadly to her daughter and paused, before able to reply with a soft tone. "Miho… I just want to say that…"

Shiho paused for a moment, before putting her hand on her chest. "I… as your mother… know that I'm very guilty for what I did to you… I just want to say that… I'm sorry, Miho. I'm truly sorry for what I did to you…"

Miho only glanced at her, but with pity of her mother. Now, what she was seeing from her mother was now her soft side of what she truly is. Just like the time Miho and Maho was still little when they were with their mother. Shiho only looked down in sorrow of what she did to her daughter as she put her hand down on the table. Miho only looked down to Shiho's hand, before looking up to her eyes.

"Mother," Miho called, Shiho slowly raised her head and looked to her. "I… forgive you, mother."

Shiho couldn't believe what she heard, as she wide her eyes in a little surprise. "N-nani? Do you really mean it?"

"I mean it, mother," Miho replied with a soft nod. "I truly mean it. But…"

"But what?" Shiho asked softly in wonder.

"Just don't make me gone black eyes," Miho replied, she sighed deeply. "It… still pains me…"

Shiho had thought that Miho was referring the anxiety she went through back in 2016s, she understood about it. "I understand, Miho. It must be hard for a girl like you."

Miho coldly glanced to her eyes, and shook. "I prefer the word 'old girl' for that."

Shiho wasn't sure if that was a sarcasm of what her men called her, or it was because for her recognition as a Field Officer of the 141. To think again, she decided to choose the first.

"I see," Shiho replied with a nod. "So… do you have something to do for today?"

"I'm gonna head back to 141 to see how Maho and Kay are doing with their training," Miho answered as she drinks her tea. "They gonna get a mission soon."

Shiho got caught off-guard by that, she quickly looked up to her. "Wait, that fast? I thought they're going to spend more days for that."

"They both are exceptions," Miho replied with a shook. "One, is because they have school to catch and two, they both doing great with their training."

"They do know they're going to kill real people, right?" Shiho asked, she was afraid if Maho got traumatized by that.

"They know," Miho nodded, she then looked out to the open door on her left to watch the scenery outside the house. "I'll make sure they're alright. I'll keep an eye on them."

"If she got a mission…" Shiho paused for a moment, before continuing. "Just make sure Maho is alright."

Miho fell silent for a moment before replying with a nod. "I'll try."

* * *

BC Freedom High School, tank garages. 10:00 AM.

(Chant Des Partisans (instrumental version))

Andou was sitting on her tank, SOMUA S35 medium tank that was still on a little tweaking by her Examination friends. She and her faction just noticed her engine of the tank was busted, well… to be exact blown off. If Andou had to checked closer on how the engine was blown up, she could tell the Escalator students were trying to screw over to her again. She should be mad about this and had a fight with the Escalators. But still… she hated to have a fight with someone for a moment.

Andou was now sitting on the turret of her tank as relax as she can be as she let her friends tried to help her on fixing up the blasted tank. They said that they found the transmission broken and the gasket blew up. Andou wasn't sure on how did the Escalators managed to break her engines like that, because she along with her friends didn't know what stuffs they used to broke it down. At least her friends of the Examination Faction were able to try to fix it, gonna took them minutes to deal with that. The only thing for Andou to do for today was only to wait for Marie and read the newspaper she got from a nearby store.

As she was reading her newspaper with an emotionless look, she looked over around the hangars to know how's the scenery looked like. She sitting on her tank outside the garage actually, she could see Oshida was on her tank having some talk with her friend from inside the tank on the very far left of the garage. More than that, there are Examination students were around her tanks taking a look on their own tanks as the Escalators did the same. But then some of the Examinations and Escalators were having a talk fight on the middle side of the front garage, insulting to each other about how disgusting and outrageous both of the factions are. Andou ignored that fight, thinking it would be much of a trouble to her since she didn't want any fight. If she involved herself to that, she had to quit her school earlier for getting sick of it.

Andou then looked back to her newspaper again. There was no news that really special or interesting for her. She just kept reading it until going further down of the newspaper. Founding nothing that really interested her, she folded it up and put it inside the tank through the turret door. After that, she only retracted her legs close to her and hugged them. Facing her boring face up to the sky, lost in thoughts.

She had known the news about Miho saved an Anzio student along with the three people from the building, but the Anzio student died that time after Miho saved her. She had watched it back at her apartment that time. She did watch how angry Miho was after suffering a loss with loud shouting. It made her wonder about those words she meant in the TV. But then, remembered how dangerous she was, she decides to not ask that if she was to meet her by coincidence.

As Andou heard the fight between the Examinations and Escalators continues, she just ignored it and kept looking up the sky. On the very far left of the garage, Oshida was turning her attention to Andou as she was talking with her Escalator friends. She was confused to see what Andou was doing as her friends felt the same to see it. Ignoring the factions who were insulting each other and slowly turning into a huge fight, was not something Andou supposed to do right now. She tilted her head to see Andou like that, before looking back to her friends.

"Mon ami, what are you thinking right now?" one of Oshida's friend asked.

"Just had a feeling to see Andou like that," Oshida replied as she turns her head to Andou again. "How long she's been like this?"

"I think it's been for five days to see her like that," another friend of Oshida's replied with her hand on the chin.

"Still, what's up with her?" Oshida asked as her head pointed to one of her friends.

"We're not sure actually," Oshida's friend replied with a shrug. "I think she was still bothered about Miho whom she attacked that time."

"Huh?" Oshida asked in surprise as she winced her eyebrows to her. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," her friend replied with a nod. "I asked Marie about it and she answered me the same thing."

Hearing Andou was bothered about Miho was not something she was expecting, especially after hearing the news about what Miho did in Yokohama city. "Well, you may be right about it. You did hear the news in Yokohama, right?"

"Oh, yes we did," her other friend replied with a nod. "I was also wondering what did Miho meant by her words after losing an Anzio student."

"And how she says it was quite furious," her friend added. "But somehow with regret."

"Hmpf," Oshida then turned her head to looked at Andou from a distance again. "You know? I'm going to talk to her."

"Oshida, are you sure about this?" her friend asked in doubt as Oshida jumped down from her tank. "What if she-?

"Don't worry about Andou," Oshida replied as she looked to her friends. "I just need to make sure to get through those Examinations so I can talk with her."

Oshida then walked away from her tanks and her crew and headed through the group of Escalators to the right. Getting through the Escalators was no problem for her due to she was with that faction, as she walked through them they give for her and greeted her. Facing with the Examinations is a different story. After they saw her, they quickly became hostile and annoy her with anyway they can. Though, the only person who wasn't hostile to Oshida or any Escalator students was only Andou. So, talking to her about something would be very possible.

Oshida did reached to the middle part of the front garage and noticed the huge fight was going on. Yes, she hates the Examinations but she thought it would be better if she avoids any fight first if she wants to talk to her. Lucky for her, both factions didn't notice about Oshida presence near the fight and all of their attention were directing to the fight. She took the advantage and took a way around the fighting students to her right, passing a couple of students who failed to recognized Oshida that was passing through. She had to pass them by side-stepping and keep her head to a bow to get past.

Things went well as she able to get through the fighting students. After she side-stepping through them, she then tried to make her way through the Examinations with her head bowed down. But then, she tripped by a student's foot and fell down to the ground. She then gets up from the ground and looked forward. She just found out that the Examination students quickly surrounded her in a circle and keep their distance between themselves and Oshida.

Yep, She's busted.

Oshida quickly armed her fist in the air in front of her as the Examinations were shouting at her. "What the hell are you doing here, chienne!?" an Examination student shouted angrily.

"This is our place, fous le camp d'ici!"

"How dare you get through us, Oshida!"

"No Escalators are allowed to step foot here, toi idiot!"

"You damn merde!"

"You sneaky bitch!"

"We'll punish you for trespassing our territory!"

The Examinations were keep shouting at her with a lot of bad verbal. The situation was getting intense the longer it stays this way. The Escalators back there were confused on what was going on with the Examinations, until noticed Oshida was inside the group. The Examinations however slowly walked closer to her as they were ready to beat her up. Oshida hastily turned around her many times to make sure no one sneaking up on her and hit her from behind.

She quickly looked back up to Andou who was still sitting on her tank. She was surprised to see Andou didn't flinch or bother that the sounds of the fight was quite close to her. The only thing Andou did was only to looked up the sky and wait. She quickly turned attention back at the angry Examinations and gripped her fist. The next few minutes was only this. Oshida was ready for a hell of a fighting…

"Everyone, stop!"

If Marie was not there just in time.

"I said stop this!"

The Examinations and Oshida quickly jumped by that and turned their attention to behind them. They quickly gave way to Marie who was their overall commander and they quickly lowered down their fists including Oshida. Marie has just in time to defused the situation as she looked around her before looking up to Oshida. What was odd was Marie didn't look so worried after she calmed them down. Marie then walked up to Oshida and tilted her head.

"Why are you walking through the Examinations?" Marie asked, she was a little bit confused about this but she did hear her small conversation about Oshida wanting to talk to Andou.

"I-I just want to talk to Andou actually," Oshida replied with her hands raised to her chest. "So I tried to get pass them."

"You're lying, you chienne!" an Examination shouted. "You just want to have a fight with our commander!"

"Yeah!" another Examination added with a pointed finger to Oshida. "We're not going to let you-!"

"I SAID ENOUGH!" Marie shouted angrily at last, it was their first time to be terrified to hear that from their overall commander themselves.

Everyone fell silent after that, to see their commander got angry like that was something they wanted to avoid. As they all looked to Marie in worried, they noticed that Marie slowly sighed to herself to calm down. She blinked a few times before looking back up to Oshida. She was giving her a calm face for now. She looked at the Examinations for a moment, before talked to Oshida.

"Why do you want to talk to Andou?"

Oshida stay quiet for a moment, before replying. "I just want to know what's up with her, that's all. I won't do any harm, alright?"

Marie paused for a moment of her answer as the Examinations started to whispers among themselves about the answer, before Marie replied. "Alright, but you can talk to her for a few moments. She wants to be alone to be honest."

"I'll make it quick," Oshida replied with a nod, before she turned around from her commander and walked past the students who gave her way by stepping back from her path.

She walked slowly forward through the students for a few seconds, before she reached the SOMUA tank. She then looked up above the tank and saw Andou who was sitting on the roof of the turret was still staring her eyes up to the sky. It was either she didn't notice Oshida and the fighting students or really muted to her surroundings. Oshida then slowly climbed up the tank, and then softly sat down next to Andou. Seeing true to Oshida's words that she won't harm Andou, both factions then slowly get back to their business as Marie then heading back to her Renault tank to see how is it holding up.

Oshida didn't know how to start the conversation with Andou, but then again she wanted to talk to her. Oshida only turned her head to Andou, only to see Andou didn't react to Oshida's presence very near her. She did wave her hand in front of Andou's face that was looking up the sky. It was odd to see Andou didn't realize her hand was waving in front of her as if she was a statue. Oshida tilted her head in confusion to see her like that, wondering if Andou just lose her conscious.

Oshida then decided to poke Andou by her shoulder. "Hey, Andou. You there?"

Andou didn't flinch by the poke nor she heard Oshida at first. "Earth to Andou, you there?"

"Huh?" Andou at last replied in surprise, she then quickly looked over to Oshida who was sitting next to her. "Oh… it's you…"

Andou only sighed then turned her head forward, Oshida raised her eyebrows to see her. "How are you doing right now, Andou?"

"Well…" Andou paused for a moment, before bowed her head down a little to her hugged legs. "I'm fine… I think…"

"You think?" Oshida asked, before she laughed a little. "You sure about that?"

"…I don't know…" Andou replied weakly as she shrugged. "How do I look right now?"

"Honestly, you looked like you've just been through the mill," Oshida replied as looked over to Andou's face. "You okay?"

"I didn't expect you'll be worried about me," Andou stated back lowly with her eyebrows raised, indicating a little surprise. "I thought you hate me."

"Well, yeah, I still hate you but…" Oshida paused for a moment, looking away from Andou for a moment. "Seeing you are being different than before… I became worried about you now."

"Oshida, there's nothing you need to worry about me, alright?" Andou stated back, but Oshida denied what she said is true.

"Andou, to see something different like you don't want a fight or not willing to training in Sensha-Do skill for a few days before made me worried," Oshida replied as she patted her shoulder and looked over to her eyes. "Is there something bothering you?"

"There's nothing bothering me, Oshida," Andou replied with a shook.

"Is this about that fight back in the restaurant?" Oshida asked, made Andou caught off-guard as she gasped in her throat.

Andou paused for a moment in silence, before she sighed for a few seconds… then she looked to Oshida with a frown. "Mainly about that Nishizumi, Miho."

Andou bowed her head down, as Oshida felt pity to Andou. "Care to tell me why you were bothered of her?"

"I don't know where to start," Andou paused for a moment in thoughts for a few seconds, before she continued. "Alright… well… I've been having nightmares of her…"

"Nightmares?" Oshida asked in worried, and curious. "What kind of nightmares?"

"I-I'm not sure," Andou replied in doubt. "But it's something that I should worried about and it really terrified me. I think I saw Miho in my dream, looking at me with her scary black eyes. Just black…"

Oshida was surprised if what she was dreaming was something like that. "Is there anything else?"

"You watched the news about that burning building in Yokohama, right?" Andou asked, which Oshida replied with a nod. "Well… I able to saw something else from her after I took a close look in her eyes… I guess…"

"What did you saw?" Oshida asked, Andou was quiet observant to know someone's personality especially through someone's eyes.

"It's just my feeling actually," Andou added before she paused. "But from what I see, I got a feeling that Miho ever killed someone before…"

Kill

She doesn't like to hear that. If Miho ever did that, it would be a nightmare for her and Andou. But what they both see a few days ago was only Miho saved the people trapped in the building but with the Anzio student died after got out the building, succumbed to her wounds. She was now wondering if what Andou said was right.

"Well, it's just my feeling," Andou added, Oshida felt comforted a little to that. "I'm probably wrong about her. But I won't deny that she is dangerous. Now I'm thinking all over again about what I'm doing in this school…"

Oshida frowned to hear Andou was still bothered about it, which then she tried to cheer her up. "Come on, Andou. Let's not talk about that for now, you'll be fine. I think you heard about the Exhibition Match?"

"I didn't get the details actually," Andou then changed her sitting position into a cross-legged sitting. "Who are we teamed up with?"

"We'll be teaming up with the St. Glorianas and the Pravdas," Oshida replied with a smile.

Andou paused for a moment, before she chuckled. "Sounds good enough for me. How about who we fight against?"

"The Saunders, Ooarai, and… Kuromorimine," Oshida replied, which made Andou surprised by that.

"Wait, what?!" Andou asked, surprised about Ooarai and Kuromorimine. "Don't Ooarai and Kuromorimine dislike each other?"

"I thought the same. But…" Oshida paused for a moment with a shook. "Still… I have no idea how did that happened."

"It begins in a few weeks, yes?" Andou asked as she looked at her.

"Well, yeah, why?" Oshida asked, wondering what she had in mind.

"Let's go tell Marie to start our training," Andou suggested in her emotionless expression, but Oshida nodded in agreement.

"Alright, let's find Marie."

* * *

Task Force 141 Base. 13:00 PM

Maho and Kay were both walking pass the Tarmac and headed for one of the base facility in the base. They greeted some of the men from the 141, doesn't care for their nationality nor even skin color. If they had to admit, the men in the base frankly happy to greet the girls when they passed. Looks like the only girl in the Task Force is not only Miho for now. Ghost just hoped if Price did see this, he should be don't argue shit to Miho.

Maho and Kay were told by Ghost to find Miho at the Command Center. Because some men of the 141 from the Tankwondo Division wanted a help on some techniques and fixing up the damn tank. But what was odd for them both to hear is that one of the men, his name was Shocker the mechanic of the Tankwondo Division had come up with the idea of adding nitro to tanks. That had reminded them about those mechanic team from Ooarai, the Automobile Club. Satoko Nakajima, Hoshino, Suzuki and Tsuchiya who were the Automobile Club had come up with that idea after Maho heard they found a Porsche Tiger and commanded the tank, callsigned Leopon Team. The nitro boost idea did worked well for the Leopon Team that time, but for mere 5 seconds.

 _"Now I'm starting to think to propose that to the mechanics back in Kuromorimine,"_ Maho thought as they walked.

Maho and Kay were both wearing the 141 grey jacket like that one Miho ever wore before after they joined up in 141. Maho was wearing her winter-camo combat pants while Kay was wearing her grey jeans. Kay has her tactical glasses on as Maho has her glasses put inside the pocket of her jacket. Kay wore her tactical brown gloves while Maho wore her black fingerless gloves. Kay have a black cap with the 141 insignia on the front. They both have pistol holsters on their right leg with their own respective pistols, P99 Pistol for Kay and Browning Hi-Power BDA Pistol for Maho.

They continued on their walk and reached the command center. After entering, they both met some of the men who were Australians and Russians, three of the men were Africans and came from South Africa. Maho asked them to know where Miho had gone, they all replied that she went to her office on the second floor upstairs. Both Maho and Kay nodded at them with a smile as the men did the same before they both went upstairs.

Maho and Kay were starting to guess on what Miho is doing in her office. They both have agreed that their guesses were the paperwork bullshit. Well, might be important for someone to write reports and stuff, but of course it's very annoying except to those who love to spend their time writing documentations and books (Not include those who loved writing stories). Maho and Kay both were hoping they didn't get that kind of job they know how it feels. It reminds them of writing a long history workbook back in school, ah scheisse, why did they think about that anyway?

After they went upstairs, they walked down the halls as they looked around them as they walked. They saw some doors on their left and right, respectively have their own signs of what room the doors will lead. They didn't able to find Miho's office yet as they walk down the halls. A few seconds later, they both the office the men mentioned on their left.

There was a sign on the door, a rectangular shape-like sign colored in black-bluish along with box-like outlines on the front side of the rectangular. There was a logo on top of the box-shape sign, the same sign of the 141. What was different with this logo than the previous logo that everyone currently has was the color of the logo, aside from the skull, knife and the wing were colored in grey, laurel wreath was colored in grey instead of blue. There were also two identical orange circle outlines in the logo, one of the circle surrounds the main part of the logo in the center while the other one was put right at the edge of the logo's circle outline which giving space for 'Task Force 141' in between outlines. More than that, there was the word 'Commanding Officer' etched in the box-shaped sign along with 'Cpt. Miho Nishizumi' in it. They just found her office.

Maho proceeded to knock on the door. "Miho, are you here?"

Maho paused for a moment as they wait for reply, but they heard none from behind the door. "Miho, are you in there?"

There was no reply again, Maho and Kay then looked at each other in doubt. They were not sure if entering someone's office is not a good idea. But then they want to call her because of Ghost needs her. They both then looked back at the door, and Kay reached her hand out to the knob of the door. Kay then slowly opened the door, revealing the room inside. Before they entered one by one and looked around.

Miho wasn't in her office for sure, but looking at the interior of the office made Maho astonished for sure. Aside from the good looking cabinets inside, there were two chairs along with Miho's personal desk and a modern comfy rolling chair. There were some flag poles installed inside her office, surprisingly there more than 5 flags were inside including the Japanese flag. And also there were diplomas hanged on the wall for Miho's achievement for her duty in the 141 along with the badges hanged next to the diploma. Those badges were the ones that Miho ever described before.

Then they divert their attention to the desk in front of them in silence. There was a closed document left on the table. The document was booked in a brown document book with the word 'CONFIDENTIAL' painted the whole front cover. It really interested them both on what Miho just looked through here. The two slowly approached the desk and stopped right in front of the desk. Their eyes staring down the document book in front of them.

Maho and Kay then looked at each other in doubt. "So… why are we looking at this document?" Kay asked awkwardly.

"I don't know, but…" Maho paused, they both then looked back at the document book. "I'm curious about what is she reading now."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Kay asked worriedly. "We're looking at a secret document! Don't you worried about what's gonna happen when Miho found out we know about it?"

"I know, but…" Maho paused, she then scratched her head. "I'm wondering what else Miho was hiding."

"She hides something else besides the secrets she wants us to keep quiet about?" Kay asked in surprised as she glanced to her.

"Yeah…" Maho nodded slowly, before they both quickly looked behind them to make sure no one was with them. "Well… here it goes…"

Maho and Kay sharpen their attention to the folder document in front of them. Maho began slowly to reached out her hand to the document. She wasn't sure if she was ready to see and hear another secret of Miho, but her curiosity can't disappear. She kept reaching out her hand to the folder, she was so close. Her hand nearly touched the folder by her fingers…

When suddenly a hand appeared from her left grabbed Maho's hand quickly.

They both quickly jumped at that surprise with a gasp and quickly looked to their left. Well shit, it was Miho right beside them. How the bloody hell she got there without any noise? It felt quite terrifying to see Miho's face was giving a dreary look as she was suspicious on what are they doing. After a moment of silence, Miho quickly throws Maho's hand off the document as they both took a step back from her and the desk.

"What the bloody hell you're doing, sister?" Miho asked coldly as her eyes gazed into Maho's.

"M-Miho! I-I'm…" Maho said but stammered as she was doubt what to say to her.

"What makes you both want to take a look on my classified file?" Miho asked coldly, her emotion of anger or hostility wasn't showing yet.

"L-look, we just want to know if you had other secrets that you don't want to talk about to us," Kay admitted, Maho quickly glared at her in terrified. "We didn't mean to nose around your business, I swear to God, alright?"

Miho paused for a moment in thoughts, before she sighed with a frown. "Well… yeah… I do keep other secrets for myself but… no, I won't talk about that to you…"

Maho and Kay stay silent for a moment, before Maho asked. "Why, Miho?"

Miho then turned around and rested her hands against the table, she then bowed her head down to the folder. "Look, Maho. I don't want my eyes gone black because you were saying anything personal that I know of to me. Just… don't make my eyes gone black, alright?"

Maho and Kay knew what she really meant, and they didn't like it a bit. Miho is capable to do harm to anyone around her if they said anything that Miho felt very sensitive about it. Or, in other case, purposely setting her off the limit either by verbal abuse or physical abuse. Despite Maho and Kay know how to defend themselves, thinking about hurting Miho because she gone aggressive and they had to defend themselves was something they hate it so much. They don't want to hurt Miho just because of that, they felt pity on remembering what Miho had gone through to get back to this world.

Maho only nodded in pity and understood as she along with Kay gave in their frowning faces. "I understand, Miho," Kay replied with a nod.

"We'll not try to bother you about that," Maho replied, though Miho didn't notice that was a lie, Maho wanted to know deeper on what was going on with Miho.

Miho only sighed at Maho, before looking back to the document and picked it up. Then she put it inside the drawer of her desk before looking to them both. "Why are you here in my office?"

"Ghost wanted us to call you to come to the tanks lot," Kay replied with a raised hand. "Something about fixing the tank and… adding nitro to the tanks."

"Oh?" Miho asked, surprised about the nitro part. "Alright, I'll come by soon. It's time for me to try out tanks with nitro."

"I believe the British Government disapproved that?" Maho asked with a raised eyebrow, which Miho nodded in reply with a flat smile and shrugged her eyebrows.

"Yep, they say it's crazy to have that in the tank because the tank might explode because of that," Miho added with a tilted head. "But now with me as a CO, I would authorize that myself."

"Sounds good for me," Kay added in agreement, she then looked around the office. "By the way, nice office you have here."

"Heh, it's nothing actually," Miho replied with a shook and a smirk. "Nothing can beat my old house in London than this place."

"Really? What about our residence?" Maho asked, wondering if it beats Miho's old house.

"Same bloody thing for me, except for the gardens," Miho replied, but then reminded of something as she looked down to her left. "About gardens, it's time for you both to pick some leaves."

"Eh? What do you mean by that?" Kay asked, didn't understand the metaphor Miho meant.

"you both gonna get a mission tonight," Miho pointed to them both. "A real one."

"Wait, that fast?!" Maho asked, they both were surprised by this. "Do you even sure we're up for it?"

"I'm sure, don't worry I'll be there in the mission along with Ami," Miho assured them with a sigh. "There will be a course in the hangars so you can adapt to the mission."

"Oh really? What kind of mission if I ask?" Kay asked in wonder as she tilted her head.

"A night-time ship raid," Miho replied, they deadpanned to her. "We're going in stealth first, but if in case we're detected, we go loud."

"Why night?" Maho asked as she winced her eyes.

"Our contacts in supplying the information of this mission said that the cargo ship will be coming to Shimaba, Nagasaki Prefecture from Kumamoto at night," Miho replied. "We are to head to that cargo ship to confiscate any information and items inside the ship as much as we can. If you're asking on who we're dealing with, I would say some gun and drug dealers of a mafia that run around the city and caused trouble to both the law enforcement and JSDF."

"What if the ship reached the port after we raid it?" Maho asked in doubt.

"The law enforcement will be informed by the JSDF and will handle the ship we just ransacked," Miho replied, they both sighed in relieve.

Miho then walked over to them both and pointed them both. "I need you both in Hangar 4 for the next 1 hour to take the course."

"Yes, Miho-san," Maho and Kay replied with a nod.

"Good, now how about we go back to Ghost and see how is he doing?" Miho asked with a rather relaxed tone.

"Sounds good enough, let's go Miho-san," Maho replied with a nod, and Miho nodded back in reply.

Miho then walked out the office followed up by Maho and Kay from behind. As they walked down the hallways, Kay felt something bothering her and looked over to Maho. She noticed Maho gave a worried glare to Miho's back. Kay then poked her shoulder and Maho looked at her.

"Hey, what's up with that look?" Kay asked lowly, one of her eyebrows raised.

"Oh, well… I wanted to know deeper on what Miho is hiding," Maho replied lowly, this gave Kay a disbelief expression to her.

"What!?" Kay asked lowly in shock. "Look, I know we're both curious about what is Miho hiding but do you think that's a good idea to find out her past? What if she went mad as hell like what she said before?"

This gave Maho a pause of her thoughts, before replying. "That would be my trouble, not yours. I know it's bad but… I can't let her keep quiet about her secrets."

"I hope you know what you're doing!" Kay replied in worried.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

* * *

Jatkosata High School. 13:30 PM

Mika was playing her kantele on the front side of the school all by herself on the bench. Playing her kantele as beautiful as the singing bird in the morning, playing her favorite song Säkkijärven Polkka (play it). She was having a fun time for herself as she doesn't have a chat with someone with her. Like her daily time at the school when she had nothing to do right now.

She was actually waiting for her friends Aki and Mikko to come by as she plays. Heh, she always plays her kentele quiet loud to which Mikko and Aki can always find her where she was waiting at. Hell, there was one time Aki was cooking Cabbage Rolls for themselves as she was listening to Mika's kantele song. Aki was quickly to be put on overdrive mod and ended up making a lot of Cabbage Rolls in their bowls. Aki was annoyed and blamed Mika for playing the kantele that made her overdrive.

Mika laughed a little at that little remembrance of her memory. She then just keeps playing on her kentele to see there's nothing for her to do for now. She closed her eyes as she plays it awhile the students around her only wondered among themselves with whispers on what is Mika doing. For the students around her, Mika was quiet an enigma on explaining stuffs they don't know about.

As she waited for a moment, like she had expected Aki and Mikko had come by to her. They both really can heard the nice song from a distance and they knew it would be Mika. Aki actually felt annoyed a little of Mika's kantele, remembering that time she cooked the cabbage a lot in a bowl. Aki and Mikko then sat next to her as they enjoyed the song from the kantele. They both then looked over to Mika and saw her still playing her kantele with her eyes closed.

"Really?" Aki asked in annoyance. "Do you do this all day?"

"Why not?" Mika asked softly as she plays. "Music is the essence of life."

"It's more like make someone to go overdrive," Mikko added.

"Ah, like that time we're eating Cabbage Rolls?" Mika asked cheerfully, remembered how tasty Aki's cooking was.

"Yeah, could you not play kantele while I'm cooking next time?" Aki asked, hoping Mika didn't give an annoying reply.

"Why should not play it when you're around?" Mika asked softly. "You really love it when I play it."

"Mikaaaa!" Aki called in annoyance and a groan. "Yes, I love the song but it made me do something much excited!"

"It's not that bad, Aki," Mika replied as she looked at Aki and still playing her kantele. "Your cooking is very tasty."

"Well, I agree with that," Mikko added, which she received the glare of irritation from Aki. "What?"

"Come on, Mikko!" Aki exclaimed as she raised her hands above her head. "Why you agree with her all the sudden?!"

"Well, I'm talking about the food you made not the kantele," Mikko replied, Aki only sighed with a shook.

"Mikko, just don't hope I'll be the one who do all the cooking," Aki stated as she waved her hand to Mikko.

"Aaww, I was hoping on that," Mika added with a playful tone, something that had Aki annoyed.

"For real, Mika?" Aki asked in irritation, which then Mika looked back to her with a pleasing look. "Ugh, fine…"

As they enjoyed to hear Mika plays her kantele, Mikko reminded on something. "Hey, Aki, Mika. Do you girls heard any rumors this lately?"

Mika didn't hear any rumors until now so she shook her head, Aki on the other hand knew what's about it. "Are you talking about that rumor of Miho Nishizumi is still alive?"

*TRING-THRUM* (stop playing the song, unless you want to hear it until it's finished)

Aki and Mikko looked over to Mika who was looked like have been caught off-guard by surprise. She had to stop play her kantele for now for that surprise. Mika had heard what happened back in Ooarai a year ago about Miho falling to the river along with the bridge. Hearing Miho somehow came back alive after that incident was not something that Mika would expected that time. She knew Miho well after the friendly match between Jatkosota and Kuromorimine very long ago. And hearing such news like this was really a miracle.

"Wait, Miho is alive?" Mika asked in disbelieve, though keeping her surprise suppressed after that.

"Yeah, I thought you heard the rumors, Mika," Mikko stated with her winced eyes to Mika.

"No, I didn't hear any rumors this lately," Mika replied, which Aki groaned at that.

"You've been playing too much kantele, Mika," Aki stated with a sigh. "You should stop for a while to hear those rumors."

"Well, you know that I don't interested in rumors," Mika replied with a small shrug. "But to hear such rumors like that it did took me by surprise, is it true about Miho is still alive?"

"Well, those students from BC Freedom claimed it was true," Aki replied. "They said they met her personally after Andou got beaten up by her for the students starting a trouble in a restaurant."

Miho beaten up Andou from BC Freedom, Mika doesn't remember if Miho ever did that before. "Miho beaten her up? How?"

"They said after Andou threw a punch to her, Miho blocked her attack and struck Andou's neck before locking her right arm and continue to hit Andou's face three times hard," Mikko explained as her hand was on her chin. "Before Miho dragged her head down to slam her face to a table. After Andou fell to the ground, Miho kicked her face after Andou looked up to her, knocking her out cold."

Mika widen her eyes in shock to hear that. "That sounds more odd about Miho than I remembered."

"I agree, she was rather brutal from what they told me," Aki added with a high tone. "Good thing was, she let the other students go after that with a rather sick threat."

Miho gave a threat, Miho never done that before if Mika remembers it. "Oh my… by the way... did… they know where Miho is living right now?"

"They don't know, but let's assume Miho is still living in the Nishizumi Residence," Mikko answered as she scratched her head.

"Oh? Is there any other news about Miho?" Mika asked as if she was curious.

"You heard about that burning building in Yokohama?" Aki asked to them both.

"I did, an Anzio student died in that incident," Mika answered back as she and Mikko nodded. "But I didn't get any information about who saved her out the building before she died."

"Guess what? Miho was there as well," Aki added as she lifted her index finger. "She was the one who able to save the Anzio student out the building before she died because she was succumbing to her wounds."

"What?!" Mika was never to be this surprised if she had to be honest. "That is really more than the wind has told me."

"I know," Aki added in agreement. "What's more than that was that Miho is still not taking any school right now."

"Huh?" Mika was now confused by this. "You're saying like that she had a job?"

"Yeah, but we don't know what kind of job she had," Mikko added with her hands lifted on her shoulders. "But from the looks of it, she looked like unemployed."

"Mika, do you think we will meet her?" Aki asked, wondering if they can meet Miho.

"Hopefully, Aki," Mika replied as she turned her head to the sky. "Let's see if the wind can make our paths crossed. I wanted to know about how is Miho doing right now."

* * *

Task Force 141 Base, Hangar 4. 14:00 PM

"How are you doing up there, Maho?"

"I'm nervous, Miho. You sure I'll be doing fine in this course?"

"Sure I am. Just stay focus, mate."

"Alright, Imouto-san."

"You all prepped up, Maho-san?"

"Yeah, Kay. Just give me a few minutes to get ready."

Miho along with Ghost, Ami, Kay, Chemo and Vicek were all sitting and standing at the monitors on the tables that views the inside of the wooden buildings of the course. Maho, on the other hand, was standing on the top four-story platform in front of the buildings of the course. Maho already prepped up in her gear with the Kevlar strapped to her body to know how much the weight when she runs. Maho was looking down the rope in front of her that will lead her down to the second deck of the building course.

The building course was resembling a part of a freighter ship. Starting from the bridge until going down to the lower decks. Maho did got an overview of the ship and did the course run for twice. Maho was ready for a third try to see if there's any changes on her speed. And from the looks that Maho made, she was a little confidence that she can beat the time.

Maho's first course was at 36 seconds, which Maho shook her head for her speed. Then she tried the second time and achieve the time lapse of 25 seconds, Maho felt it wasn't enough for her, while Kay whom her time record was 22 seconds felt quite enough about it. Then she went back up the tower again and getting ready to roped down from up there to the second deck. Maho filled every equipment she needs for the course first from doing so.

"You're trying to beat Ghost's time record?" Miho asked as she crossed her arms. "His record is 19 seconds you know."

"Yeah, I know," Maho replied with a nod as she collects the flashbangs and put them in the pouches of her vest. "Just want to see if I can beat him."

"But didn't he used his pistol to do that course?" Ami asked, before they all including Maho who was still on the tower to look back at Ghost.

"Hey, I got used to it, mate," Ghost replied with his hands waved to his sides. "You all just don't get used to do a course with only a pistol that fast."

"Yeah, I had to admit it," Chemo added with a nod. "The first time I tried to do that, I accidentally shot my own foot."

"And how did that happened?" Vicek asked with a high tone as his brows raised.

"Let's say it's more than accidentally pulling the trigger," Chemo replied in annoyance, oh Miho know what happened that time but it's better to keep that one silent.

"Right," Kay quickly added with a glare to him, before returning her glare to Maho. "Maho-san, you're ready yet?"

"One moment!" Maho shouted back as she reloads her MP5. "Alright, I'm ready!"

"Good, get ready to roped down," Miho then looked back to the monitors as she began the countdown. "3. 2. 1!"

Maho quickly jumped and roped down quickly as she heard Miho shouts. "GO! GO! GO!"

Maho landed on the second deck and quickly draws her MP5 to the popping targets inside the bridge. "Hit the Targets!"

Maho shot all 3 of them in one second before ran inside the bridge and goes downstairs. "Position 2, Go!"

A target popped in front of the bottom of the stairs and she shot it under 1 second before turning left and pulled out her flashbang. "Position 3! Go! Flashbang through the door!"

She threw the flashbang into the room ahead and took cover next to the doorway before entering after a bang. "Hit the Targets!"

Maho quickly shot 3 of them with one shot before running to the next room on her left. "Position 4! Go!"

"Hit the Targets!" Maho quickly pulled out her pistol and aimed it underneath the rifle to her side, pulling both trigger on the rifle aiming forward also the pistol aiming to the target next to her.

"Position 4! Go!" Maho quickly pulled out a flashbang and pull out the pin as she run to the next room on her left and then ahead of her. "Flashbang through the door!"

"Position 5! Go!" After a flashbang thrown inside with Maho covering next to the doorway, *BANG* she entered and quickly shoot out all targets in sight.

"Position 6! Go!" Maho quickly turned to her right from the ahead in front of her and ran to there. Turns out, she was already out of the wooden replica of the ship.

"Sprint to the finish!" Maho then turned to her right and sprinted following the marker that leads her to a circle marked on the floor.

After she runs and reached the circle. She stopped and stood still in the circle, her eyes darting to Miho and the group behind a bunch of monitors that watch Maho's movements throughout the course. Maho noticed that Miho was looking at her, with a smile. Miho clapped her hands slowly and looked at Maho in impression, while the rest only amazed at what record time Maho had achieved.

"You done well, mate," Miho then gestured her to come to the group, which Maho did by walking over to them with her MP5 pointed down to the ground. "Honestly, you made me impressed. You just beaten Ghost's time record."

"Really?" Maho asked as if she was disbelieved. "What was my time record?"

"18 seconds," Miho answered back with a nod. "18 bloody seconds… you're one second faster than Ghost."

"Nani?!" Maho asked a little loud in surprise. "I didn't know I was that fast."

"So, Captain," Ami called to her. "She's up for a mission?"

"Yes, she is," Miho replied with a nod. "She'll be fit in the mission tonight."

"Alongside me, right?" Kay asked, to make sure she was included in the mission.

"Yeah, along with you," Miho replied with a nod to her. "Ami, ready to take this mission?"

"Sure I am," Ami replied with a joked shrug. "Why not? I wouldn't miss this."

"And you wanted to make sure Kay and Maho are still okay," Chemo added, Ami and Miho then blankly stared at him. "Right?"

"Yeah… I want to avoid for the schools to found out there are girls had joined up with this Task Force," Ami replied with a flat tone.

"I hate it when I have to get my hands on the diplomatic incident, Ami," Miho added in annoyance.

"I know, Miho-san," Ami added in agreement. "I hate this kind of thing as well."

"Alright, Chemo, Vicek," Miho ordered as she turned around to them. "Do a last check on all of the equipment for the mission before you have your free time."

"Yes, ma'am," the said men replied, before they headed out and leave Hangar 4 to the armory, leaving the rest behind.

Miho then turned around to Maho, Kay, Ami and Ghost. "For the rest of you people, you all dismissed."

"Jawohl Kapitän," Maho replied as they all nodded to her, before Ami along with Maho and Kay leave the hangar, leaving Miho and Ghost inside the hangar.

"So, ready to be back in action, Miho?" Ghost asked as they both only stared at the girls who left.

"Yeah," Miho then turned her head to Ghost. "Now, let's clean up this mess first."

Ghost and Miho then turned around to the building course behind them. "Alright then, let's clean up, mate."

They both then headed for the building replica of the ship and clean some stuff in there. Ghost and Miho really like on how this mission is gonna be. It really brings back their memories of their good fight with their comrades to fight the evil who terrorize the world. But now with Maho and Kay accounted as the members of 141, she doesn't know what to say about it.

Miho needs to make sure they're alright.


	18. Chapter 17 - The Girls' First Mission

Mission Briefing

Miho: Alright, is everyone here?

Ami: We all here, Captain Nishizumi. All accounted for the mission.

Ghost: Do we have any information about this mission?

Miho: Charlie, Sierra Team, the intel of this operation comes from our informant in Nagasaki Prefecture who is an undercover agent from the Law Enforcement Branch whom was asked by the JSDF to find out any information for this op.

Tracking…

Located

Showing Overview Of Ship Target

Miho: The package we're looking for is in a medium sized freighter ship, Japanese registration number 14561.

Scanning for Personnel Activity…

…

…

Scanning complete

Miho: We got a small crew and security detail on board.

Maho: Did the informant said anything about what package we're looking for?

Miho: The informant didn't know what's the content inside the package. But the package we'll be looking for will be in a red cargo container marked with a drawing of Mamushi Snake for the mafia's cargo.

Kay: I see, so we'll be dealing with the security before we get to the package?

Miho: Both the security- and the crew. All personnel inside the ships are the members of the mafia, we gonna need to deal with them first.

Ami: Rules of engagement, Kyaputen?

Miho: Crew Walked The Plank.

* * *

"Crew Walked The Plank"

20:24:46

Somewhere in Ariake Sea, 10 km off from Port Kumamoto

Maho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Maho was now inside a Black Hawk Chopper, sitting on a chair at the right side of the Chopper's open door. In front of her was Cpt. Miho herself, who was smoking on her cigar as she looked out the chopper's door. Kay was sitting at door of the chopper with her legs hanging out from the door, holding the rope for their descent from the chopper as she was watching the vast of the sea. Ami and Ghost were both sitting next to Cpt. Miho and Maho while Chemo and Vicek were both sitting on the opposite side of the chair where Ami and Miho were sitting.

There are two teams for this mission, Team Charlie 6 are Miho, Ami, Maho and Kay. Team Sierra 3 are Ghost, Vicek and Chemo. The crew of the Black Hawk they're currently in is Hawkeye 2-1. They are now approaching their target location soon enough.

Despite this, the weather of the night was very rough, to which Miho stated as 'very helpful'. It's still winter for now and now they're having a heavy winter storm in their path. Blizzard and winter storm are different, for this winter storm has wintry mixes kind of storm. A heavy combination between rain and sleet that fell upon them during this winter. Plus, with the loud noise of this winter storm can made the sounds produced by the chopper to be cloaked to the winter storm as the chopper flew above the raging waves of the sea.

Everyone inside the chopper were all wearing black in combat uniforms like how those SAS troopers geared up, except for some specific part on the clothing. Besides the gas masks they have like the SAS, they all wearing black combat trousers with knee protection along with black-grey camo jacket with each of their shoulders have pockets on them and a nationality flag on their left shoulders of their own. They all wearing black Kevlar vests along with the pouches for it. The people who bring and will use the gas masks were Miho (without any cap or head covering), Chemo (covering his head with helmet), Vicek (covering his head with his cap) and Maho (covering her head with the hood of her jacket). Ami only use her tactical goggles, Ghost kept his skull mask on, while Kay wore her cap that was facing to her back and wears goggles.

For the weapons, Ami and Ghost used M4A1 SOPMOD, Vicek and Chemo used Suppressed AK 47 with Reflex Sight (Chemo) and Red Dot Sight (Vicek). Kay was using her UMP 45 Suppressed with ACOG Scope, with her Benelli M4 w/ Suppresor Shotgun on her back. Maho was using her MP5 w/ Silencer and Red Dot Sight, Browning BDA Suppressed pistol as her secondary. Miho used her ACR Suppressed w/ Grenade Launcher, M9 Berreta pistol as her secondary. The pistols that everyone used except for Miho and Maho, was Glock 17 pistols.

As they waited for them to reach their destination, Kay opens up a conversation. "Hey, Miho. Mind telling me why we're going through this winter storm? Doesn't look safe enough for us to travel this far."

"Those buggers won't be expecting us coming," Miho replied as she ticked her cigar and continued to smoke. "And don't worry about the storm, this chopper can handle it quite great."

"Miho, sorry if I asked a lot, but…" Maho said as she puts her MP5 on the ground by the stock of the rifle, firing barrel is pointing up. "Are you sure these suppressors will keep us quiet?"

"It'll keep us in the dark for a while," Miho replied with a nod. "And don't worry about asking a lot, I'm fine about it. Unless it's something sensitive for me."

Maho nodded in understood, before Ami called Miho. "Hey, Miho. Think we gonna get ourselves a warm drink when we get back?"

"Sure, unless you want a cold one," Miho replied as her cigar still on her mouth.

"I don't mind to have one, Cap," Chemo added with a smile who sat on the opposite chair of Ami, before looking to Vicek next to him. "What about you, bro?"

"I want one when we get back, comrade," Vicek added with a smile, before gave a fist bum to Chemo.

"You're still nervous on this aren't you, Maho?" Ghost asked as he able to see Maho's agitation.

"Yeah, to be honest," Maho replied with a shaky nod. "The only thing I do back then was only commanding tanks, but this? This is a step-up for me."

"Don't worry about it, mate. You're doing fine," Ghost replied as she holds her shoulder and shook it. "What do you think about the weather out here?"

"Honestly? It feels like we will drop down to the sea any minute," Maho replied with a little sarcasm, though it was a very flat tone that none of them knew that was sarcasm.

"Plus, might get ourselves sick by cold," Kay added in agreement to Maho's statement. "We never go out like this, you know?"

"Don't worry, mate," Miho replied before a *TZAR* thundered through the sky. "You'll get used to it. Besides, this is better than having a mission to Africa."

"Woah, don't tell me about it, man," Kay replied as she cringed and shrugged to Miho. "I don't want to know how hot that place is."

"Hey, you need to be worried about Malaria in Africa," Vicek replied as he turned his head to Kay. "Plus with militias all around Africa."

"Woah, I don't want to know about that, sir," Ami said as she leans against her sit. "That's more to handle."

Then their conversation turned into silence. They waited as the chopper travelled far through the heavy winter storm. Maho watched Miho still smoking on her cigar, wonder if she stops when they get there. Maho only sat on her seat waiting as she held her SMG by the sides of the firing barrel. That's when they heard the pilot radioed.

"Eyewatcher, this is Hawkeye 2-1. We have visual on the target, ETA 60 seconds."

"Copy, 2-1," Eyewatcher replied, who is their intelligence officer back in 141 base, manned by Major Akashi for this moment.

"Captain Nishizumi, best you get prepped up before starting the show," Hawkeye 2-1 radioed in suggestion.

"Roger, 2-1," Miho replied as she smokes her cigar.

They're getting closer to the ship, and soon Maho saw it. There's the freighter to their right, lighting some of the sections with spot lights. Maho was amazed as they saw the freighter going through the raging waves of the sea. Miho looked out the door on Maho's right to see it herself.

"30 seconds," Hawkeye 2-1 radioed as they flew to the middle section of the left side of the ship.

Miho took a moment to looked out the door as Kay watched the area of the ship, before Miho get her head back in the chopper and threw away her cigar to the sea as the pilot radioed. "10 seconds."

"Lock and load," Miho radioed quickly.

Miho and Maho then wore on their gas masks and Maho put on her hood after that, as Ami and Kay along with Miho and Maho cocked their weapons. "Radio check, go to secure channel," 2-1 radioed.

The helicopter flew on and stopped on the front side of the ship, on the left side of the ship's bridge. After they cocked their guns and wore on their gasmasks, the red light inside the chopper went on. That was a sign for them to go. Kay dropped the rope down as Miho patted Kay on the back to signal her.

"Green light! Go, go, go!" Hawkeye 2-1 radioed quickly, as Team Charlie 6 began their descent.

Kay roped down the helicopter first before Miho roped down. Then Maho descends down the rope with Ami was the last to go off the chopper. Maho looked down as she roped down, after Miho and Kay landed next to the bridge they quickly go to left and right and took up positions at the bridge's windows. After Maho landed, she quickly went forward approaching the mirror and their weapons aimed at the hostiles inside the bridge. Ami did the same as she ran up to the window next to Maho. The buggers of crew inside the bridge then looked out the window from their positions in the middle of the room, near the stair, and the controls of the ship, however they were late to react.

"Weapons free," Miho ordered, and they all opened fire on the crew through the windows.

All 4 crew inside the bridge quickly mowed down to the ground, each one killed by each soldier. One crew was killed on his bloody chair, damn, he was drinking on his coffee. And damn, all of those crews indeed have weapons, all of them have Uzis strapped to their hips. Nevertheless, the area was secured. They four quickly ran up to the right to the door to go inside the bridge.

"Bridge cleared," Kay radioed after moving away from the window.

Kay quickly turned the big valve as Miho radioed. "Hold your fire- Ghost, stay in the bird until the deck is secured, over," Kay quickly moved away from the door and Miho kicked the door open before entering.

"Roger that," Ghost radioed back in confirmation as Kay entered first followed by Miho, then Maho and Ami.

"Squad on me," Miho radioed as they went downstairs to sweep the deck with their weapons at ready.

"Stairs clear," Kay stated as they went downstairs, before turning left to do a U-turn.

They then reached the hallway of the deck, and found two doors near them and afar from them on their left. They quickly stopped when they saw a drunken crew walked out limply from the second door afar on the left. He was speaking incoherently as he was didn't realized there were soldiers in front of him. They moved forward slowly as their aim on the drunken man locked.

"Ami, Kay, go to this room and deal with the sleeping crew," Miho ordered. "He's mine."

Ami and Kay obeyed her order and went in the first door on their left. Maho saw Miho let her ACR loose on her shoulder and pulled out her knife with her right hand. Miho quickly approached the drunken hostile in front of her quickly and retracted in her hand-armed knife in front of her chest. When she was close to him, she quickly grabbed the hostile with her left hand from behind his back and pulled him in to her. Effectively stabbing him right in the middle chest, he yelped in pain in low voice before he died from his stabbed wound. After he was killed, she quickly pulled her knife out from him and quickly lay him down to the floor before she holstered her knife.

"Hallway clear," Miho radioed as she raised her ACR back in ready.

Maho quickly ran up to Miho as Ami and Kay showed up from the second door on their front left. "Rooms clear," Ami stated to Miho, which she replied with a nod.

"Alright, on me," Miho then went forward out the hallway to the outside part of the ship before turning left followed up by Maho and the rest.

"Forward deck is clear. Green light on Sierra, go!" Hawkeye 2-1 radioed as Maho's team went down the stairs off the deck whilst the bird roping down Team Sierra on to the cargo hold part of the ship near the bridge.

Maho's team quickly crouched down with Team Sierra after they roped down from the Black Hawk with their weapons ready, Ghost then looked at Miho. "We're ready, ma'am."

"All teams, fan out, 3 meters spread," Miho ordered, then they began to spread forward throughout the cargo hold containers.

Maho was with Ami as they spread out the cargo hold of the ship on the very right side of the ship. They moved quickly forward as they quickly checked the corners of the containers after they turned left and then right. Maho kept aiming her rifle forward as Ami aiming her M4A1 by Maho's shoulder. There was a bridge walkway ahead and above the containers and the teams in the middle of the ship, but there were no hostiles on sight. Maho had an idea for it.

"Ami, we're going up that walkway," Maho said to her as she kept looking straight and points her finger to the walkway above them.

"Copy," Ami replied, Maho then moved forward along with Ami and go upstairs on the right side of the walkway at the side of the ship. "Miho, this is Ami. We're going up this walkway to see if the coast is clear."

"Roger that," Miho radioed back as Maho and Ami quickly walked to the middle part of the walkway and looked forward by the railings with crouching.

Maho and Ami took a scan at the perimeter for a moment, before they spotted another walkway 20 meters ahead of them. "Cpt. Miho, I have two tangos on the walkway ahead of us."

"Roger, we see them," Ghost radioed in confirmation. "Taking the shot."

Maho and Ami watched as the two hostiles on the walkway ahead of them quickly shot down, dropping their bodies to the grated floor hard. "Walkway clear, we're moving forward," Chemo radioed as Maho can saw them moving up through another walkway below.

"Roger, standby, we're catching up," Maho radioed, she and Ami then vault over the railing and landed on a container before jumping down again safely.

Maho and Ami quickly advanced forward and moved up through underneath the walkway until they meet up with Miho and Kay. They were taking cover at the edge of underneath walkway. They hugged the walls and aimed to their front sides to make sure there were no enemies around. Knowing it's clear Maho heard Miho gave the call.

"All clear, move up!"

They all quickly walked out from underneath the walkway and walked passed the crates and containers. They were heading for the rear deck of the ship, which is also where the second bridge was. They saw it, there was a second bridge at the rear deck ahead of them around the height of three-stories building with the huge antenna on top of it, all colored in white. The area was clear as they passed some containers and crate on their left and right. Maho then aimed her MP5 to the second floor of the building deck.

*DAR-SKYAA*

Until a bullet flew next to Maho.

"Scheisse!" Maho swore in surprise as she quickly took cover at a crate next to her. "Incoming!"

"Everyone, take cover!" Miho ordered quickly but somehow with a calm voice as they all take at the nearest cover they can find from the sudden incoming gun fires.

Yep, the enemies from the second floor ahead were firing their weapons heavily from the windows. Maho peeked out from her cover and returned fire at the enemies, eventually shot one of them in the head. Across to her right, Kay was right there as well as she was returning fire from the corner of a container with her UMP 45. Kay scored around two of them before taking cover. And they heard the bastards up there shouting.

"Watashitachi wa anata ga kuru no o shitte imasu. Anata wa watashitachi o tomeru koto wa dekimasen!" One of the bastards shouted from the second floor as both sides returned fire.

"Alright, then," Miho said casually as she and the rest returned fire to the enemies on the second floor, before she radioed to the bird. "Hawkeye 2-1, smoke those bastards on that floor for us."

"Copy that, Charlie 6," Hawkeye 2-1 Black Hawk then came into view and floating in front of the second floor with its left side facing the second floor of that building, the enemies can do nothing but to be dumbfounded as they stopped firing and stare at the Black Hawk they never seen before. "Guns, guns, guns."

*BBBRRRRRRTTTTTTTTT*

When the minigun from the Black Hawk starts firing from the right side (Left side of Maho's Teams) of the second of the building deck, the bastards were fucked. After the bullets of the minigun went through the windows and the interiors of the second, the bastards were quickly filled with bullet holes as the sprays of the minigun slowly turned to the left side of the second floor and the bird moved slowly to that side of the second floor. Maho and the teams can hear their screams of fear as they slowly got mowed down by the deadly minigun as they tried to escape. But all of them were died on that second floor after the minigun sprays moving to the left side of the second floor. Until…

*BOOOMM*

"Well, that's gonna hurt," Kay radioed in awe.

The left side of the second floor suddenly exploded, with debris of the interior of the second floor deck building destroyed and fell to the sea. Maho could see the blood of the bastards painted the wall in the second floor. Now with the second floor is clear, they can proceed with the mission. The Black Hawk slowly hover away from the second as the pilot radioed in.

"Charlie 6, the second floor is clear. Be advised, we are at Bingo fuel here. Returning to base for refuel, Grey Cloud will be coming in for your evac in 10 mikes."

"Roger that, Hawkeye 2-1," Miho radioed back as Maho and the teams began to marched forward out from the cargo hold deck section to the rear deck.

They turned left and then turning right at the corner of the second bridge. "Sierra 7, stay on top and secure the perimeter. Charlie 6, on me," Miho radioed as Maho and the team followed her.

"Roger that," Ghost radioed back and they stopped behind Charlie 6, making sure their flanks are safe as Maho and her team stopped at a door on their right.

Miho let her weapon loose and holds the valve on the door as Ami, Kay and Maho aimed their weapons at the door. Kay then switched her UMP with her Benelli M4 shotgun. Kay then cocked her shotgun before looking over to behind her by her shoulders. To say the least, Maho felt comfortable to know Kay bring that shotgun around.

"I like to keep this for close range," Kay said to everyone.

"Too right, Kay," Ami replied with a nod.

"On my mark," Miho radioed, before she turned the valve and opened the door inwards. "Go!"

Kay and Ami were the first to enter the door before Maho and then Miho. "Check those corners!" Miho ordered as they checked to their left of the hallway and right to the small hallway and wall.

"Clear left," Ami radioed as she aims to the left.

"Clear right," Kay said as she aims to the right.

"Move up," Miho ordered and they moved up

They go to their left and kept moving up down the hallway, passing some small hallways on their right. "Check those corners!"

"Hallway clear," Maho stated as they moved forward, soon they reached the stairs ahead and Maho looked down to it with her MP5 ready. "Stairs clear, heading down."

"Roger," Miho radioed back as they descent down a floor.

They walked forward a few inches before turning left again to go down a small flight of stairs again. "Hallway clear," Ami radioed as they followed up behind Maho.

Before Maho made a U-turn to their right, she spotted a couple of shadow figures moving about on the wall on their right. "We got company. Movement right."

"Copy that," Kay replied and they made a U-turn in the hallway.

Maho was actually at the very front of her team with Miho behind her. Their weapons aimed forward as they approached the hallway ahead to meet the hostiles. A couple of Tangos were spotted ahead of them, currently talking to each other. One of the Tangos turned his head to Maho's team and quickly alerted his buddy that the intruders were here. Before they able to shoot Charlie 6 though, Maho and Kay quickly shot them down with no difficulty. They walked forward again, only to receive gun fire from an enemy hiding at the right corner ahead. Fortunately, his shot was missed and Maho returned fire and shot him in the head without any of them bothering to dodge or taking cover. Killing him as he thrown back to the floor.

"Targets neutralized," Maho stated as they moved forward.

"Hallway clear," Miho radioed as they reach an intersection of the hallway. "Clear left, go to the right."

"Roger," Ami replied, she's the first to go to the right hallway, followed up by Miho, Maho and Kay.

They moved ahead until they reached a door on their left at the end of the hall. It was a doorway to a catwalk of the cargo section. They stacked up next to the door only on the left side of it and prepped their weapons as Maho reloads her MP5, which she was lucky to remember her SMG was empty. Miho was right next to the door with Ami behind her, while Maho and Kay was away from the wall and aimed their weapons at the door. Miho peeked out through the door, only to receive gun fires from inside the cargo section. She quickly pulls in her head back as bullets went through the doorless doorway.

"Just like my day back in the office," Miho stated with sarcasm as they watched the bullets hit the wall on their right.

"At least we're not in Brazil," Ami reminded to Miho, Miho only glanced to her in discomfort.

"Don't remind me about that, mate," Miho replied as she pointed her finger to Ami. "That place is a cluster fuck."

"Charming, Miho-san," Kay replied with sarcasm, understand how hell is that place.

"Yeah, I know," Miho then pulled out her flashbang and prepare to throw. "On my mark…

Miho threw the flashbang through the door before taking cover, *BLAR*. "Go!"

Maho was the first to go in and engage the targets on sight. She kept moving along the catwalk with Miho behind her as Kay and Ami went off the catwalk to the ground floor of the cargo hold. Maho and Miho engaged the targets below who got blinded by the bang 'nade and quickly got killed. They killed around three of them before moving up to the other end of the catwalk. As they both walked there, they gun & walk through the catwalk as they shooting back at the enemies below and the catwalk on the other side of the cargo hold. Maho managed to kill all two Tangos on the catwalk as Miho killed 5 of them below the catwalk they're on.

They both quickly walked down and off the catwalk and immediately took cover at the crates and container nearby that blocked a door on their right. As they both returned fire and managed to score 3 kills, Ami and Kay showed up from their left and returned fire at the enemies ahead of them. Ami killed other 3 behind some crates and out of cover of a container while Kay shotgunned 4 of them heads up in point blank range, one of them did a backward flip after getting shotgunned in the head in point blank. Maho quickly moved forward as she said to Miho to cover her, and reached Kay who was taking cover at the barrels ahead. Kay reloaded her shotgun before returned fire to the last 5 bastards ahead of them as Maho did the same to her weapon and returned fire. After killing the three of them, Maho quickly walked out from cover and approached the last two Tangos behind the crates ahead, pulling out her Browning BDA suppressed pistol and took some shots to them. The couple bastards didn't stand a chance to shoot her back after she shot them at point blank range in front of them.

"All clear," Miho radioed as she quickly walked passed Maho to Maho's right. "Stack up at the doorway."

"Copy," Ami radioed, Maho and the rest then headed for the door on their right and stacked up.

They all quickly headed for the door, which was apparently spewing out bullets from the other side of the doorway. Maho had ducked her head a bit to avoid the bullets along with Ami to stack up at the left side of the door. After that, Miho pulled out her other flashbang as the bullets still coming in through the doorway. Miho pulled the pin, and radioed.

"On my mark," Miho threw the Bang 'nade in, *BANG*. "Go!"

Maho quickly went in first followed up by Miho and the rest as they quickly walked & gun at the enemies before taking cover at the three crates, scoring 8 kills for themselves. Maho threw a frag grenade to their right, to the middle part of the cargo hold after a small flight of stairs. It exploded and blew three enemies behind covers. Maho and Ami quickly walked out from cover and marched forward with their weapons firing.

"Tangos, 2 O'clock, high," Maho radioed as she took out enemies on her right that were taking cover at the small containers.

"Copy, I see them," Miho radioed after seeing a group of enemies shooting from one spot on the right catwalk, she sends a round of M203 grenade to them in a distance and killed all 4 of them. "They're down."

"Shit!" Ami swore after taking cover at a container on their left, narrowly dodging a bullet in front of her. "Hostiles, 11 O'clock."

Maho shoots some bullets their right for a moment before assisting Ami at their 11 O'clock. "Standby."

Maho quickly ran pass Ami with a slide, before took cover at the barrels beside to Ami before returned fire. She fired her MP5 in a crouch stance and able to kill three bastards ahead with headshots. Ami walked out from cover and marched forward along the container on their right, then Maho followed her from behind. Ami then raised her rifle up and spotted some hostiles.

"Tangos above us," Ami radioed. "Shoot through the floor grates."

"Roger that," Maho replied, then they opened fire at a couple of hostiles with Uzis from underneath through the floor grates, killing them before Ami and Maho reload their weapons.

They marched forward before stopped at a corner of the container ahead, Ami peeked out the container first before opened fire. "Frag out."

The frag grenade flew to the enemies right behind their barrels as their cover. *DUAR* the grenade killed 2 of them behind cover.

"Cover me," Ami ordered as she quickly moved out from her cover into the open.

"Roger," Maho replied as she followed Ami from behind, shooting the enemies coming up from their left as she can see Miho and Kay coming up from their right and assisting the combat from the right side of the cargo hold.

Kay quickly run and slide into a cover ahead of her along with Miho. "I can't get a shot."

"Flashbang out," Maho radioed as she threw the flashbang to the enemies ahead, *BANG*.

Maho and Ami quickly peeked out from cover and returned fire, killing all 4 enemies site behind their covers. If they had to admit, their aim was a shame one. Kay quickly moved out from her cover and marched forward before checking her surroundings with her shotgun.

"Forward area clear," Kay radioed before Maho and the rest coming up to her.

"Roger, stack up at the door," Miho radioed back before she followed by Maho and the rest to the right side of the cargo hold, heading for a closed at the edge right part of the cargo hold ahead.

Maho and Miho quickly stack up at the left side of the door while Ami and Kay are on the right. Ami and Miho raised their ACR and M4A1 to the door while Kay and Maho pointed their barrels to the ground. Ami looked over to Miho and gave her a nod.

"Ready, ma'am."

Miho quickly stood in front of the door and then she kicked it hard before quickly turning her back around to face her front to their six. "Go!"

Ami and Kay quickly went through the door before Miho and Maho went in as well, securing the right flank after entering the door and met with a container in front of them while Ami and Kay securing the left flank which apparently led them to a wall.

"Left clear," Kay radioed and lowered their weapons a little.

"Right clear," Maho radioed.

"Move," Miho ordered, and they all quickly walked to their right to the edge of that container, a bit away from the stairs to catwalk above. "Movement left."

They quickly turned left and suddenly received gun fires of Berreta model 12, Franchi LF-57 and Uzis SMGs. They didn't flinch by that but it got their heads down and jumped straight to cover ahead by the metal barrels and crates. Maho peeked out but then get her head down by an incoming bullet before she returned fire at the bastards, and she managed to kill 3 in the open before she reloads. Ami and Kay did some potshots to the bastards while Miho sends in her grenade launcher to the hostiles on their 11 behind the container, killing 3 enemies with one flying in the air before landed his face to the small flight of stairs to his left.

"Nighty-night, Tangos," Kay stated after she saw Miho fragged the bastard with her 'nade launcher.

"Enemies on our 9 o'clock," Ami quickly radioed as she and Maho turned around to their left and quickly shot three of them down before they could pull the trigger.

"They're down," Maho radioed before she quickly moved out from cover and heading to the left while gunning the bastards at her 12. "Cover me."

"Roger, frag out," Miho replied as she threw a frag grenade ahead, *BOOM* killing 3 in the open in front of the hostile's cover.

Maho quickly reached the container on the left side of the cargo before turning right at the corner turn of the cargo. She was on her own for now, as she managed to shot 3 hostiles ahead without a miss, one shot in the head. She quickly reloads her MP5 by pulling the bolt of the barrel quickly then grabbed the empty mag on her gun, pull it and threw it away. Before she inserts in a fresh one from her pocket.

Maho marched forward about passing the crates next to her, and suddenly attacked by a hostile who was apparently hiding behind the crates to attack her by surprise. He attacked her upfront by grabbing and held onto her rifle and tried to disarm her. But the bastard's attempt was a fail after Maho hit his face by swinging the stock side of her MP5 up to his face as her left leg pushing his legs to her right side, forcing him to fell down to the ground. Maho quickly steps back and shot him many times with her SMG in panic. She stopped firing, she knew that was a bad thing to do to him but he's an enemy and is to be neutralized lethally. She quickly walked passed the deceased hostile and took cover at the corner of the container.

She peeked her head out and saw Kay, Ami and Miho pushed the hostiles back and made their numbers into a few. There were only 3 last bastards taking cover behind the crates and a container on the very right, which Maho can see him well hence his side was facing to Maho. She then shoots out the last bastards, two at the crates got killed in the head while the bastard at the container got shot in the chest after he was about to peeked out from his cover. Maho then quickly walked out from cover and advanced along with her team. Until she discovered one thing.

There were no noises from the opposing force.

"All clear," Miho radioed. "Let's find that package."

"Copy that, Captain," Ami replied, they then spread out to find the package.

Maho decided to search the right side of the cargo hold with Miho, because she wanted to make sure her little sister is doing alright. Maho and Miho searched the area together by checking the specification of the container they're looking for one by one. They didn't find anything at first, until they go to their very right. And they found the cargo.

It was a big red cargo container with one side of the doors facing toward both Miho and Maho. And to make sure this was the package they were looking for, it was confirmed that the door they're looking at has the drawing of Mamushi snake. It was drawn to the whole doors and it was made in ancient Japanese kind of drawing. Miho then radioed her whole team.

"Charlie 6, this is Cpt. Nishizumi. We found the package."

Soon, Kay and Ami joined them and looked at the container. "Whoa, that's a big one and had a good drawing," Kay commented in awe.

"I'm opening it," Ami said, she then walked over to the container doors and open them up.

After opened it, the inside of the container revealed the contents. It was far from their expectation for sure, even Miho was wrong when she thought they were shipping weapons. There was a box full of gold bars and other box full of drugs with on top of them was the shipping manifest. What still surprised them the most was the gold bars that filled the box. Can't tell how this mafia could get something like this, but Ami could tell these are the gold bars she was looking for after the mafia robbed it from somewhere.

"Well damn, this is sick!" Kay commented in astonishment with a cringe.

"Looks like this is what the JSDF was looking for," Ami stated, to which Maho nodded to her in understood.

"Eyewatcher, this is Charlie 6. We found the package. We're securing it for transport over," Miho radioed as she looked at the contents of the package.

"No time, Charlie 6. We got reports that PT boats are coming to the freighter ship you're on. Most likely the police, grab anything you can and get the hell out of there."

"Crap, how did they know we raid this ship?" Ami asked in disbelieve.

"The mafias back in the deck must've radioed to the police somehow before we took them out," Kay stated as she comforts her hands on her shotgun. "And now we have our backs chased down by the police."

"Then we got no time to lose," Miho then looked to Maho. "Maho, grabbed the manifest and a sample of the gold and the drug, move!"

Maho obeyed her order and quickly ran inside the container. She opened up one of her field kit pouch and took a sample of the drug and the gold inside. She then took the shipping manifest and put it inside her field kit. She quickly came back to Miho and nodded to her to say the job's done.

"Alright, let's get the hell out of here," Miho said to everyone, until Kay noticed something on their left.

"Wait, I think I saw something over there," Kay said as she was looking to the left and saw something at one of the crates. "Give me a minute."

"Make it quick, mate," Miho said to her as Kay ran over to the suspicious crate on the very left part of the cargo hold. "Ghost, what's your status?"

"We're already in the helo, ma'am," Ghost radioed back. "Just waiting for you, Captain."

"Roger, give us a minute."

Kay took a moment to looked inside the box. But Maho noticed that Kay quickly gave a worried face to what she was seeing inside the box.

"Jesus…" Kay quickly turned around from the box and ran towards her team. "It's a bomb! Get back now!"

They all quickly jumped by that and quickly ran away from there. After running about 5 feet, the *BAAAAAAAAM* bomb exploded, causing a very massive damage to the left side wall of the cargo hold and left a big hole to the wall. They all quickly thrown forward to the ground from the blast behind them. They all stunned from the explosion as they slowly to get up except for Maho, who was very stunned from that blast. And that's when they felt the ship's start tilting.

"Shit! What the hell happened!?" Ami swore loudly as she was stunned a little and panicked.

"The ship's sinking!" Kay who fell next to Maho shouted, before she looked at Maho who's still lying on the ground and shook her. "We've got to go, now!"

"Charlie 6, this is Grey Cloud. Where the hell are you?" Grey Cloud (Sea Knight pilot) radioed. "What the hell happened down there? We just heard a loud bang."

"The bastards rigged the bomb in this ship! We're on our way out!" Miho who was standing in front of Maho radioed, then looked over to Maho as she gave a hand to her. "On your feet, soldier!"

Miho quickly pulled Maho up to her feet, and then gave her a shout. "WE ARE LEAVING!"

Miho quickly ran ahead of Maho as she followed her and the rest of her team ahead. "Get to the catwalk! Move, move!" Miho ordered before they all quickly headed to the catwalk on their left.

"Move your legs up! Come on, let's go!" Kay shouted in panic as reach the top of the catwalk and run forward on the catwalk.

The ship was tilting a little as the plating of the cargo hold ceiling starting to fall down on their heads. "Crap! Watch your head!" Ami shouted as they run forward.

"Go, go! Keep Moving!" Maho shouted as they run and passed through a door to the middle section of the cargo hold.

They kept running until the wall on their left suddenly burst open and letting huge amount of water pouring in, caused by one of the huge pipes exploded in front of them with a massive damage which made them all tumbled down but not fell to the floor and left a hole in the wall. "Back on your feet! Move it!" Miho shouted as they all quickly back on their feet and kept running.

"Go! Go! Go!" Kay shouted as she had to held her shotgun tightly as they run.

"Aah, shit! Shit! Shit!" Ami swore loudly as they ran in panic whilst ignoring the falling debris from the ceiling with water coming in through small holes from the wall and managed to get through the second door of the catwalk.

"Come on! Come on!" Miho shouted as they kept running as the bottom of the ship is starting to have a chain reaction of explosion.

"It's breaking away!" Kay shouted as she swayed her head to the right to avoid the debris that was about to hit her head.

"Just keep running!" Maho shouted as they run, she felt being a bad thing as the last person who was running right behind them.

"Don't stop!" Miho shouted as they run and the ship is tilting much more.

They quickly reached the last out from the cargo hold and quickly turned right. They ran forward until they reached an intersection in which their front path was flooded with water from the result of the explosion back in the cargo hold, luckily the path to their left was free. They quickly turned left and keep running as they did a U-turn in the hallway. They just kept running as they ignored the law of gravity in the ship as the ship was tilting much more.

"How the hell we're still running like this?!" Kay asked aloud after she noticed they didn't stumble down to the floor after the ship tilted at the degrees where they should have fall now with the water around the floors.

"Don't ask and keep running!" Ami shouted as they quickly going up the stairs. "Dammit! Which way to the helicopter?!"

"To the left! To the left!" Miho shouted as they all quickly turned to their left and headed for the door ahead. "Motherfucker!"

They ran and able to reach the door to outside the building and quickly turned right to the stern of the ship. "Where the hell is our evac?!" Ami shouted in question as they ran to the stern with heavy rains fell to them and ship's sinking to above 45 degrees.

They quickly saw their evac, Grey Cloud was hovering at the edge of the stern ahead of them. "Come on! Keep running!" Ghost shouted from inside the Seaknight chopper with a 'come on' gesture at the open door of the back side of the chopper.

They quickly run to the chopper in front of them and prepared to jump. "Jump for it!"

They all quickly jumped into the open backdoor of the chopper one by one from the stern. Ami was the one to jumped to the Seaknight first before Kay and then Miho. Maho was the last to jump into the helo. But after Maho jumped to the backdoor of the chopper, the Seaknight moved from the position and made Maho didn't land on her feet. Instead, she was hanging onto the edge of the hatch with her two arms and hands. Ami quickly saw Maho was about to fall from the edge of the hatch as she quickly pointed Miho to Maho.

Miho quickly turned her head to Maho, and in reflex she threw her rifle to the ground and quickly ran to Maho. She quickly held Maho by her hands after Maho was about to slip of the hatch. Miho just saved her from her death.

"I got you!" Miho quickly pulled Maho up from the edge and dragged her back in the chopper, away from the edge of the hatch. "We all aboard, go!"

"Roger that, Charlie 6," Hawkeye 2-1 replied. "Eyewatcher, this is 2-1. We got the package and returning to base, over."

"Roger that, 2-1. Good work, out," Eyewatcher replied back, before the radio goes silent.

As the Seaknight leave the area, Maho, Miho and everyone inside the passenger side of the chopper can see the ship's sinking. As the ship tilting into 90 degrees to the right (Maho's left), the ship was also exploding from the bottom until up to the deck. The ship was already engulfed in flames which was the result from the rigged bomb, before the ship turned upside down and consumed by the raging seas. Even they were glad that they were not in Pacific Ocean, see such sight like this while the storm is still heavy makes themselves felt they were in Pacific Ocean. Maho was very glad to survive this mission.

Maho sighed deeply from that intense escape, before she looked up to Miho. "I didn't think I'm going to make it out."

"I got your back, mate," Miho said as she patted her sister on her shoulders. "That was a close one."

"I thought we gonna lose you too," Kay added in worried. "That was the craziest thing we ever did."

"And moreover, this is your first mission," Ghost added to her, as he puts down his M4 to his side. "We're very impressed about you, girls."

"And we're glad you make it through," Ami added, before looking to Maho. "Especially you, Maho-san. That was very close."

"Thank you, Ami-san," Maho nodded with a smile, before she stood up after watching the ship fully sunk into the sea. "My heart can't stop beating a bit."

"Just take a seat, sis. You're doing fine," Chemo said to her as Maho and Miho sat down next to Kay and him. "Now, we gonna get some hot cocoa when we get back to base."

"Good God, I'm starting to get a cold here," Vicek complaint in delight as he was rubbing his hands to warm himself.

"Sounds good for me," Miho agreed with a nod, before looking over to Maho. "What about you, mate?"

"Yeah, I need a warm drink," Maho nodded in agreement, but then she smiled to her.

"Hey, do we get paid for this?" Kay asked in wonder, Miho then glanced to her.

"Yeah, you do," Miho replied. "But let's wait until we get back to base, alright?"

"Sounds fine for me," Kay replied as she crossed her arms and leans her back against the metal wall in relaxed.

They spend the rest of their trip in the Seaknight with conversation until they reached the base. Maho knew this would be a pressure hence she's now a 141 and a Kuromorimine Commander. But, she can handle it just fine. The only thing she had to worry about is what Miho was hiding from her. Though, she let that thought away and decided to spend time with her.

Only time would tell for now.


	19. Chapter 18 - Trouble?

"Are you alright, Imouto-san?"

"I'm fine, Maho. I'm fine…"

"Miho, you've been drinking back in your room. No, you're not fine."

"Why can't you let someone to be in peace for a while?"

"You left a revolver with one bullet in it in your room, Miho. What's going on?"

Miho just started her day with a breakfast, and an unavoidable conversation full of worries. Miho actually didn't want to talk about anything in particular today. But this one, it gives her an edge about it. It was something she really wanted to avoid, but that just failed.

Miho's suicide tendencies just came back to her again, poisoning her mind from the inside. It's been two days after that night-time ship raid mission and now Miho along with her family are now in their own residence. Last night, she had been drinking a lot in her room after she was having a bad memory-nightmare about her past in WW3. She was having a hangover that time after she left a 357. Revolver with a bullet on her table in her room. She nearly took the revolver and point it at her own head that time, until she decided to not do it just yet because her mind was very messed up. Or in Miho's term, 'fucked up'.

Miho was left asleep on her table that time while having a bad hangover. With alcohols she had left on the table in front of her that time along with her one bullet-loaded revolver. After Maho went in her room in the early morning, she was shocked to see Miho in such state. And also Maho noticed the revolver she left on the table, looks like Ami was right about what did Ghost worried about Miho even though Maho didn't know about Ami's worries. Though, her questions about it wouldn't be answer because of it.

The last thing Miho remembered in the morning, was Miho being dragged into the bathroom and got her face flushed quickly by water. After she woke up and soaked wet on her clothes, she quickly looked to Maho and hit her in the stomach. It was hard and Maho was startled by that attack, confused on why did Miho do that to her own sister. Shiho did see that as well and was also surprised by the reply. Maho had talked her through to save herself from getting beaten up, Miho just scoffed and left for her room.

Right now, she's in the dining room with her mother and sister, eating her ramen while the others eat Katsu chickens. Miho's eating was interrupted by Shiho and Maho asking questions to her. It was everything about what just happened this early morning. And she didn't like the conversation about it. Though she understands they were very worried about what happened back there.

"Why were you drinking in your room?" Shiho asked worriedly with her narrowed eyebrows.

"Look… I… I just need it, alright?" Miho replied with a sigh.

"You need it? You were already drunk back there!" Maho stated worriedly as she leans to Miho. "Do you know what will happen about it?"

"A goddamn hangover, I know," Miho replied with a tone of hostile before changing her tone to a cold one. "And why did you flush me with the effing waters?"

"You were very drunk Miho and it made you getting sleep heavier," Maho replied as she leans back from her and ate a bite of her katsu. "I had to wake you up like that."

"Why did you even hit your own sister?" Shiho asked, still confused of Miho's temporary hostile reaction on that. "She had help you wake up from your drunkenness."

"Then I will remind you the next time I got drunk and had a hangover, let me sleep until I wake up by myself," Miho answered back, her finger pointed to Shiho and Maho. "I hate getting flushed! And the last time I got flushed like that, I had banged up a man to the ground for it!"

"A…oh…" Shiho left speechless for a moment, if that was what really happened to the last person who flushed Miho for the sake of waking her up. "I… didn't know that."

"Now you know," Miho replied quickly before she took a sip of her drink. "Don't flush me up again. Understand?"

"We understand, Miho," Maho replied with a nervous nod. "But why you wanted to be drunk?"

"It's just I still bothered about that war, alright?" Miho replied as she looked to her.

"What about the revolver you left on the table?" Shiho asked, Miho choked up on that as she looked to her. "What were you doing with it?"

Miho paused for a moment to think, before she replied coldly. "Russian Roulette."

That was partially true. It was true she was doing the Russian Roulette, but half of the lie was actually she intended to kill herself back in that room. But thanks to unknown reason she decided to hold it off for now. Shiho and Maho had heard of this suicidal gun game and they were shocked to hear it.

"Live rounds or blanks?" Maho asked slowly.

Miho stayed silent for a moment, before she replied. "Lives. 5 times in a row."

This, of course was true. She did it 5 times back in 2016 and all of it was the time Soap/Ghost/Price saw Miho does that but late interfere, only to end up the revolver was firing an empty slot to Miho. Nikolai would say she was lucky or something else was protecting her from doing it to herself. But taking account that Maho and Shiho heard that, they're not sure whether to believe this fact or not because they didn't see her doing it by themselves.

"Why would you want to do that?" Shiho asked worriedly of her daughter's mental sake.

Miho stayed silent for a while as she looked down, before she looked back to her mother with a sharp breath. "I'm just felt… over pressure on what's going on lately. That's all…"

"Are you sure about it?" Maho asked, concerned about Miho's sense of mental.

"Si, I'm sure of it," Miho replied with a nod as she looked to Maho. "Just give me some time to relax up my mind."

"Just… please don't do that again," Shiho asked worriedly as she winced her eyes to looked at her daughter's eyes.

Miho looked at her in silence and emotionless for a moment, before she replied. "I'll try."

They both heard Miho said that many times until now. "Why are you keep saying you'll try?" Maho asked uncomfortably.

Miho stayed silent for a moment as she looked at her, before she replied with a frown. "I don't think I can guarantee my promises."

"Miho, why would you think you can't guarantee it?" Maho asked as she leans forward to her.

"I just can't," Miho replied with a shook. "Everyone has their limits, Maho."

They all fell silent after that. Yes, Miho was a soldier, not forget to mention the commanding officer of her own Task Force. But she was right about it, everyone has their limits. Miho can do anything, but there are on some situation she can't do something about what she has to deal with. Her reason was something they can't argue about.

"You do have a point, Miho," Shiho said softly as she rolled her eyes to behind her.

"I know, I wish I could do more than what I do," Miho then sipped her drink. "I guess that's how life runs."

"I agree," Maho replied with a nod. "It really sounds hard."

"At least, it's not hard enough to kick me out from this house," Miho joked, they all giggle to her joke.

"Alright, Miho, that was a nice joke," Shiho replied with a smile. "I won't dare to kick you out from here."

"I know, mother," Miho replied with a nod and a smile. "So, you'll be working soon?"

"Well, yeah," Shiho nodded. "Gonna do some paperwork in the school."

"Gah…" Miho scoffed with an annoyed face as she looked away from them. "Not that."

Maho and Shiho were surprised by Miho's reaction making them to wonder about it. "You don't like paperwork?" Shiho asked.

"Correction, hate it," Miho replied as she looked at Shiho. "Well, I'm alright with writing but dealing with documents? Nah. I might as well give those paperwork bullshit to Macmillan."

"You're talking about how much pile the paperwork is?" Maho asked.

"Yep, that one," Miho replied with a nod a finger pointed to her. "I'm glad Macmillan can help me with that paperwork."

"He sounds like he loves paperwork," Shiho added.

"Yeah, he loves that," Miho replied as she tilted her head to her left for a moment. "Not really ironic though, reminding he was the director of the British Special Forces."

"Oh, I can imagine how's he doing back in… Hereford, right?" Maho said with a doubt tone at the end of her sentence.

"Yeah," Miho added with a nod. "He's probably enjoying his tea while working on that now."

"That's quiet comforting," Maho added with a smile. "Right, I'll be heading to school soon."

"And I was hoping you didn't involve me about the tankery again," Miho added as she glances at her in cold.

"Why?" Maho asked with her brows raised.

"5 seconds."

…

…

…

…

…

"Oh," Maho said at last, remembered about what happened last week. "Alright, alright, I do need you to be in the school helping with some of my friends on something. Not involving anything to do a tankery match. I can assure you."

Miho paused for a moment as she looked at her sharply, before replying. "Sounds better, alright."

"So… you're good to come to Kuromorimine?" Shiho asked doubtly.

"Yes, I do," Miho replied with a nod as she crossed her arms. "Just don't lie to me, unless you want to give me an edge."

"Easy, my daughter," Shiho told her softly. "We understand. We won't lie to you."

Miho paused for a moment to glance their expressions, before she replied. "Ok, mate. I'm good to go."

"Ok, by the way," Shiho added. "How's the mission going for you and Maho?"

"Well…" Maho paused for a moment. "For the mission, I would say it's crazy at first."

"Huh? What do you mean crazy at first?" Shiho asked in confusion, before looking at Miho.

"Well, we did a ship raid in night-time with the heavy storms around," Miho explained. "When we got the package, we were about to get out from a ship until Kay found out a bomb was rigged in the cargo hold. After it exploded, we ran as fast as hell as the ship was going to upside down and sinking. Maho barely made it when she jumped to the helicopter, nearly fell down to the deep sea if not for me to save her and pulled her up."

Shiho went froze to hear that as her eyes went blank as she stares at Miho, Maho was agitated to see her mother like that. "Okaa-san, are you alright?"

Shiho stayed silent as she stared at Miho, before replying as she looked to Maho. "Is that true?"

"Y-yes, Okaa-san," Maho replied with a nod. "Please, don't be angry."

"No, I'm just…" Shiho paused, then continued. "I'm glad you're alright. Just… please be fine."

"Don't worry, I will," Maho replied before both looking to Miho.

"Ну, честно говоря, сестра," Miho started as she rubbed her arm. "The next two missions after that, you were doing well with your job. So, I appreciate of your performance."

"Yeah, and the payment was quite nice," Maho added with a smile. "Alright, how about we should head off now?"

"Yeah, we'll be wasting time in here," Shiho added in agreement.

"Sounds good, mother," Miho added with a smile and a nod. "Let's go out there then."

"Alright, I'll get the car ready,"

* * *

St. Gloriana Girls College. 09:30 AM.

Darjeeling was with her friends Orange Pekoe, Assam, Rukuriri and Nilgiri were all inside their office in the school. The office they're in was all colored in light elegant red as the open big windows on one side of the room are decorated with green curtains that each of them tied to the sides of the windows. There were a lot of furniture inside including the trolley for carrying a lot amount of tea around. Good thing that Rosehip wasn't around for the moment. Because if she was here, she can't stop running around the room with the trolley full of tea around.

Besides that, there are decorations have been putted along the walls and on some cabinets in the room. There were around 4-7 cabinets in there, an old eccentric British phone back in 1800s on one of the cabinets. A banner of the St. Gloriana flag was hanged in between the windows. Some pictures of Darjeeling and her crew are either hanged on the walls or putted on the furniture. There was a big round table in the middle of the room where Darjeeling and her friends were sitting at. They all relaxed as they enjoyed their teas and having a great conversation.

Darjeeling was really aware on what's going on in Japan. Not forget to mention the famous rumor of Miho Nishizumi that quakes the land of Japan. She didn't believe it at first but after she heard the news about that burning building in Yokohama, she wasn't so sure about it anymore but still she felt doubt about it. After that, there's nothing else is new about the news today. Nothing else than enjoying her day with her friends with their cups of teas.

Darjeeling proceeded to drinks her black tea with her eyes closed. She chit-chatted with her friends before putting her cup on the table. She then proceeds to eat her cake on the table in front of her, took around 2 spoons of it. She then proceeds back to drinking her tea as her friends chatted with each other. She drinks eat until she ran out of tea in her cup.

"Oh dear, I just ran out of tea," Darjeeling said in elegant voice.

"Hang on, I'll get the teapot," Pekoe said, before she stood off her seat however, she noticed something off. "Wait, where's the teapot?"

"I thought the teapot was with Assam," Rurukiri said as they glanced to her.

"What? No," Assam replied with a shook. "I didn't have the teapot with me."

"Nilgiri?" Darjeeling called as they glanced to her.

"Not with me as well," Nilgiri replied as she held her open palm in the air facing to Darjeeling.

"Huh?" Darjeeling asked with her eyebrows raised. "How come the teapot just disappeared to thin air?"

"Ah, I just remembered," Assam said aloud as they all glanced to her. "I think I did bring the teapot to the sink."

"Why did you put it in the sink?" Pekoe asked.

"It was dirty, and I don't want to get my hands dirty too," Assam said. "It was in the kitchen, so we can call someone to get the tea for us."

"Oh, alright," Darjeeling then turned her head to behind her on the seat, facing to the room where the tea always made. "Can someone get us the tea, please?"

"Did someone just said tea?!" a voice asked aloud as someone appeared her face from behind the door. To their shock, it was Rosehip they were looking at.

 _"Bollocks,"_ they all said in thoughts as they stared blankly and regrettably to Rosehip.

"One moment!" Rosehip shouted, before returning back inside the kitchen.

They all froze like a statue as they were staring at the door where Rosehip was in, Pekoe then asked. "I thought you told her to go to the Reflection Room, right?"

"I did…" Darjeeling replied lowly as they all still cringed.

Want to know the reason why they regret to let Rosehip to make the tea? Because when Rosehip was around, all hell breaks loose.

*RUMBLE*

*SPLASH*

*SIZZLE*

*SPLISH-SPLISH*

*SLAM*

*PRANG*

*BRUK*

*BRAK*

*CLING*

*PRAK*

*PRING-PRING*

*PRANG*

*BRAK-TUNG-TANG-PRANG-TUNK-TUNK-PRING*

…

…

Yep, this is the reason why they regret to let Rosehip to make some tea. Having an energetic and excited girl like her gave a toll of problem to Darjeeling, personally. They all only stare blankly to the door where Rosehip was in as they sincerely let go of everything that Rosehip destroyed. And if one could look at the expression that Darjeeling made. She gave her expression of every collection of her tea sets destroyed by Rosehip.

 _"How many times I need to call the janitors for that?"_ Darjeeling thought with a false smile and blank stare. _"I think they are getting sick for what Rosehip did."_

Then, after a moment of silence, the door they're looking at was open a little. Rosehip then peeked out from the door, with sweat all over her face. Rosehip was giving her sorry and 'oops' expression to them as she made a false smile and empty eyes. Even if she had made a bloody mess inside the kitchen, Darjeeling kept her calm about it as she was doing her self-control. While the rest of them just stay silent after what Rosehip did inside the room.

"Just take it slowly, okay?" Darjeeling asked with her eyes closed and surprisingly with calming voice.

"Forgive me, desu wa!" Rosehip said quickly as she goes through the door and bowed her head quickly to her. "It seems I have trouble making the tea."

"It's alright," Nilgiri said with a nod. "Let me just handle that."

"Oh? Arigato, Nilgiri-san!" Rosehip replied excitedly, she then quickly ran to the nearest seat available at the table and sat down as Nilgiri stood off from her seat and headed for the kitchen.

"Wow, you still quite energetic until now," Assam commented softly as Rosehip looked at her.

"Oh, sure I am, Assam-san!" Rosehip replied happily. "I never be not energetic to live my day."

"Sounds great, Rosehip," Darjeeling replied with a smile. "And I thought you're still spending your time in the Reflection Room."

"Oh, I did," Rosehip replied. "That was an hour ago."

They all just stared at her, with empty eyes. _"Wait… what?"_

"Oh, I didn't notice that one," Pekoe said flatly. "I assume you're doing well on that?"

"Oh sure!" Rosehip replied happily. "Why not?"

"She's just making sure, Rosehip," Darjeeling added as she took a spoon of her cake. "I assume you heard the news about the Exhibition Tournament?"

"Oh, yes I do," Rosehip replied with a nod. "But, I didn't get the details about with who we're teaming up with, desu wa."

"Well, we're teaming up with the Pravdas and the BC Freedom," Assam replied, but then Rosehip raised an eyebrow to Darjeeling.

"Don't tell me you want to eat the cakes with Marie, after the match" Rosehip said in wonder, which caught Darjeeling off-guard on that.

"How did you know?" Darjeeling asked softly.

"Well, I've seen you with her actually, so…"

"Okay, okay," Darjeeling cut her off, before continuing. "So for the opposing teams, it would be Saunders, Ooarai, and Kuromorimine."

The only person who surprised about the teams for their opposed forces was Rosehip. "Wait, what? Kuromorimine hates Ooarai, desu wa."

"We know that, Rosehip," Rukuriri replied with a nod. "And honestly, this is the bizarre thing we ever see."

"But I'm sure it will work out at the end," Darjeeling said with confidence, before she pulls out some letters and put them on the table. "Rosehip, I need your help."

"What is it?!" Rosehip asked quickly as she was excited to help Darjeeling.

"Can you help me to send these letters to the post office?" Darjeeling asked.

"Sure, I'll do anything for Darjeeling!" Rosehip replied back.

"And please, do send these letters quickly," Darjeeling said as she gave the letters to Rosehip.

"Sure, I'll send this as fast as I can!" Rosehip replied quickly as she puts the letters in her pockets.

*SWOOOOOOOSH*

And ran out the room like the speed of a motorcycle.

"Right, that one is out of the way," Darjeeling said as Nilgiri just came out from the kitchen along with the filled teapot on her hands.

"Darjeeling, where did Rosehip go?" Nilgiri asked as she puts the teapot on the table.

"She just asked Rosehip to send the letter," Assam replied. "And she just did quite well."

"She runs to the post office?" Nilgiri asked with a raised brow as she was pouring the tea for darjeeling.

"Yes, she's quite good at that," Pekoe replied with a nod. "By the way, Darjeeling-sama. You didn't tell us anything about those letters. What are you sending them for?"

"I was sending the letters to invite the schools to come here to have a tea party," Darjeeling replied. "All the schools who involved with the Exhibition Match and along with some schools who watched the Exhibition."

"And what school are those who'll watch the Exhibition?" Rukuriri asked as she sips her tea.

"Anzio, Jatkosata and Chi-ha-tan," Darjeeling replied as she looked at her with elegant eyes.

"Sounds like a nice plan to do before doing the match," Assam replied with a smile.

"Yes, do you ever heard this saying?" Darjeeling asked. "The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself."

"Bernard Shaw," Pekoe answered immediately.

"Correct," Darjeeling replied with a nod, not bothering to look at Pekoe. "By the way, is there any news for today for me to hear?"

"Nothing new this lately," Pekoe replied. "Except the rumor about Miho Nishizumi that went viral from the previous days."

Darjeeling only gave a flat smile as if she was uninterested about it but she's not uninterested. "That again? You know, I was wondering how that lady survived that accident back in Ooarai."

"Well, I did the same," Nilgiri added. "Hang on, didn't you not believe about that rumor."

"I don't know, the more I hear of this rumors…" Darjeeling then paused. "I'm starting to doubt on what I was thinking."

"I thought you didn't believe about that," Pekoe added. "Plus, you don't know what is her appearance looks like."

"I know, I wish I could meet her myself," Darjeeling added in agreement and a shrug. "And I was wondering about where she was living in now."

"I'm still assuming she'll be living in the Nishizumi Residence," Assam answered as she sips her tea. "But that could be unlikely due to her failure in the 62nd tournament with Kuromorimine against Pravda. Miho got out from that residence herself before she got to Ooarai."

"Really, Assam?" Rukuriri asked with doubt. "I don't think your theory is correct?"

"I didn't say I got the right theory," Assam replied, defending herself. "That's what I was thinking."

"Alright, is there anything else about Miho so far?" Darjeeling asked curiously.

"I assume you've heard about the burning building in Yokohama?" Rukuriri asked, Darjeeling replied with a nod.

"I heard Miho was there as well, rescuing the people who trapped inside the building with the loss of an Anzio student after they got out," Darjeeling replied. "But I heard Miho was screaming something to Mrs. Shiho, Maho and Erika but I never heard what she was saying about."

"Something about Nishizumi-style is a nonsense and cannot take any casualties," Pekoe added as her hand was on her chin. "But… the way Miho was saying was very rude and somehow sounds dangerous?"

"Huh?" Assam asked as they were surprised to Pekoe's statement. "What do you mean dangerous?"

"The Miho that everyone knew, including the Nishizumi Family, Miho was not herself anymore," Pekoe replied. "She's changed."

"I see," Darjeeling said, with an understanding nod. "Is there other news than that?"

"Well, recently there was a ship sunk in the sea between Nagasaki and Kumamoto Prefectures," Assam replied. "It happened three days ago in the night when the winter storm was raining heavily."

"Oh?" Everyone gasped in surprised as they looked at her. "Did the ship sunk because of the weather?"

"Not exactly," Assam replied with a shook. "I heard the ship was exploded before it sunk. The police didn't make it there in time after the ship exploded."

"Exploded? How did that even happen?" Darjeeling asked in disbelieve as she winced her eyes.

"No one was sure about it," Assam replied with a shrug. "But the police got reports about they saw something flying above the ship. Some sort of aircraft."

"Aircraft?" everyone asked in confusion.

"Yeah, it was hovering over the exploding and sinking ship before it flew away from the scene," Assam replied. "They said it was some sort of helicopter but they can't tell due to the harsh storm they're in. Some even thought that was an UFO."

"Hmm… odd…" Darjeeling thought for a moment of the timeline of the scene. "Why would a helicopter floating over the ship only to go away from there?"

* * *

Ebino City, Miyazaki Prefecture. 10:00 AM.

"All units, this is Ghost. Report in, over."

"Alpha 1-1, ready, over."

"Bravo 1-1, good to go."

"Roger, kept your ears on the radio. This will take time to wait."

"You soldiers brought any ladders, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"What's that for?"

"Just in case if we have to climb onto something."

Ghost was with Ami next to him, Chemo and Vicek right behind him. They were inside a red sedan car and Ami was the one who's driving the car. Behind the sedan car was other cars that are inhibited by Alpha and Bravo team, each car contains 4 members of mixed 141 and JGSDF members. They all were waiting for any call via radio to hear if there's any job for them to do, basically giving a favor for the police to thin up their job. The JGSDF were very surprised to know the 141 was okay to do any job in the urban area, saying it's their specialty. Regrettably, it reminds Ghost, Chemo, along with Royce who was Alpha 1-1 about their trip in South America specifically in Brazil.

At least it's not the Brazilian Militias they need to deal with. They're real pain in the ass.

Ghost was as usual didn't let go his skull-mask along with the dark-red sunglasses and military headphones, apart from his urban combat clothes which composed desert-colored shirt with UK patch on the left shoulder and dark grey jeans, pouches and pistol holster strapped to his thighs. He was wearing his same Kevlar vest he used back in Brazil along with Chemo who wears the same except a part of his Kevlar didn't cover his groin and his headgear was a helmet with ballistic glass shield, also he was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and blue jeans. Vicek was in his desert colored kevlar vest with pouches, dark blue long-sleeve shirt, black jeans and a black cap with his headphones on his head. Ami on the other hand was wearing her dark grey combat pants and sleeveless light green shirt along with the elbow pads protection. Ami was wearing a black Kevlar vest with a black cap and a green bandana tied around her neck to hide her identity as a true Japanese soldier to the public, hence because the risk of her getting pictured and went viral around Japan which will recognized by certain members outside the military jurisdiction, this also applied to other Japanese soldiers with the 141. And all of them wearing black tactical gloves.

For the weapons, Ghost has his M4A1 with Red Dot Sight with M9 Beretta as a secondary. Chemo has AK 12 with ACOG Scope and dual magazine with P99 as a secondary. Vicek has his ARX 160 with USP 45 as a secondary. Ami has her suppressed G36 with Glock 17 as a secondary.

They all were currently hiding in an alleyway where the cars will fit through. A good hiding spot to wait for any call for help before going out via car. While the members of the 141 and the JGSDF were waiting for any call, they had a conversation for the moment. The only thing to spent their time to wait for the call.

"Well, this is a good way to spend our time to do our job, isn't?" Ami asked as cheerfully as she can.

"Yeah, at least we're not in Brazil," Ghost replied with a shrug with his crossed-arms.

"Hey, don't remind us on that, Ghost," Chemo said with an annoyed tone. "We barely made it out from there."

"You were getting overrun by those bastards that time?" Vicek asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah, reminds me of the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia," Chemo replied, Ghost just chuckled at that.

"That one, The Battle of Mogadishu? Bloody hell, at least the Somalians had more casualties than the Yankees," Ghost added as he was smirking underneath his mask.

"How many casualties in that incident?" Ami asked, wondering about the numbers.

"US sources estimate a range of 1,500 to 3,000 casualties, including civilians for the Somalians," Ghost replied as he looked at her before looking back to the front. "For the US, 18 killed and 73 wounded and one soldier captured by the Somali. 1 Malaysian soldier was killed while other 7 are wounded. And one Pakistani soldier killed while other 2 wounded."

"Wow, that's a lot of casualties for the Somalians," Ami replied in amazement. "So the US along with the other nations won the war?"

"Actually, no," Chemo replied disappointedly. "Somalia won the battle, strategically."

"Oh, that's bad," Ami replied in pity.

"Yeah, even if the US had KIAs under 20, and they lost 2 high-tech vehicles," Ghost added. "It was a pyrrhic victory for them."

"Oh," Ami gasped in surprise, before moving up to the next topic. "So, how you guys doing today?"

"We're doing fine really," Chemo replied. "Now with Maho and Kay helping us sorting out jobs, things went quite well."

"How's Miho doing right now?" Ami asked.

"Oh, as usual," Ghost replied with a smirk as he looked to his right through the window. "She's still in the residence. Since she's the CO of the 141, she can do whatever she wants."

"Not forget to mention to keep this Task Force up and running," Vicek added with a smile.

"Sounds good enough," Ami paused as she looked forward, reminded of something. "Hey, Ghost. I have a question about something."

Ghost raised his brows under his mask as he looked at her. "What you want to ask about?"

Ami then looked at him and ask away. "It's about Miho's friend, Soap. What happened to him?"

They all quickly jumped up on that and looked at Ami in tensed up. "No, I don't want to talk about it," Ghost replied quickly as he shook.

"Come on, Ghost," Ami asked as if she was begging. "What happened to Soap?"

"I don't want to talk about it, for Queen's sake!" Ghost angrily replied as he nods his head to Ami in denial. "That's out of the question!"

"B-but why?" Ami asked, confusion was starting to grow in her head.

"If you want to know, you should ask Miho about that," Ghost replied, this time he able to calm down. "Besides, not even her including us will talk about Soap, understand?"

Ami was shocked his response was like that, though she complied to his question. "Alright, Ghost. Alright."

Ghost then looked away from her as Ami did the same in silence. They both decided to just look to the front of the car, felt uncomfortable to talk about anything else. Ami had diverted her eyes on to the mirror above the windshield of the car to see how the men behind them were doing. Vicek and Chemo can be seen very uncomfortable about what Ami just asked. But what surprised Ami about those men was, they didn't look angry of the question. They were very upset of Ami's question.

After Ami had diverted her eyes to the front, the radio crackles to life. "Ghost, this is Alpha 1-2. I got something," Yuko who is Alpha 1-2 responded.

Ghost looked at Ami as she did the same along with the two men behind them, before Ghost put his two fingers on his ear to respond the radio. "Patch that channel to us."

"Standby," Yuko replied, she then began tuning the channel for them for a moment until they got the channel Yuko meant.

"All nearby officers, this is Officer Hamada. We got a call of a bus robbery at National Route 286 near the furniture store. The caller said there were around 7 robbers, 3 in the bus and other 4 outside the bus all armed with Uzis and pistols. I'm heading there now."

Ghost and the rest inside the car cocked their weapons and ready for the job. "That's our cue," Chemo said as he cocked his gun.

"Yeah, Ami lead the way," Ghost said with a nod. "Get us somewhere a little bit far away from the bus so we can exfil out the area without the police chasing us down. Be it in the alleyway or behind a building."

"Roger that," Ami radioed back, then she started the car. "Alpha 1, Bravo 1, follow my lead."

"Copy that, we're right behind you," Royce radioed, before continued by Bravo 1-1. "Start the engines."

After all teams started their car, they began to move out from the alley. Ami's team were the one who will lead the way for the teams to the area the police channel meant. Ami knew the way and knew the place where they will hide their car to get out from the area. They followed Ami down the road to their left after they went out the alley. They drove through a 4-way intersection and was lucky to drive through when the traffic light still showing green light. They kept driving up and following Ami's lead on the road.

It was a 3 minutes driving because they were driving a bit faster and lucky enough there were no police around the road they were passing. Ami and the rest drive to a small road behind the buildings and reached a small empty parking lot behind a small building and a small inn that is right behind and next to the furniture store nearby meters away. The area around where they parked their cars were empty so they were ready to go. Ami along with the teams parked their cars there and quickly go out the car.

"So this is the place?" Ghost asked as they moved up to their right, moving to an alleyway on between those buildings.

"Yes, sir," Ami replied with a nod as they quickly moved forward down the alley and Ami covers her face with her bandana. "Follow me."

They then turned right again following the path of the alley. Now the building on their left is actually the back side of the convenience store, there was a door of course when they walked down the alley but fortunately no civilians came out from the door to alert everyone on site of their presence. They quickly moved forward with their weapons lowered down, and quickly reached the exit of the alley into a small open area with two cars parked at the furniture store ahead of them in a distance. They quickly turned left and hugged the walls of the convenience store on their left in crouching stance, Ami was at the front with Ghost behind her. Chemo quickly walked up beside Ami and looked out the corner of the building.

And there are targets, robbers are robbing the bus with civilians inside. The bus was stopped right at an intersection, one of the path was a road next to the convenience store that was blocked by the bus. There were two black cars with each behind them around 2 and 1 robbers, one of the robbers was keeping an eye to the road next to the convenience store which is right behind the stopped bus. The robbers outside armed with Uzis with one of them armed with a handgun. They can see there were 3 robbers inside the bus, all armed with handguns. They were aiming their guns inside the bus to provoke civilians to give them money while the robbers outside were warning any civilians inside the store and out in the open to get back from them.

"Hmpf," Chemo scoffed in unimpressed. "Amateurs."

"Now, now, don't be like that," Vicek said, which comforted Chemo of this situation.

"Rules of engagement, sir?" Royce asked as he looked behind him to make sure all men were ready.

"Engage the targets heads up, put the hostiles in custody if possible," Ghost then looked behind him to Alpha and Bravo teams. "Everyone got your ladders ready?"

"Yes, sir," a Japanese soldier replied, before continued by Yuko. "We're going to strike the bus after that?"

"Correct, Bravo One, break the windows of the bus," Ghost ordered. "Alpha One, plant the ladders and climb into the bus. Neutralize all hostiles with lethal force, non-lethal if possible while the rest of us secure the perimeter."

"Roger," Bravo 1-1 replied with a nod. "Ready on your mark."

"Engage in 3... 2…" Ghost counted down. "One… Go!"

They quickly ran out the corner and spread out throughout the parking with their weapons raised to the 4 robbers. It took them by surprise to see them coming up like that.

"Drop your weapons! Now!" Ghost shouted.

"On the ground now!" Ami shouted.

"Drop them now!" Royce shouted.

"Tawagoto! Jigoku wa, karera ga daredesuka?!" One of the robbers shouted in panic as they peeked out from behind the cars.

"Sore wa keisatsude wanai!" another robber shouted.

"Dare mo kinishinai! Sorera o utsu!" another robber shouted, they then began to open fire at the soldiers.

Wrong move.

"Incoming gunfire," Bravo 1-3 radioed calmly as they received gunfire, all of them missed the shots.

"Weapons free," Ghost ordered and they all unleashed a lot of bullets into the hostiles.

"Check your fire, don't wanna to hit the civilians in the bus," Yuko replied as they shoot and killed two robbers behind a car and quickly scurry forward to the bus.

"Roger, hostile neutralize," Ami radioed as she able to shot a robber in the shoulder and in the leg to incapacitate him. "One left."

Alpha 1-3 able to shot a robber right in his hand, he screamed in pain and Alpha 1-3 quickly run up to him and put him down to the ground to incapacitate him. "I got him."

"Bravo 1," Ghost called as they quickly run up to the bus. "Hit the windows."

"Copy, axes boys," Bravo 1-1 replied, before he along with the rest of Bravo 1 pulled out their axes and ran up to the windows of the bus.

all Bravo 1 members quickly hit the windows with the axe and quickly steer clear from the windows. Alpha 1 team quickly came over to the windows and planted two ladders below the broken window and two of the members quickly jumped in to the bus. Ghost along with his Echo 1 members and Bravo 1 team stayed outside and secure the area as Royce and Chemo secured two incapacitated hostiles with plastic nylon handcuffs. As they were securing the area with the civilians outside the scene were amazed of the soldiers at the bus, they can hear Yuko and Royce who entered the bus by window just shot a hostile in the head who held a hostage as his shield. One of the hostiles on the front side of the bus got killed by Yuko while the other bastard at the back of the bus was quickly taken down by Royce.

What they didn't expect to see from Royce was throwing the robber out the window by bare hands. That did take most of Bravo 1 and Echo 1 (Ghost's team) members by surprise, not for Alpha 1 members outside the bus (one member of 141 and Japanese) because they had enough to see some shit. Royce was seen peeking out the window where he threw the bastard, looking down to the guy he was dealing with. Royce can be said felt irritated with the robber.

"Is that all you got, jackass?" Royce asked sarcastically as Ami quickly cuffed the man he thrown out.

"Yuko, what's the status on the civilians?" Ghost radioed as he checked his surroundings with their weapons lowered to avoid civilians being panicked.

"All civilians safe and secure," Yuko replied. "Getting them out now."

"Roger, make it quick," Ghost then looked over to Vicek. "When the police arrive?"

"2 mikes tops," Vicek replied, they need to go now.

"Daremoga, koko kara dete ikou!" they heard Yuko said from the bus, saying it to the civilians.

"Hurry up, we don't have much time," Ghost said quickly as they make sure the robbers they cuffed stay down on the ground whilst the civilians are running out the bus and get to safety from the scene.

After the civilians were all out, Yuko radioed back to Ghost. "All civilians are out, we're good to go."

"Alright, come on boys and girls!" Ghost shouted. "We're bugging off!"

"Roger that," Bravo 1-1 replied. "What of the robbers?"

"Leave them to the police," Ghost replied. "Let's get out from here!"

"Copy that, displacing," Royce radioed, and they all quickly ran away from the scene.

They all headed back to where they did come from at the corner of the store. They quickly turned right and right again to the alleyway. They then quickly turned left at the end of the alley into the small parking lot. They quickly get inside the cars that were parked near the small inn and quickly drove out from there to the south, going down the road until they reach Route 53 and then kept driving across the road and keep heading south. That was a quick job for them, and they bet that the police were quite pleased on whoever deal with this robbery had been taken down quickly.

As Ami drives the car, Ghost looked over to Ami with a smirk. "Nicely done, mate."

"Thank you," Ami replied with a smile. "That's one less problem for the police."

"Now we're playing the waiting game again?" Chemo asked as he leans his head against the chair and the hands he put on top.

"That's right, mate," Ghost replied with a smile. "Just a couple of calls and then we're going back to base."

* * *

Kuromorimine Girls Academy.

"It's good to have you around, Miho-san."

"You don't have to mention it, Mauko."

"Yeah, you helped us thinning up our trouble."

"I help ya' mates. As long as it didn't involve me to do a tankery, Erika."

"We know, we know. Let's just get back to work on this thing."

"How are you doing there, Maho?"

"Well, a bit complicated but I can handle it."

Miho was now with the commanders of the Kuromorimine along with Maho and Erika in Maho's office. Exclude for Akaboshi because she's not in school They all currently dealing with their papers to write down everything that's going on around the school. Be it reports, financial documents, maintenance documents, etc. etc. There was more work than the paperwork, which is making the tank models and banners to decorate the hallway of the school. Miho had chosen to work on decorating than the paperwork. When she was asked about why she won't work on the paperwork, she implies with:

"I had enough to work on the paperwork bullshit."

Miho was currently wearing a buttoned dark-grey shirt underneath her black hoodie jacket. She was wearing a dark-green pants along with the belt pouch on her hips. She also had a snowy pattern bandana tied to her neck. For the Kuromorimine girls, they were wearing their official school uniforms for the Kuromorimine school. Shiho however, wearing the same black coat above her white buttoned-shirt along with the black jodphurs.

Mauko, Ritaiko and Sangou were the ones who were working on the paperwork while Geshiko and Erika along with Miho were the ones who are working on the decorations. Maho on the other hand need to work on something else on her computer, something quite important she said. For their surprise, Shiho was in the office as well helping Miho, Erika and Geshiko on the decorations. Miho only felt odd for Shiho helping her on the decorations instead of the paperwork. Turns out, Shiho wanted to do this for a long time and didn't have a time to do it, nor even got a chance to do it. Miho only sang as she was doing on her work.

"Ach komm du Schöne bring den Wein zu mir,

Bring den Wein zu mir, ich verdurste hier

Ach komm du Schöne bring den Wein zu mir,

Denn mir ist nach Wein und Weib."

As she sang, Miho noticed the office they're in were still in the same condition like a year ago. Except for the blackboard in present and a couple of new shelves were inside. Not forget to mention with some of the pictures of Maho and her commanders looked new and hanged on the wall. And as usual, Maho gave a flat smile every each of the picture except about two of them which she smiled. Nothing else new than that besides Maho's office was made out of elegant brown woods and red bricks.

Miho just kept singing along with her work as her friends, sister and mother nodded to her song as they were able to understand what she was singing. The song she was singing was in German, and everyone in here understand German. Hell, this was the first time for them to hear Miho singing something else in German.

A few moments later, Miho has done singing and kept helping Erika, Geshiko and Shiho on the decorations. Miho was enjoying to work on the decorations very much, happy that the paperwork was worked by someone else. Maho was finishing her last problem on her computer, before she turned it off and turned her chair to behind her. Maho looked over to Miho as she did the same whilst working on the decorations.

"How's the decoration doing for the Exhibition?" Maho asked with a raised brow.

"Well, doing fine now," Miho replied with a nod as she is making the decorations. "These things will be finished in a jiffy."

"I wonder why you had enough on doing the paperwork," Mauko wondered as she took a paper and began writing. "You know how to work on this, right?"

"Yes and no, thank you very much," Miho replied with a slight annoyance. "If Macmillan was here, I'll be fine with it."

"But it's not much, Miho-san," Ritaiko replied. "Just a pile and we're done."

"No, thank you," Miho replied sarcastically as she waved her head to behind her to Mauko. "Bloody hell, you remind me of my paperwork back in Hereford."

"Oh? How does it look like?" Ritaiko asked.

"Had to work on my paperwork for three days straight without any sleep."

…

…

…

None of them including Shiho ever thought about that. Yes, Shiho had to work on paperwork but never as long as that.

"How did you even worked on the paperwork for 3 days straight without any sleep?" Sangou asked in disbelieve.

"Don't ask," Miho replied in annoyance, focusing back on her job.

They all fell silent for a moment as Maho stood off from her seat and came over to Miho and the others who worked on the decorations. Maho then began helping Miho to build a model she was working on, and Miho accepted it with a nod. Miho smiled to Maho after that before she goes back to work on the decors. Shiho just smiled to see this as she worked on the decors.

Miho then lifted a part of a model into the air in front of her, before slowly lowering it down. Miho was reminded of something… reminded of someone. The girl whom she met before long ago, the girl from the Anzio school. The girl she had met back in the graveyard. Anchovy was reminding back to inside her head. Miho had wondered why she was reminded of her right now.

But if Miho had to admit, she has an attraction to ladies only instead of men, and Anchovy was one of them. there was something she felt about her. She had a feeling to Anchovy after she met her at the graveyard a week ago. She can't believe she had this feeling but… it was true… Miho had a severe feeling about Anchovy for a long time. If she had to kept thinking about, it just made her upset as she worked on the decors softly. She sighed after she remembered about Anchovy.

Erika, Maho and Shiho had noticed the sigh Miho made. They both were surprised to see that Miho was actually upset right now. Why she was upset they didn't know, but probably something that Miho needed to talk about. Maho had poked her shoulder as Miho quickly looked back to Maho.

"Is there something wrong, Miho?" Erika asked, everyone quickly gained their attention to Miho.

Miho stayed silent for a moment as she looked at them, before she looked away with a reply. "Well… I think so…"

"Are you ok, Miho?" Geshiko asked in slight worry.

"I'm fine, I'm just…" Miho paused with her eyes closed, before looking back to Maho. "There's something I want to tell you, lads."

"What is it?" Geshiko asked as she leans forward near to Miho as the rest were eager to hear what she wanted to say with those who worked on the documents still holding their papers and writing.

"I want to ask you something first," Miho replied, which earned everyone's glare on that. "Any of you know of… Anchovy's real name? I never had a chance to know her real name a year ago until now."

They all were surprised of her question, but they know what's her real name was. "Her real name is Chiyomi Anzai," Shiho replied as the rest looked to Shiho before looking back to Miho.

"Okay," Miho replied with a nod.

"Tell us what's wrong," Ritaiko said as they were waiting for Miho's answer.

"Umm, how do you say this…?" Miho asked doubtedly with her hand scratched her head as they were confused on what she meant. "It's… complicated…"

"Just take it easy, Miho-san," Mauko comforted her, before continued by Sangou. "Alright, can you say something about it?"

"Umm…." Miho took a long pause, as she was looking at everyone one by one before she took a long sigh. "Alright, I don't know how you'll react to this but…"

"What is it?" Erika asked as she raised her brows.

"I think…" Miho paused doubtedly as her hand massaged her neck and her eyes looked down to her right, before she continued. "I think I fell in love with Anchovy."

…

…

…

…

…

…

They were very shocked that made them turned into statues after they dropped their pens and papers and decorations they were working. They all widen their eyes and their left their jaw agape in shock and unbelievable dreaded gazes to her. This is the first time for them all to hear her she loved someone. But they didn't expect she would fall in love to a girl, especially to Chiyomi Anzai. What else they could say about this?

"You're joking, right?" Geshiko asked with a false smile as she stares her doubtedly.

"I'm not mate," Miho replied flatly to Geshiko, they can so no more than being so silent.

…

…

…

"I can't believe you would actually say that to us," Shiho started to break the silence, as a mother she was very, very shock to hear this.

"I thought you were straight," Ritaiko added in disbelieve, which Miho glanced at her.

"Nah, mate, I'm attracted to girls," Miho replied with a shook. "I can't believe it myself after I met Anchovy."

"I see…" Mauko added with a slow nod.

"So, when will you do it?" Sangou asked, which made everyone including Miho and excluding Mauko confused on what she meant.

"What do you mean?" Miho asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Well, you know, dating with Anchovy?" Mauko asked, they all only gave empty eyes to her, excluding Miho who gave cold eyes.

"Not yet, mate," Miho replied with a shook and a sigh. "Not now."

"I could teach you on how to date," Sangou replied, Erika and Maho only stared at her with empty eyes while Shiho and Geshiko were left speechless, Miho only stay cold. "Especially about kiss…"

Miho stared at her in disgust after she said the last part of her sentence. "Erika, remind me to throw Sangou out the window after this."

Everyone stared at her in horror to the threat, and Sangou only gulped in fear. "I pull my words."

"Good," Miho replied quickly before she got back to finishing the decors on her hands. "Because I'm not looking forward for that."

Everyone quickly get back to their jobs and they were almost finished, until someone's phone ringed at nearly surprised them. "Who's phone is that?" Erika asked, as they stared to the person who had her phone ringed.

They were looking at Shiho, who had just to looked on her phone. "Oh, looks like I'm needed somewhere else. I have to go now."

"Okay, mother," Miho confirmed with a nod. "Be careful out there."

"I will, Miho," Shiho replied with a nod, before she headed for the door and left the room.

After she left the room, Miho, Erika, Geshiko and Maho along with the rest of the commanders have finished their jobs on the paperwork and the decors. They were happy on their work, really worth Miho's time to do it. The papers were then stacked into one pile and put it on the table. While the decors were just left on the table where Miho, Erika, Geshiko and Maho were working. They all just sat on the chairs available in the office after their work is done.

There was one thing that caught Miho's attention, the absence of Koume Akaboshi in the school. She was actually happy to have her around, knowing she's the only person who was very nice to her. Maho had said to her that Akaboshi didn't enter the school about three days ago, and until now she's still absence to attend the school. Miho thought she was sick at first, but when Maho said Akaboshi didn't even send the letter of her absence three days ago until now. Miho knew there was something off about this.

They all only chatted at each other happily at first. Until they heard someone's phone rang the room. Turns out, it was Erika's phone that ranged. Erika pulled out her phone and see on who was calling her. To her surprise, it was Katyusha who was calling her. Erika called everyone to gain their attention to her, before she accepted the call on her phone. Erika then turned on the speaker mode on the phone call so everyone can hear what the caller said.

"Hello?" Erika said to the phone as everyone listened in silence.

"Oh, hello there, Erika," Katyusha replied on the phone, teasingly. "How are you doing?"

"What do you think, Katyusha?" Erika replied back sarcastically. "If this is about what are our plans for the National Tournament Match, then no, I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, you think so?" Katyusha asked back, sounds still happy.

Maho actually didn't tell Miho how's Kuromorimine relations with Pravda. In all honesty, their relation is still neutral. But Katyusha's act could make the relation become a hostile one. Despite the fact that Katyusha sent a sorry card for Maho after the loss of her sister, which is ironically a false.

"Why are you calling me?" Erika asked as if she was demanded.

"Like what you just said before, your plans when you're in the National Tournament Match," Katyusha replied, Maho and the rest of the commanders were shocked to hear Katyusha was demanding that straight to Erika.

"Did she called you before?" Maho whispered to Erika in worry.

"Twice in a week," Erika whispered back to Maho, fortunately Katyusha didn't hear that. "Already demanded to give her every plans we made for the National Tournament when she first called me." At least they will be doing Exhibition first before that.

"Erika, you there?" Katyusha asked on the phone.

"Yes, I'm here," Erika replied quickly to the phone. "What do you want?"

"Is Maho there with you?" Katyusha asked, which prompted everyone to glance at Maho except for Miho who looked down to listen the call.

Maho only gave a nod to Erika and Erika replied back to the phone. "Yeah, she's here with me. Hang on."

Erika then gave the phone to Maho and she held the phone in front of her. "Katyusha, what are you up to?"

"Maho, this is Nonna," Nonna replied on the phone, representing Katyusha who is beside her. "We want to say that we have one of your friends."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Maho asked in surprise along with the others except Miho.

"What is she trying to say, Maho," another voice said in the phone, they recognized the voice as Klara. "Is that we have Akaboshi here with us."

Everyone was shocked to hear that, making every each of them to look at each other in horror as Miho quickly lifted her head because she was caught off-guard by that. "What?! When you did that?!" Maho asked quickly in a tone of an angry one.

"Three days ago, Maho," Katyusha replied cheerily, this also shocked them all including Miho as Katyusha who is back in her school leans her head against her chair as she turned around to Akaboshi who was tied to a chair. "And she's here with us."

"No, you're lying, Katyusha," Maho replied in denial and mad.

"I'm not lying, here," Katyusha then gave the phone to Akaboshi simply by putting it in the air in front of her. "This is Maho, Akaboshi."

"Maho, please help me…" Akaboshi begged in a worried tone.

Maho just stoned face to hear Akaboshi's voice. "Koume-san? What did they do to you?"

"Using every way they can to me to spill all information of our plans for the National Tournament," Koume replied, which prompted Katyusha to move the phone back to her mouth. "See? I'm not lying, Maho."

Maho was angry by now and was about to reply, if not for Miho to interfere. "Give me the phone, Maho."

Maho just looked at her in dumbfounded. "Miho, what-?"

"Just give me the bloody phone."

Maho was taken back by Miho's change of tone, it was a good thing that they were saying this in a low voice so that Katyusha or anyone else in the phone didn't hear that. Maho just the phone to Miho in doubt as Miho took it with a nod. Miho looked down on the phone to see the name of the caller. Before she lifted it up near her ear. They thought that Miho was about to say something to the phone, instead Miho was being silent.

It was actually a wise move from Miho, she better let Katyusha and her other friends speak first before she says to the wrong foot.

"So, what do you think, Maho?" Nonna asked in a blackmailing tone. "What will you do about it?"

"You don't want your friend here to be hurt, aren't you?" Klara asked, for sure they just made things personal to Miho.

"Give it up, Maho," Katyusha demanded with her pride. "There's no way you can save her, nor even avoid this."

Despite hearing everything they said from the phone, the only thing that gave them the real creeps was how is Miho's reaction to the blackmail. Miho wasn't giving any reaction to that, except only giving a real cold look. And her eyes were looked like about to turn to a dreadful look slowly. They can see Miho only sighed to the blackmail, seemingly in disappointment. Which is not what they were expecting of Miho's reaction.

After a pause, she replied to them, with a flat tone. "Так вот как это тогда."

From the other side of the phone, Katyusha, Nonna and Klara quickly got up by that reply. They didn't expect to receive a reply from someone who can speak Russian, and had a flat tone.

"Who is this?" Katyusha asked as she leans near the phone.

"Это не имеет значения," Miho replied coldly. "Такая смелая вещь для вас, чтобы сделать такие неприятности."

Katyusha didn't understand Russian, but Nonna and Klara understood that and translated what Miho was saying to Katyusha. They three have decided to stay silent and just listen to what Miho was saying which they don't know it was Miho who talked to her except for Akaboshi.

"Такая постыдная вещь," Miho continued slowly with a high tone. "Что ты сейчас делаешь, не получится."

Miho paused as everyone with Miho were confused on what she was saying, but Katyusha and her friends along with Akaboshi took what was she saying as a serious one. "Делай то, что ты хочешь с Акабоши, мы не заботимся о ней."

Katyusha, Nonna and Klara were flinched of her words, but she wasn't done yet. "Но помечайте мои слова, что-то плохое случится с вами взамен."

Miho paused as Katyusha and her friends looked at each other in disbelieve before Miho continued. "До свидания," Miho then closed the call, leaving Katyusha and anyone else in the room stunned.

Everyone in Katyusha's office fell silent, before Katyusha asked. "So… what did she said?"

"She said that…" Nonna paused, before continued with her eyes narrowed down. "They don't care about what happen to Akaboshi."

"What?!" Katyusha and Akaboshi who was tied to the chair asked in unison and disbelieved. "No, there's no way they don't care about me!" Akaboshi stated furiously.

"It seems they're telling the truth from the way she said it," Klara replied.

"But she also said we'll have something bad in return," Nonna added, which Katyusha didn't care about it.

"No way, Nonna," Katyusha then diverts her gaze to Akaboshi as the rest did the same. "So what will we do to her?"

"Please no…" Akaboshi begged with a shook of her head, they're going to hurt her again.

After Miho closed the phone, she gave it back to Erika by throwing it to her. They were surprised that Miho just closed the call like that instead of Katyusha to be the one to close the call. Miho looked at each of the girls in the room before looking back to her sister. Maho then came over to her as she was wondering what Miho just said to Katyusha and her accomplice.

"What did you say to them?" Maho asked in wonder.

"Well… I said to them that we don't care about what happened to Akaboshi," Miho replied, which she received the reactions that she was expecting.

"NANI!?" everyone including Maho shouted in shock, they can't believe that was what Miho said to Katyusha on the phone.

"Miho, have you lost your mind?!" Erika asked angrily and in disbelieve as her finger poking on her own side of her head. "Why did you said that to them?"

"Do you want to let our friend getting hurt by them!?" Maho asked angrily and worriedly.

"Ironically, I was bluffing about that," Miho replied, which made them comforted a little. "But they took it as a serious one."

"You mean…?" Mauko asked before she trails off.

"Yeah, we're going to get her out from there," Miho replied with a nod.

"We better call Ami for this," Geshiko suggested, which Miho had disagreed on it.

"No, don't call her," Miho said Geshiko, which earned the glares of the commanders including Maho.

"Why?" Maho asked with a tilted head.

"Because they just made this personal."

Maho and the other commanders took what Miho meant as a different kind of personal trouble. "So, what are we going to do to get her out from there?"

"We gonna break her out from that school," Miho replied, which then she pointed her finger to Maho. "And by 'we'. I mean only you, me and Kay."

They were confused on why she would say that, to which something struck Maho's head. "Wait, are you telling me that we're doing a CSAR to Pravda school?"

"Correct, mate," Miho replied with a nod.

"What's CSAR?" Sangou asked, they never this slang before despite it sounded militaristic.

"Combat Search And Rescue," Miho replied as she looked to her. "Me, Maho and Kay are going to break in that school and get her out. They had their own cells, right?"

"For P. stuff, I think so," Ritaiko replied with a shrug and a nod.

"Why are you doing this by yourself with Maho and Kay to save Akaboshi?" Mauko asked, getting the feeling that this doesn't make sense.

"Because Akaboshi is the only person whom I know to be a dear good friend than the rest of you," Miho retorted to them, which that was unexpected. "I'm not going to sit my arse here waiting for someone else to get her out."

Miho paused, before she looked back at Maho who stood next to her. "Alright, Maho, call Kay. I'll meet you back in the base tonight."

"Yes, ma'am," Maho replied with a nod, before Miho headed for the door and left the room.

Alright, she has another assignment to do. And this is personal, so she won't involve anyone who does shoot and kill people. Only herself, Maho and Kay would rather to deal with this.

Hopefully Akaboshi will be alright.


	20. Chapter 19 - CSAR On Pravda

(Call of Duty: MW3 Defiance Music: Stealth Mission)

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Ghost: So let me get this straight. You want to do a raid on a school at night…

Miho: Mmhmm.

Ghost: And also declared all students of Pravda school as hostiles…

Miho: Mmhmm.

Ghost: And break out your friend, Akaboshi. Out from there…

Miho: Yep.

Ghost: This is the first time we have a mission that we had to declare the civilians as hostiles.

Miho: I know it sounds absurd but true.

Ghost: Despite I would go against saving a hostage from an area full of civilians-declared hostiles. I won't argue about it since you're the CO. I just can't believe they just made ya' pissed off just because they made things personal.

Miho: But you know what Price would say.

Ghost: We take care of our friends.

Kay: But how the hell we're going through the students without killing them? They can't kill us whatsoever and killing them would deemed us as murderers.

Maho: Yeah, since there is a commotion about a celebration preparation at that school tonight about the upcoming Exhibition Match.

Miho: We're going to need a non-lethal weapon for this.

Royce: Well, lucky for you. Bazarov already made something for this kind of situation.

Miho: That Russian-chemic maniac? Did he make something for us?

Royce: Quiet a large amount of it.

Viewing Image of Tranquilizer Dart

Small tip of needle at the edge of the dart and small red feathers on the other edge. The hull of the dart similar to a caliber bullet shape

Size: 7.62x51mm NATO caliber

Royce: X125 Tranquilizer Dart. Made with the components of the original stuff for making tranquilizer, mixed up with his own chemicals and the Bushman recipe. It is non-lethal and mostly suitable for the use of MK14 rifles.

Miho: How many did Bazarov made this kind of dart?

Royce: Let's say around a quarter of our armory.

Ghost: Wow, that's enough for us to deal with a riot breakout.

Royce: And more fortunate, it fits to be used on some rifles.

Kay: Sounds nice enough for me.

Miho: He tested these darts, right?

Royce: 1 second and they fell unconscious. Unfortunately, he made the test to animals.

Miho: Well shit, I hope I don't regret using these darts.

Ghost: So, what's the game plan?

Miho: Me, along with Maho and Kay will be the only ones who will raid the school.

Viewing the image of Pravda School Carrier Ship, Kiev.

Standby…

…

…

Viewing area of operations…

Miho: We'll be landing outside the area of the school via parachute and we'll work out from there by foot. Ghost, you'll be our eyes in the sky, get a small plane drone up there after we landed on the target area. We're going in quietly.

Ghost: Yes, ma'am.

Miho: Royce, tell Hannibal to handle our evac from the area.

Royce: Yes, ma'am. Alright, let's get to work.

Miho: I hope the dose Bazarov made didn't kill anyone.

* * *

(CoD: Modern Warfare 2 Soundtrack - Cliffhanger Stealth)

"Snow Fox"

21:49:27

Maho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Pravda school carrier, 40 miles off the south coast of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan.

"Ghost, this is Bravo 1. Touching down in ten."

"Roger that, Bravo 1. Be advised, you got two Pravdas down on your landing area."

"Bravo 3, I see them below us."

"I'll handle it."

*PEW-PEW*

"Hostiles down."

"Touching down, now."

Miho, Maho and Kay had landed down in their landing zone which composed of small snow-covered trees surrounding the landing zone and a flat field of snowy grass in the middle of the trees which located just outside the school are in a distance, after Miho had took out 2 Pravda students with her pistol-modified tranquilizer. It's true to what Bazarov said, one second and they fell asleep. Hopefully the students she just took out didn't fall sick because they were sleeping on a layer of cold snow. Which reminds them, because the location they're in is much more to the north, the weather is really much more cold than before, not even forget to mention it was night which increase the temperature of the cold.

After they checked their surroundings for any probable signs of threat, they then prepped up their weapons and cocked them. They all were wearing MK14 Suppressed rifles along with USP 45 Suppressed pistols, which all were already modified to be used with the tranquilizer caliber darts. They all also have brought in their new toys for this non-lethal mission. They all had Tactical Batons to be used for melee takedowns non-lethally. But also, having a feeling this wasn't enough, they also had to bring in their tactical knives just in case.

As for what clothes they were wearing, all of them wearing their combat uniform in arctic camouflage. Except for some details, like Kay's uniform was a snow-camo pants and snow-camo jacket along with her black Kevlar vest that covers her chest down to her stomach. Kay was also wearing a headgear composed of a snowy-camo cap, black balaclava and tactical visors while her hair was tied into a ponytail. Maho was wearing her snow-camo combat pants but along with her grey hooded-jacket that hides the top of her head and hair, she was also wearing a Kevlar vest but it only covers her stomach since it's shape was made for only bringing a lot of ammo plus with the pistol holster strapped to her leg. Beside her head hood of the jacket act as a headgear, she was also wearing a white balaclava to cover her whole face except her eyes.

Miho was wearing her snow-camo combat pants along with her black jacket with the UK flag patch on her left shoulder. She was wearing a black Kevlar vest that covers her chest down to her stomach, with her pistol along with the holster strapped to her chest while additional rifle ammo was strapped to her leg. She had flashbangs with her along with Maho and Kay in case for escape or breaching a room. As for her headgear, she was wearing a snow-camo helmet along with her black balaclava to cover her mouth to nose and she had a night-vision goggles attached to her helmet. The snow-camo color also applied to their rifles as well, except for the pistols.

It is really important for them to hid their faces in case if this mission goes loud. No one must know that Maho, Kay and Miho are actually soldiers of the 141.

Miho quickly walked over to the Pravda girls she just shot with the darts and quickly checked them with her hand on their necks to feel the breath in their throats. "Alright, they're still alright. Ghost, any update about these darts?"

"Bazarov did a test on one member of ours outside the hangar long ago," Ghost radioed. "According to the experiment, they should stay asleep for 6 hours."

"6 hours?!" Maho asked in shock while the rest of her team members were surprised. "They could die from Hypothermia here."

"And about that, the darts has its own side effect depends on the climate," Ghost radioed back calmly. "Because the region you're in has a very cold weather, they have around 30 minutes from now before they got back up on their feet."

"Unless someone else found them like this," Kay added.

"Correct, so you be better quick," Ghost radioed back. "Seeing how big this commotion is, the chances are getting smaller by the minute."

"Roger that, keep us updated on the radar up in the sky," Miho radioed back before looking back to her teammates.

"We're good to go?" Kay asked to Miho.

"We're Oscar Mike," Miho replied with a nod. "Top off your rifles, ladies. Let's go."

Miho began to marched forward into the trees as Maho followed up to her with Kay behind her, before Miho reminded them via radio. "Remember, we're here to save Akaboshi, not to start a shootout. Use your tac batons to take them down quietly and without killing them. You may use your knife but only for last resort. Understand?"

"Jawohl Kapitän," Maho replied as she and Kay followed up behind Miho.

Maho kept following Miho throughout the gardens of Pravda school. There was nothing out of ordinary for now, but they need to make sure this game plan goes smooth as ever. They turned left following a dirt snowy path after walking forward for 25 meters ahead. They walked as they surveyed the area around them to make sure the coast is clear, Maho had to checked their left and right as her rifle was aiming at those directions. They then make a curve turn to their forward right, following the dirt path. Maho glad this wasn't a bloody maze after they spotted some Pravdas ahead of them.

"Get down, hide at the trees," Miho ordered as they quickly and silently took cover at the nearby trees and hid in the shadows. "Keep quiet."

After Maho hid herself with Kay at a tree, her rifle aims toward the Pravdas ahead. Maho can see there were around a group of ten Pravdas ahead of them, involving themselves into their conversation. They stayed silent to hear what the Pravdas were saying.

"So, what's with this commotion here?" one of the Pravda girls asked.

"It's Commander Katyusha preparing for the upcoming Exhibition Match," another Pravda replied.

"Yeah, I heard that Katyusha still has Akaboshi imprisoned here because the Kuromorimine won't gave up their plans for the match," another one added, this had confirmed Miho's suspicion of Akaboshi's whereabouts.

"Really? Now with this preparation in Pravda going about right now, I'm sure Katyusha will win the match even without finding out the plans from the Kuromorimine," another one added with a raised brow. "And much better for us, with this celebration for our own coming up soon, we could get some warm drink for ourselves right now."

"Yeah, hey comrades," a Pravda girl called as she looked over to her 4 friends out of 10. "Shouldn't we go helping with the celebration preparation this night?"

"Sure, we should go," another Pravda girl replied with a nod. "See you around!"

5 of the 10 students were walking away from the area ahead of Maho's team to their left. The rest 5 of them must've stayed because this is their spot for hanging out. As the 5 Pravda girls walked away from the group, Maho steadies her aim to the girls ahead of them as the rest did the same.

"Told ya' she's here," Miho radioed. "Hold your fire, wait for the girls to walk away further from them."

They waited for a few seconds as they watched the girls who left and the girls who stayed in their spots, after the girls who left were out of sight and out of reach Miho radioed to her team. "Let's take all of them out at once."

"On my mark," Miho then counted down as Maho aims for the 2 girls in the middle of the group and they ready to pull the trigger. "3… 2… 1."

*PENG-PENG-PENG-PENG-PENG*

"Agh!" the Pravda girls yelped in pain, which then one of them pulled the dart out from her neck. "What the…-"

Before any of the Pravdas could react, they all quickly fell down to the ground in one second after they were shot. Putting them down to sleep on the ground as Maho and her teammates walked out from their hiding and move over to the sleeping Pravdas. Maho had to check on of the girl's pulse to make sure they're alive. It's a good thing Bazarov made an update on his darts.

"Beautiful," Miho commented, which made Kay and Maho confused for a moment.

"We're clear," Maho radioed as she looked to Miho.

"Roger, we need to make this quick," Miho radioed back with a nod. "On me."

Maho and Kay quickly followed Miho from behind as they marched forward through the trees instead of following the path down on their left. Miho knew the way to the school so Maho won't even dare to complain about going through the woods, even Kay didn't complain about it (with help of Ghost from the sky). They turned right following Miho's direction through the woods, after they met with a dead end of the woods ahead of them of course. They then turned left again and kept moving forward.

"Kept moving, you're almost out from the woods," Ghost radioed as he monitors Maho's team movements.

"Copy that, Ghost," Miho replied as they reached the next area.

They soon reached a small clearing ahead of them. Which turns out to be the outer part of the school park that are composed of concrete paths cover in snow, plants behind the square fences, and small trees spread throughout the school park with a few lamp posts at each part of the concrete path. Concrete path was quiet wide nearly as a small road for cars. But, before any of them reached the clearing of the forest, they heard small chatters and footsteps from their left.

"Bravo 1, you got hostiles coming up to your left," Ghost radioed quickly.

"Get down, now," Miho radioed as they quickly prone down into the snowy ground, right at the edge of the clearing.

They soon spotted around a group of 12 Pravda girls ahead of them coming from their left on the dirt path. They all were looked like celebrating for the upcoming match soon. They were a little away from Maho's team which is fortunate. They waited as their rifles aim toward the Pravdas.

"Let them pass," Miho radioed as they watched the Pravdas walking away.

True to Miho's words, the Pravdas didn't notice Maho's team were there due to their camouflage and the darkness. The Pravdas only passed them as they talked to each other as if there's nothing happened. Miho quickly looked around in front of them as they kept their eyes on the walking away Pravdas.

After they walked away, enough for those Pravdas to not look behind them, Miho gave the order. "Move up."

Miho was the first to get up before Kay and then Maho. They quickly moved forward in a crouching stand, before turning left after passing through a gap in between the fences. Maho stayed at her spot as they turned left, watching their six, before she catches up with her teammates. They moving forward into a right curved as they traversed throughout the school park. They even barely passed through paths that has lights.

"Stick to the shadows," Miho radioed. "We don't want to blow our cover."

"Rog'," Kay replied as they marched forward.

They kept moving up forward before turning right at an intersection before turning left again after reach another intersection. They stopped at their tracks to check their surroundings first, before they're heading out again. As they kept moving forward, they can see the school ahead of them. It was damn big as the Empire States Building, except much shorter. They stopped to take a good look at the school.

Besides the middle part of the building was nearly shaped like the Empire States Building, exception for the red star on top of the antenna on the roof. The building has two wings, each wings had at least covered around 10 plus floors with each edge has been curved into 90 degrees forward. Each curves of the roof of the wing building has two big clocks barely looked like the Big Ben's clock, while at the corner points of the wing building had two antenna-like building with the bottom shape into a wide square one which they weren't sure if those are also the clocks. And you know, this is one big school, and Maho's team position was right in front of the right wing of the school about 200 meters away.

"Damn, this is one big school," Miho started. "It would be a shame, if something happens to it…"

There was something to what Miho was saying, which Maho and Kay looked at each other in discomfort before looking back to Miho. "You're not imagining something bad to it, right?" Maho asked to check Miho's mental on it.

"That was a dark humor, mate," Miho replied, alright that made Maho and Kay much uncomfortable about it.

"I agree with ya', Captain," Ghost radioed to Maho's and Kay's disbelieves. "It looks like I'm staring at a big version of the White House."

"Why have you make things look so concerning right now, Ghost?" Kay asked in annoyance, had enough of this discomfort.

"Hey, it's not that bad," Ghost radioed back. "You're not the one who got buried in the ground, you know?"

"For real, Ghost?" Kay asked in annoyance as she lifted her eyes up to the sky.

"Cut the chatter, mate," Miho said in the radio. "Ghost, do you see the front door of the school?"

"I see it, and I won't suggest you go through there," Ghost replied. "We got a lot of activities at the front door of the school, the huge crowds might still be decorating their front door right now."

"We need an entry to the school," Miho radioed back, scoffed under her balaclava. "Can you see any for us?"

"Standby…" Ghost paused in his radio as Maho and her teammates watched their perimeter. "I found one, it's on the right wing of the school ahead of you. There should be minimum security and a few Pravdas there."

"You do know the securities are the Pravda girls as well, right?" Maho asked which then she received the glares of her teammates.

…

…

…

Miho and Kay seemed to be disbelieve on what they've just heard, even Ghost didn't know about that. "I didn't see that coming," Ghost radioed as if he sounded cringed.

"Yeah, and we need to keep moving," Miho said in the radio. "Bravo 2, Bravo 3, on me."

Maho moved forward along with Kay as they followed Miho who lead the way with their rifles raised for 50 meters, which then Ghost radioed. "Be advised, got a group of 4 hostiles heading your way in front of you."

"Affirmative, I see them," Miho replied as they reached an intersection, she then waved her left hand to her left. "To the left."

Maho and Kay obeyed her order and take the left path which leads them forward and closer to their objective, Miho followed up behind them as they were away from the Pravdas on their right and passed them. They had to stop and hide behind the plants, pots and fences that didn't have gaps after one of the Pravdas in the group noticed something moving on the path their right. But after the Pravda girl claimed it was her imagination and her group kept walking on away from Maho's team, they were safe to move up and kept their heads down.

After they walked around 50 meters forward, they had to stop because there were two Pravdas walking down the path they're on ahead of them. Maho and Miho then shot them, and both of the Pravda Girls fell down to the ground unconscious. Maho's team quickly walked over to the girls they shot and hid them in the bushes on their left and right. After their job was done, they quickly moved up forward for another 100 meters to their objective.

After they reached the right wing, they quickly hide behind a truck on their right and a small wall on the left at the edge of the school park. They then peeked out from their covers with their weapons aimed at the entry of the right wing building. The entry on the right wing was a big wide doorless gateway with the top of the gateway was shaped into a half circle. There were around one Pravda each at the sides of the gateway, acting as the security and can be known for they were wearing their Ushankas on their heads. Both the Pravda securities were guarding the gate while around 4 Pravdas were talking out in the open in front of the gate which two of them were near the truck and the wall the team were hiding at, discussing about the topics of the Exhibition Match and planning the decorations for the school at that gate.

"We're seeing 6 hostiles at the entry," Miho radioed to Ghost from behind her cover of the truck. "Any news from the front door?"

"Still the same thing, you're in the clear," Ghost replied back, Maho smiled under her balaclava for that.

"Roger that, Kay, get those Pravdas closer to us," Miho ordered lowly as she slowly pull out her tac baton.

"Ok," Kay then peeked her head out and the whistled to the two Pravdas who were near to them. "*FWEET*"

"Huh?" both the Pravdas looked toward the source of the whistle after Kay quickly hides the wall while the rest of the Pravdas and the securities didn't pay any attention to both of these girls.

They both decided to get closer to the source by walking toward the truck and the small wall ahead of them. They didn't call out hence they felt it's just their imagination as they stepped closer to the source. But when they stepped through in between the truck and the small wall, it was too late for them to react. Miho and Maho quickly went out from cover and dragged them out of sight into cover with their batons. Maho took one out by crossing her baton across the girl's neck and quickly held the other end of the baton before forcing her to the ground by doing a quick turn and hits her face to the ground, taking her out unconscious due to the intense pain on her neck after Maho forced her down. Miho on the other hand, took one out by pulling the girl in by the collar at the corner of the truck and threw her in to Miho's left, and quickly hits her face with the baton before the girl able to scream. Maho and Miho quickly put their backs against their covers as they holster their batons after that.

The Pravdas who were at the open and guarding the gate did take their attention to their surroundings for a moment. They went confuse after founding out that two of the girls weren't with them. But they shrugged off their thoughts about it because they though they left for some business. They decided to go back to what are they doing at the gate and in the open in front of the gate.

Maho and her team then aimed their rifles out of their cover and aim them to the rest of the 4 Pravdas. "Take them all out?" Maho asked for confirmation.

"Affirmative, on three," Miho counted. "One… two… three."

*PENG-PENG-PENG-PENG*

"Agh!"

"Ugh!"

"Aigh!"

"Eik!"

"What the…?" one of the Pravda securities asked before she trails off and fell down unconsciously as the rest of the Pravdas fell down as well due to the darts.

"All clear," Maho radioed, before they walked out from cover and headed for the gate.

"Roger," Miho replied, they held up at the gate for the moment. "There's no time to hide these girls, we have around 10-15 mikes before the others found these Pravdas on the snow."

"You sure about that?" Kay asked in doubt of the calculations.

"Trust me, I did this a lot," Miho replied with a nod. "Let's just hope the Pravdas didn't bolt out from the front door to see these girls' sooner."

"Yes, Captain," Kay replied, before they went through the gate and in the building with their weapons armed.

It turns out the gate they went through was actually the gate for the Ceremony Area. After they entered the ceremony area, they quickly took out two Pravdas who were tending the area up on the podium. They fell to the ground with a thump but not able to scream to their luck. Maho looked around the large area of the ceremony facility, and had acknowledged her teammates that she a door on their right. Miho agrees and they all went to that door and entered a hallway. They moved on from there before turning left at the end of the hallway.

The hallway they're in were a mix of white and red color. The floor was either made from elegant wood or white and cream-colored ceramic. There are banners of the school's logo hanged on the walls of the hallway. They couldn't describe more beside there are a few rooms in the hallways and there are parts of the hallway that was not illuminated with light to their advantage of stealth.

Maho was glad to know that Miho has a sense of direction to their objective. If not, they'll be spending hours stuck in this building before got fucked by the Pravdas. They kept moving on along the hallway, they kept moving forward as they passed an empty intersection. They kept moving on onto another intersection, but had to stop a little far from it because there were other 3 Pravdas walking up from the right to the left of the intersection. After they walked away, Maho and her team headed right to where the Pravdas did come from with Kay watching their six on the Pravdas.

They kept walking on with their rifles aimed forward as they traversed the hallway full of rooms, probably classes and offices. As they walked, there was one new problem for them. They need to find out where they held Akaboshi, because according to Ritaiko the Pravdas might have some sort of jail in this school. This then gave Miho an idea to try prosecute and provoke one of the Pravdas to tell them about Akaboshi's location. When Kay asked how will Miho make the Pravda girl tell them that, she replied with she will asked her nicely.

The word 'nicely' was sounded pretty dark from Miho.

After they took a left turn and walked on, they found an office that has its door open on their left. Much more fortunate for them was that they can hear there were a couple of Pravda girls inside. They quickly stacked up at the open door with Miho was at the very front with Maho and then Kay behind her. Maho saw Miho was peeking out her cover to look through the open door, and had a feeling that Miho was quite pleased to see someone they weren't expecting. Miho pulls her head back in and then looked over to Maho.

"There's two inside, one Pravda," Miho paused. "And other is Nina."

"What?" Maho was surprised to know this. "You want to provoked Nina?"

"Yeah," Miho then looked back at the door. "She'll give us the intel we need."

"How do you think she will give us the intel like that?" Kay asked as she frowned underneath her balaclava and winced her eyes underneath her cap in doubt.

"I know her, mate," Miho replied as she peeked through the door for a moment. "She's sloppy."

Miho peeked out again, but then she tensed up to see something. "Get back and get down, the Pravda is coming out now."

It was the good thing that the position of the office was at the dark part of the hallway. Maho and her teammates quickly and silently get back from the door and crouched down with their rifles raised at the door. They waited for a moment, and then a Pravda girl stepped out the door. Maho was glad to see it wasn't Nina who walked out the office. The Pravda girl only turned to her left and walked away from Maho's team, not having the feeling that something was off.

Maho and her teammates slowly approached the door and enter the office quickly but silent due to their light feet. So silent that even Nina didn't even turned her back because she wasn't hearing a thing. They see that Nina was currently collecting the scattered documents on the table and putting them in the box as Maho's team was coming closer to her slowly from behind. Ironic, reminding that the rest of the Pravda girls were decorating their schools for the upcoming Exhibition Match. While Nina, had to deal with the documents in her hands.

Maho had an imagination if Nina was Miho's assistant to deal with the paperwork.

Miho was already right behind her with her rifle slung in front of her and only with bare hands with Maho and Kay lowered their rifles, the door behind them is already closed silently. It's just about timing to interfere with her.

"Aaargh, why do I always the one who deal with this nonsense?!" Nina exclaimed in annoyance and disappointment to herself as she carelessly waved her hand in the air in front of her face.

"Because you are a sloppy girl," Miho answered, which made Nina jumped to the answer and quickly looked behind her.

They can see it, the look of horrified face of Nina. Looks like Nina had felt her nightmare becomes too real. Nina was giving her horrified face as she left her jaw open to the unknown three armed-to-the-teeth soldiers, thanks to their headgears Nina didn't know who are they, as she was speechless and don't know what to do. Miho approached Nina slowly as Nina steps backwards slowly until her back hit the desk. Their prey is trapped in the office helplessly.

As Miho approached her, Nina then began to scream. "HEE-!"

*PAK*

"-Akh!"

Only to end due to Miho just hit Nina's throat, hard.

Nina then dropped her upper body down to her left after the hit on her neck on the desk. Fortunately, she's still up as she was choking and holding her own neck in pain. Miho then forced Nina up to in front of her face by grabbing the collar of her uniform and dragged her up. Nina was scared shitless to stare straight into the eyes of a female soldier in front of her, she can't even dare to remember what's the color of her eyes was plus with the shadow that covers her eyes. Maho and Kay only stood by behind Miho and watched her interrogation with Nina.

It was clear how afraid Nina was. Sweats were climbing down her forehead. She was breathing unnaturally as if she was at the edge of the horn. And her body was trembling in fear as she looked at the soldier in front of her.

"Who-who are you..?" Nina asked in fear as her voice was stammered.

"That does not matter," the soldier replied, which Nina doesn't know that was Miho. "What matters right now… is that you have something that we're looking for. To be exact, someone that we're looking for."

"Wha… what are you talking about?" Nina asked as she was sounded confused, but Miho knew that was a false confusion.

"Akaboshi," Miho replied, this made Nina surprised that these soldier knew the prisoner's name. "Where did you held her?"

"N-no, I can't!" Nina replied back in denial and in panic. "If I tell you, Katyusha will-!"

Miho quickly grabbed her neck and forced her down to the desk on her back, merely interrupting her to keep talking. Miho was choking Nina down which made Maho was surprised by Miho's sudden violence as Nina was choking for breath. Maho was about to walk over to Miho, but then her shoulder was grabbed by Kay to stop her and looked at her. After Kay shook her head to Maho, she had to understand to let Miho do her work. Maho stepped back to her place and watched Miho progressed on her interrogation.

"Would you more worried about Katyusha purging you, or me making you can't talk anymore?" Miho asked darkly and angrily, Nina understand what the means of her question especially the last part.

She will break her neck.

Nina had to think quickly before the soldier reached the edge of her nerves, a few seconds later she has to give up. "Alrig-ght, alrig-ht, I'll.. talk. I'll talk! Please!"

Miho quickly let go of her neck as Nina kneel to the ground and quickly took a deep breath by her mouth and nose. Nina was holding her own neck due to the pain Miho made while she was holding her. Nina slowly stood up with the help of the desk behind and looked at the soldier with the helmet and balaclava headgear. She paused for a moment to remember as her body shook in fear.

"A-Akaboshi is currently with Katyusha, Nonna and Klara," Nina quickly answered as her hands were placed on the desk behind her. "After you turned left from this room, turn left again until you found the stairs to the basement on your right. Go downstairs and then turn right, just keep walking until you reach a metal door where Akaboshi is held in. I don't know if there's any girls who will be guarding that place. T-that's all I know! I swear it!"

Miho then turned her head to behind her to look at her teammates, and then give them a nod. The other two soldiers then nodded back to her before Kay walked out the office to the left to secure the perimeter. Maho holds her rifle back up as Miho turned her head to Nina. Nina wasn't sure what this soldier will do to her now.

"Thank you, you have brought yourself some time," Miho said to Nina with a nod, they both paused for a moment in their stance.

*BAK*

"For now."

And Miho just knocks Nina out cold by a hit to the side of her neck with her bare hand. And she fell down hard onto the floor, facing her front to Miho and Maho. This did take Maho by surprise, but then again she was reminded of how important for them to not blow their cover. Miho walked away from the knocked out Nina and headed for the door with Maho following up behind her but not after she took a last look on the girl Miho had knocked out.

Miho and Maho quickly walked over to Kay who was watching the left side of the office in the hallway from behind her. Maho stayed standing still while Miho nearly crouched down behind Kay, before she squeezed Kay's shoulder to signal her to move. They then kept moving forward with Kay leading the way. As they walked with their rifles aimed forward, Maho had a doubt on what Nina said.

"Are you sure she was telling the truth?" Maho asked in the radio as they marched forward.

"I'm sure, I bet my life on it," Miho replied with confidence. "Ghost, this is Bravo 1. We got the location of the hostage and we're heading there now. How's it looking out there?"

"It looks like they're going to finish their job outside," Ghost replied as he was turning the camera of the drone outside. "You got 6 minutes' tops to get her out from there."

"Copy that," Miho replied as they turned left at the corner of an intersection. "We need to hurry before they found out we're here."

"Roger that," Kay replied as they walked forward.

They kept walking on down with rifles raised ahead at the empty intersection at a distance. After stepping forward for a few moments, they spotted the stairs Nina mentioned on their right. They quickly stacked up at the right side of the stairs. Then Kay quickly went out of cover and aimed her rifle down the stairs.

"Stairs, clear," Kay stated as she's still aiming her rifle down the stairs.

"Copy," Maho then followed Miho from behind as they passed Kay and then they all went downstairs.

After they reached the bottom of the floor, Maho, Miho and Kay quickly formed up a line and aimed their rifles to their right of the corridor in crouch stance. That's when they spotted 3 Pravdas were guarding the corridor, didn't noticed the team was there because they were talking to each other and the team were in the dark part of the corridor.

"Weapons free," Miho ordered and they opened fire.

*PENG-PENG-PENG*

All the Pravdas quickly got shot and then fell down to the ground after 1 second upon contact of the darts. The area was clear, but then Maho had a feeling there was something she missed. Before she found out what was it however, she just saw Miho turned around to behind her with her MK14 aimed. And then Miho quickly pulled the trigger.

*PENG*

Turns out, she just shot one Pravda who had turned up at the corner of the other corridor behind them. The Pravda didn't have time to react and she fell down to the ground unconscious instead. Miho then looked back at Maho who was surprised that Miho knew that coming.

"Clear. Keep your guard up, mate," Miho said to Maho. "Let's go."

Then they marched forward down the corridor with their weapons at ready. At first there were no doors at sight in the corridor full of pipes, grey walls and dark floors. But after a few moments of walking forward, they see the door ahead of them. The door they were looking at was the one Nina had mentioned, it was the metal door they were looking for. They quickly stacked up at the metal door, the left side is Maho and Kay while on the right is only Miho.

They stayed silent to hear if there's someone behind this metal door. And true to their hopes, there was someone inside, or rather, 4 peoples inside the closed room. Maho had planted her ear onto the wall to hear it through the wall. Miho did see what Maho do and did the same thing on her end.

"Come on, Akaboshi," a voice heard, it was Katyusha. "Give it up already."

"You're already weak now," another voice said, it was Nonna. "Stop fighting back."

"Nonna, Katyusha, don't you think she had enough?" another pity voice was heard, that was Klara.

"No, I can't…" to their shock, they just heard Akaboshi in a pain voice. "Stop this, please…"

Maho quickly looked over to Miho in concern. "We need to get in there," Maho stated.

"Kay, door knob charge," Miho ordered, to which Kay obeyed.

Kay quickly left her rifle hanging on her front, walked passed Maho and then to the door. She pulled out the charge and tied it to the door knob of the door. The charge maybe not enough to blow the door to the ground, but it's good enough to bust the metal door open. After Kay tied it up, she pulled the rope trigger underneath the charge and quickly walked back to her position behind Maho. They then braced for impact for the incoming explosion from the charge.

*DUAR*

Maho quickly went in the room as she felt the time was turning much slower. With her rifle raised ahead, she could see Katyusha, Nonna and Klara were all turn around to Maho. The looks they had was the expression of horrified, shock and panic as they left their jaw agape. Before any those girls could react, Maho took her shot and quickly shot them all one by one. Nonna got shot in her left chest, Klara got shot in the neck and then Katyusha got shot in the stomach. After that, the time for Maho quickly comes back to normal.

Katyusha, Nonna and Klara then fell down to the ground after succumbing to the effects of the tranquilizer darts. Katyusha was the first who got knocked out from the dart. What did surprise her was that Nonna and Klara was still awake as they pushed their own upper bodies from the ground weakly. They need to be put to sleep, so Maho shot them both twice before they quickly dropped their upper bodies to ground with a thud. Maho came closer to the girls she shot to make sure they are asleep right now. Thankfully they were completely in full doses of the tranquilizer drug that they can't even hear a thing when they were sleeping.

Miho and Kay quickly came in the room with their rifles raised, only to found out Maho took care of it first. They all quickly looked forward beyond the drugged off Pravdas, and found Akaboshi was tied to a chair. They all quickly opened up their balaclavas plus and their headgears before running over to Akaboshi. Kay quickly pulled out her knife and began to untie Akaboshi as Miho quickly crouched down and looked up to Akaboshi's face while Maho stood back behind Miho.

Akaboshi was in a sorry state. Akaboshi was looked like got beaten up earlier by these girls. There were bruises around her faces and some small scars around her cheek and her forehead. Akaboshi was looked very tired but she was still strong enough to stand up. And her breathing was quite irregular due to the recent beatings. And she was quite unaware of what just happened.

Miho quickly lifted Akaboshi's face and looked straight at each other, Miho saw Akaboshi was unaware she was here as her eye lids half-closing her eyes. "Christ, what have they done to you?" Miho asked softly and in pity to see the girl's state.

"Akaboshi, you're alright?" Miho asked softly.

"W-what…?" Akaboshi said weakly as if her head was still dizzy, but she able opened up her eyes a little.

"Akaboshi, it's me, Miho," Miho said again after Kay managed to untie Akaboshi. "You're okay, mate?"

"Hu-huh?" Akaboshi blinked her eyes before opening up again and lifts her head a little, and she can't believe who was right in front of her. "Mi… Miho?"

"Yeah, it's me," Miho replied with a soft smile as then holds Akaboshi's shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," Akaboshi replied in a weak voice and a smile as she able to stood up from the chair with Miho's help. "I knew you didn't mean it when you said you don't care about me."

"I was bluffing on that one," Miho replied with a smile, but then frowned. "I'm sorry about that. I have to get some time to plan about getting you out of here. I'm sorry to let you got hurt by them for a moment."

"It's alright, I understand," Akaboshi then looked over to Maho and Kay who was right behind Miho. "Commander, Kay, it's good to see you."

"It's good to see you too, sis," Kay replied with a nod and smile, then continued by Maho. "I'm glad you're still okay."

"Thank you, Maho-san," Akaboshi replied with a smile but with a half-weak voice.

"Can you walk?" Miho asked, hoping they didn't do much damage to Akaboshi.

"Yeah, I can," Akaboshi replied.

"Good," Miho then turned her head to her teammates. "Let's get her out from here."

"Roger that, let's go," Kay replied with a nod before one by one they walked out from the room and walked back in the corridor. "Ghost, this is Bravo 3. We got the hostage, we're heading to our exfil point now."

"Roger, be advised. Some of the Pravdas just found some of the girls you took out outside. Get the bloody hell out from there now."

"Scheisse, they'll be over us soon enough," Maho commented worriedly as they walk and covered back their heads with their own headgears.

"Then we need to be quick," Miho then pulled out her sidearm and give it to Akaboshi. "Koume, I hope you're okay with shooting someone. Don't worry, it's a tranquilizer gun. This won't kill people."

"Don't worry, I trust you, Miho," Akaboshi replied with a nod, before they kept moving up to the stairs.

"And remember, don't call us by our names," Miho said to Akaboshi as they walked. "We don't want the Pravdas know that we were the ones who rescued you. Call us with our callsign Bravo 1, 2 and 3 if you want to tell us something or warn us."

"Got it."

After they reached the stairs, they quickly run up the stairs and then turned right in the hallway. They held up for a moment at the spot before moving forward after knowing everyone's good to go. They jogged to the end of the hallway to reach an intersection before going left. They kept moving forward quickly in hallway with their weapons raised except for Akaboshi who holds the pistol below the stomach and pointing it to the ground on her left.

They quickly turned left at an intersection before quickly turn right after taking a short walk in the small hallway. Maho and Akaboshi quickly shot down two Pravdas that were walking right toward them. They didn't worry about the girls they shot and kept moving forward. Miho said to them to keep moving. They only jogged forward and passed around 2 intersections ahead of them.

As they were tracking back to their exit, there was a loud unexpected voice from the speakers.

"TO ALL STUDENTS OF PRAVDA. RED ALERT. WE HAVE INTRUDERS IN OUR SCHOOL. I REPEAT, WE HAVE INTRUDERS IN OUR SCHOOL. TO ALL SECURITIES AND AVAILABLE STUDENTS IN THE SCHOOL, FIND THE INTRUDERS IMMEDIATELY."

They need to get out from here, fast.

"We've been compromised!" Kay said aloud to their detected state.

"Everybody run! NOW!" Miho barked to everyone, they then began running back to the ceremony hall.

(MW3 Soundtrack: Subterranean Recon)

They quickly sprinted through the halls as fast as they can to reach the exit of the school. They had to past a few intersections first before their path got block by two of the Pravdas ahead of them. Instead of shooting because they were too close, Maho and Kay had to go melee on them. Maho hits one Pravda's face with the butt of her rifle while Kay Whipped out her baton and swings and hits another Pravda's head hard without stopping to run. They just kept running ahead with a few turns at the intersection before they quickly have reached the ceremony hall.

They were at other side of the ceremony hall instead at the gate of the ceremony hall. They quickly turned left from the exit of the hallway and quickly dispatched some of the Pravdas down ahead of them. Maho quickly shot two of the Pravdas on the podium on their left while Miho and Kay shot 4 of the Pravdas on their right who were running up to them. They quickly marched forward, only to be blocked again by 4 Pravdas that came into the hall through the gate ahead.

The team and Akaboshi quickly stopped and aimed their weapons to the Pravdas that were charging at them. Before those who charged able to reach them, they all got shot by Maho's team once before they go down to the ground, making them to sleep due to the darts. They quickly run forward and reached the gate ahead of them. After they went out, they didn't expect to see around 10 of the Pravda girls were right outside the gate with 4 of them of whom they shot before.

"It's the intruders!" One of the Pravda securities said as she pointed her finger at them while the rest of Pravda stared at them and tensed up.

"Hostiles, take 'em down," Miho ordered and they 4 quickly raised their weapons and began shooting them.

Maho had shot 4 of the Pravdas on their left while Miho and Kay shot down the other 4 on their right. Two of the Pravdas ahead of them were the ones who able to react by charging at the team as Maho turned her rifle towards them. Before she could pull the trigger, Akaboshi pulled the trigger first and shot them both in which they quickly tumbled down to the ground as they charge. Maho quickly reloads her MK14 and quickly go to their right.

Their exfil point was on the northwest side of the school for around 600 meters from the school. They will be evacuated from the area via Black Hawk. They need to be fast enough if they want to reach their LZ, or else the Pravdas will dial them in. To make things worst was that the LZ was right in the open spot so they need to be fast enough to get there before the Pravda does.

"We need to keep moving northwest of here!" Miho said in the radio as they quickly ran to the northwest after walking out from the corner of the building. "Let's pick up the pace people!"

"Why are we heading that way?" Akaboshi asked nearly aloud as they run.

"That's our extraction point," Maho replied quickly. "We need to reach there before the Pravdas catch us off!"

"Havoc 1-1, this is Bravo 1, we're heading to the evac point, over," Miho radioed as they quickly reached the edge part of the school park and went in through there.

"Bravo 1, this Havoc 1-1, copy that. Heading to the LZ with Parrot 2-2 and Parrot 2-3. ETA in a few minutes, over," Havoc 1-1 replied, which is actually Hannibal the pilot.

"Roger that, be advised. We're coming in hot, we have Pravdas chasing right from our 6!" Miho radioed back before switching channel to Ghost as they run on a path of the school park. "Ghost, what's the status on the Pravdas?"

"Most of the Pravdas are looking around the school, wait hold on," Ghost paused to check on the radar. "Bravo 1, be advised, you got multiple hostiles coming up from your right ahead of you!"

True to his words, a lot of Pravda students quickly showed from their right through the small trees right in front of them a little far. "There they are!"

"Shite!" Miho quickly threw a flashbang as the Pravdas quickly charged at them. "Bang out!"

Maho and her teammates quickly looked away from the Bang-nade as she forced Akaboshi to look away from it.

*BANG-BANG-BANG -BANG -BANG -BANG -BANG -BANG -BANG*

It wasn't just a flashbang… they actually bring their Nine-Bangers.

"AAAAAAGH!" all of the Pravdas screamed in pain as they all were blinded and deafened by the Nine-Banger and some of them tumbled to the ground and all of them closed their eyes and closed their ears tightly.

"They're stunned, let's go!" Maho shouted and they quickly ran up to their left passing all of the stunned Pravdas.

"Bravo 1, what was that?!" Akaboshi asked as she was confused on what did Miho just threw at the Pravdas.

"A Nine-Banger, that should keep them at bay while they are blinded and deaf for a moment," Miho quickly replied as they run through a treeline. "Keep running! Don't stop!"

Now they are out in the open, 300 meters left for them to reach the LZ. Now the area they're in was an empty field of concrete-covered snow. Buildings are sighted on their right around 500 meters in distance while on their left was the school park that was slowly to fade away in distance as they run. They need to keep running to the northwest to reach their extraction point.

They kept running up until at one point Akaboshi got tripped and fell to the ground. They quickly stopped for a moment as Maho quickly helped Akaboshi to get back on her feet. "Come on!" They quickly get back to their running pace and kept running forward. And suddenly some of the Pravdas quickly showed up from the fading away school park on their left.

Maho and the rest of the team including Akaboshi didn't stop running and quickly gunning down the Pravdas that were charging from their left. The Pravdas on their all quickly shot and fell down to the ground as another group of 6 Pravdas showed up from their right. They quickly aimed at the group on their right and opened fire as they run, putting all of them sleeping on the ground. There was another group behind them but was dispatched by Maho and Kay throwing their 9-Bangers at them. They kept running forward as they ignored the cold of the winter and the fog of breathes they made.

"Bravo team, be advised. You got a horde of Pravdas coming up from your 6 about 200 meters from you!" Ghost quickly radioed which they quickly prompted to look behind them as they run.

There was really the big horde of the Pravda students, not forget to mention that Katyusha, Nonna and Klara were already awake and they are at the very front of the horde. Though, that's not the only thing that baffled them.

"Fuck me! They just brought a couple of T-34s onto us!" Kay shouted in disbelieve as they run and quickly turned their heads forward.

"Now that's just bullshit!" Maho commented aloud, agreed to Kay.

"Just shut up and keep running!" Miho shouted quickly as they run, then quickly switched to her comms. "Havoc 1-1, we need that extraction now!"

"Hang on, Bravo 1, ETA 40 seconds," Havoc 1-1 replied calmly as the team keep running to the evac point.

They kept running to the evac point, until they quickly stopped in the middle of the field while there are buildings ahead of them around 100 meters. This quickly made Akaboshi confused on why they just stopped like that. Maho, Kay and Miho quickly made a perimeter around Akaboshi, aiming their rifles into three directions onto Pravdas. For Maho, dealing with a large crowd like this was something she doesn't like about. The Pravdas were getting closer to them, around 150 meters left. Maho and her team will be surrounded soon.

"I thought you said you'll lead us to the extraction point!" Akaboshi stated aloud in confusion.

"Akaboshi, this is the extraction point!" Kay quickly replied as Maho kept her eyes forward to the Pravdas and Akaboshi felt flinched to hear that.

From afar, around 100 meters left for the Pravdas, they can hear Katyusha shouting. "You have nowhere to go! You better give up now!"

"Where's the damn helo!?" Maho asked aloud in worry.

"You have nowhere to go!" they heard Katyusha shouted as the horde of Pravda are closing in, 50 meters left. "Drop your weapons and give up!"

"HAVOC 1-1! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU!?" Miho barked loudly in her radio as they prepared to squeeze their triggers.

Maho, Akaboshi and her team were about to pull their triggers as the Pravdas were 30 meters away from them. And suddenly, something unexpected happened.

*BBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT*

A heavy loud of firing minigun quickly stormed the ground between the Pravdas and the 141 soldiers along with the hostage. Making holes on the ground as it moved from the team's left to the right quickly to make a large straight line to divide the territories of the two forces. This made all of Pravdas including Katyusha, Nonna and Klara and those who rode the tanks quickly stopped and jumped back from the incoming attack. Some of the Pravdas including Katyusha quickly fell back to the ground after the frightening firing of the minigun as they all quickly covered their faces from the dust produced from the bullets storming the ground. Maho and her team nearly braced themselves for the incoming fire while Akaboshi was jumped to see that coming.

Then suddenly, the snow dust that blinded their vision was quickly cleared away by a sudden strong that came out from nowhere. And what surprised them except the 141s was that the Pravdas hear the sound of a loud engine up in the air. They all looked up, and was quickly horrified at what are they seeing. There was a small flying object, it was looked like the helicopter that Kuromorimine has but very different. It was very small like a black big egg while on its wings it has armaments that they didn't know it were miniguns and missiles, and also they didn't know it was the AH-60 Little Bird chopper. It quickly flew and hover a little bit far from the 141s on their right rear as its face towards the Pravdas, armed to the fucking teeth.

Then quickly, another Little Bird came into view in the air from the 141s left rear and face towards the Pravdas. The two armed Little Birds quickly turned on their spotlight and point the lights to all of the Pravdas and the 141s on the ground. Nonna, Klara along with the rest of the Pravdas including those inside the tanks were quickly horrified by the sight as Katyusha did the same thing for a moment before looking at one of the soldiers in front of her, specifically the soldier with the helmet and balaclava which she didn't know that was Miho. Maho and Kay kept their eyes on the Pravdas while Akaboshi looked at the Little Birds behind the team in astonishment.

And then they heard the Black Hawk was closing in to the ground behind the team.

(Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 - PMC Theme at 2:26 or Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 PMC Victory Extended Theme)

"Bravo team, the cavalry has arrived," Havoc 1-1/Hannibal said as he lands the chopper behind the team and one of the chopper crew opens the left door for the team. "Get on board, now."

"Kay, get the hostage on board," Miho ordered as she didn't move nor moving her eyes off the Pravdas.

As Kay loaded Akaboshi on board the Black Hawk, one of the Little Birds then gave a warning to the Pravdas in Russian. "ДЛЯ ВСЕХ СТУДЕНТОВ ПРАВДЫ. ЭТО ВЫ ПРЕДУПРЕЖДЕНИЕ. СТЕНД НАЗАД И НЕ НАПАДИТЕ. ЕСЛИ ВЫ НЕ СООТВЕТСТВУЕТЕ, МЫ НЕ ВЫБИРАЕМ, НО УБИТЬ ВАС. ЭТО НЕ ПРОСТОТА УГРОЗА."

Despite that these Pravda students were all Japanese (except Klara of course), some of them understand Russian and they were taken back by the warning. Klara had to stop Katyusha from doing a suicide act by charging up to them because of the Russian warning that Katyusha didn't understand about which she had to translate it to her. Even the students in the tanks were all afraid to take the shot because these soldiers could kill a lot of students out here if they did. And when they looked back to the soldiers, two of the soldiers were still aiming their rifles at the Pravdas with the Little Birds helping them in supervision.

After Kay loaded Akaboshi inside the chopper, Kay quickly ran back to the team and quickly held Maho's shoulder for a moment. That was a signal for her to get onboard, Maho then quickly patted Miho by her shoulder which Miho only looked back at Maho and nodded with their rifles still aiming at the students. Miho then looked back at the students, specifically at Katyusha for a moment. Before she along with Maho slowly stepped backwards and then quickly turned around and run to the Black Hawk. Maho quickly get on board the chopper after Kay went in and Miho was the last to get on board and sat down next to Akaboshi. Maho was sitting next to Kay and a crewman across Miho.

Mahon and Miho then looked out the door and watched the Pravdas with sharp eyes. "All units and hostage are accounted for, get this thing in the air now," Kay said to the pilot from her seat.

"Roger that, dusting off now," Hannibal replied, then the chopper began to ascend into the air.

The Black Hawk ascends higher as Maho and Miho watched over to the Pravdas who were all in disbelieve at what are they watching. To see Akaboshi was rescued by unknown soldiers was something horrifying thing for them for sure. After the Black Hawk ascends higher to the minimal height, the chopper then turned around to the south and flew away above the Pravdas along with Parrot 2-2 and Parrot 2-3 from behind. Maho can hear the Pravdas down below can only gasped in astonishment and mumbles about who the hell she is along with the rest of her teammates. Maho and Miho kept looking at the Pravdas through the door, until they are out of sight while the chopper flies forward.

They took a moment to look over the big school of Pravda, before the school is fading away as they travelled much farther to the south. Maho and Miho then divert their eyes into the passengers inside the chopper they're in. Can be said, everyone was happy that this operation was a success. Even though despite the close calls they made, let Parrot 2-2 shoot his miniguns to the ground in between the Pravdas and the team is an example. Akaboshi leaned her head against the chair, and then looked over to Miho and gave back her USP 45.

"Thanks for the pistol, Miho," Akaboshi thanked with a smile as Miho took back her pistol.

"No problem, Akaboshi," Miho replied with a nod. "I'm glad we made it out."

"Barely," Maho added as they opened up their balaclavas and headgears. "Do you really had to let Parrot 2-2 to open fire like that? It could get someone killed you know."

"Yeah, looks like Ami is going to have a big talk with you," Kay added in agreement as she puts her weapon stood next to her.

"That was necessary if we want the Pravdas to stop chasing us," Miho replied as she rubbed her right thigh with her hand. "Besides, some of us are crazy."

Everyone including the crewman all giggled to that. "So, wanna head home?" the crewman asked with a smile.

"Yeah, let's get ourselves some drink first before getting Akaboshi back home," Miho said to the crewman, before looking over to Akaboshi. "Are you okay about that?"

"Sure, I could use a drink from all that running," Akaboshi replied with a nod.

"And also we need to take care about the bruises and scars you have there," Maho added, concern of her friend's condition.

"It's alright, I can handle it," Akaboshi denied, which she receives a hold on her shoulder from Miho.

"Nah, mate. Not after you got locked up there for 3 days," Miho said with a shook of her head and a smile. "Let's take care of those scars when we get back."

"O-oh, thank you Miho-san," Akaboshi replied happily with her eyes closed, but then frowned a little. "But, I'm sorry about what happened to me have been giving you troublesome."

"Easy, mate. That's alright," Miho comforted her as she hugged her shoulders with one arm. "We take care of our friends."

"Umm, Miho?" Maho called as everyone looked at her. "You forgot to tell her something."

"About what?" Miho asked with her brow raised.

"What you said back in Kuromorimine?" Maho replied, that did strike Miho's head.

"Oh, right," Miho replied flatly, Akaboshi was confused by this.

"What you want to tell me about?" Akaboshi asked as she tilted her head waiting for Miho to confess.

"Well, I think I'm fall in love with someone," that caught the attention of Parrot 2-2, Parrot 2-3, Ghost, Hannibal and the crewman with them.

"Wait, what?"

"You're kidding me."

"Woah, what?"

"That's surprising."

"Eh?"

After hearing the reactions of all male units in the radio, Miho continued. "I think I fell in love with Anchovy."

"Huh?" all the male members said out in confusion, while Akaboshi and Kay were surprised about this. "You're telling us you fall in love with a fish?" Hannibal asked confusedly.

*Facepalm*

"No, Hannibal," Maho said in the radio, also heard by Akaboshi. "Miho is actually fall in love with a girl named Chiyomi Anzai."

"Oh, wait what?" Hannibal quickly said, perplexed on something as crewman continued his question. "Did you just said Cpt. Nishizumi fell in love with a girl?"

"Yes, I did."

…

…

…

…

…

"It's a good thing you told me you weren't straight, mate," Ghost interrupted on the radio, which surprised everyone including Kay, Akaboshi and Maho on that.

"Wait, you know that?!" the crewman asked in shock in his radio.

"Yeah, just don't ask," Ghost replied as he was smirking when he checked on the radar back in base.

"That's the first time to hear that from you, Miho," Akaboshi said with a little smile. "Have you considered on… meeting her?"

"I don't know to be honest," Miho then lay rest her head and looked out the door. "I'll think about it."

Maho and the rest only smiled to Miho, which then Maho called her. "Hey, Miho. Looks like Chiyomi actually liked you the first time you met her."

Miho only chuckled at that, and then looked at Maho. "We'll see about that."

Now with Akaboshi has been rescued, they are heading back to base for debrief and taking care of Akaboshi. Maho was happy that her friend will be back to Kuromorimine soon after this. But then, Maho had hoped about Miho's trouble with Ami didn't come severe. Then again, Miho was the captain of the 141.

Miho can handle this trouble, hopefully.

* * *

Outside of Pravda school, after 141 has evacuated from the area.

Katyusha, Nonna and Klara was at the front side of the school. Sitting at a nearby bench at the school park near the left wing of the building. They all have been scarred of the events that just happened tonight. They just lost Akaboshi to a small handful of 3 soldiers, to which they though Maho had sent some of her friends to rescue her. The soldiers they were looking was very out of the ordinary and they never seen this kind of soldiers before. Including the helicopters, the soldiers have been more modern than what the Kuromorimine and Saunders have, Saunders won't be possible to have that because to the fact that they don't have any kind of that chopper except the ones for transporting their Shermans.

They just sat at the bench, trying to process about what had happened this night. As the students of Pravda were taking care on the Pravda students that were neutralized by tranquilizer darts by sending a bucket of ice water to their face. And those who are working on the Exhibition Preparation kept working on decorating their school. Tonight was the worst night they ever had.

First, they lost Akaboshi from their hands. Second, they failed to stop Akaboshi's rescuers from getting out from the area. Three, Katyusha nearly killed herself if not for Klara to stop her after the warning from a little bird has been gave. Four, they just found out that the rescuers they had tried to stop wasn't the students from Kuromorimine, instead they tried to stop armed soldiers. This has been a crazy night for them three.

"Who were those people?" Katyusha asked to Nonna and Klara. "I never seen anyone like them."

"I have no idea, Katyusha," Nonna replied with a sigh. "I never seen anything like it either. They're not look like any soldiers from the JSDF."

"And, Боже мой," Klara paused as she bowed her head down and shook. "I never seen those kind of aircrafts before."

"And they have made quite a mess in here," Nonna added in agreement. "I just can't believe they give a head start to do a warning with its machinegun."

"Thankfully, no one got hurt by that," Katyusha added, but then looked over to Klara. "What about those students that they shot with their rifles, are they still alive?"

"Everyone's still alive," Klara replied, and then she crossed her arms. "I found it odd that they used tranquilizer darts instead of real bullets."

"Yeah, why did they shot us with the tranquilizer darts?" Katyusha asked in confusion. "It's the first time I had a strong effect of the tranquilizer dart."

"Maybe they didn't intend to kill us?" Nonna asked, which surprised Katyusha and Klara.

"That's impossible, Nonna," Klara replied in disagreement. "Why would they brought their helicopter that are armed for bear?"

"I guess that they can make it look like they were very serious about it after the warning they shouted," Katyusha suggested. "In which we just let them get away."

They all paused for a moment, before Katyusha continued. "Also, how did they know Akaboshi was with us?"

Nonna and Klara quickly got up by the question Katyusha had ask, they didn't have that in mind. "Do you think Maho knows them?" Nonna asked with her brow raised.

"That's impossible, all of us including Maho never heard and see those soldiers before," Klara stated, but then paused. "Actually, there were rumors about those kinds of soldiers before."

"Wait, really?" Nonna asked as she and Katyusha looked at her in amazement.

"Yeah, reports from the police said they don't know who these soldiers are, even JSDF don't know about them," Klara replied. "They just came out from nowhere and began to operate in the cities. The only thing they did in the cities was helping the police non-directly by taking care of what happened in the city before the police has arrived."

They all paused in amazement to the rumors Klara just gave, before Katyusha break it up. "But… how did they know we have Akaboshi imprisoned?"

"I don't know," Klara replied with a shrug, before looking over to Katyusha in concern. "If Maho was the one who hired them, that's a maybe but that would be impossible. Hff, what a crazy night."

"Yeah," Katyusha agreed with a nod. "Let's just get some rest for tonight."


	21. Chapter 20 - A Walk In Anzio

Nishizumi Residence, the next morning. 07:30 AM.

Shiho was with Maho in the meeting room, waiting for Miho to come in. Well, actually there was another person in the meeting room with them. Ami Chuono was in present alongside them in the meeting room. Shiho wasn't sure if Ami was angry or worried about what Miho did on her raid on the Pravda school, especially mentioning she along with two unknown soldiers which are Maho and Kay were firing their rifles to the students. So right now, they were waiting for Miho to come into the room as they stayed silent to themselves.

Maho was working on her homework she got from Kuromorimine. Guess Miho was right about Maho needs to catch up with the school. When Shiho looked up on what homework she was working on, it was mathematics. Shiho never said anything about mathematics, not even hate it or even like it. But she had a curiosity to ask Miho about what she thinks about maths. But then again, she decided to wave that though off just in case if her daughter unexpectedly retorted at her.

Ami was drinking on her tea that was served by Shiho's servant, Kikuyo. And she was working on some stuffs that are inside her small laptop (to which at this point Miho found out that the tech of computers was improved a little bit faster here in the 1960 than the other universe without Sensha-Do which started to improve in 1970s). Ami then looked over to Maho who was still working on her homework, and she felt comfortable to see Maho doing that right now instead of shooting. Her memory about watching Miho shot her own sister was still fresh in her mind, not sure if she would say that this is one of the funny things Miho ever did to give someone a heart attack.

Shiho was right now finishes her problem with some of the document she got from the department. But beside that, she had taken something from Miho's room while she was away yesterday. It was actually a picture inside its small stand, she was curious about what pictures Miho kept in the room. A picture of 4 men inside, with an etched writing in it. It said OP KINGFISH – 10/8/13.

Why was she curious of this picture? It's because OP KINGFISH.

Shiho recognized two of the men in the picture, Ghost whom she met and Soap whom she saw in Miho's record. Who she didn't recognize was the other two men between Soap and Ghost. When she looked over at the old soldier next to Soap, she had a feeling that the old man must be Captain Price. She has no idea whoever the last man with the US flag on the chest of his Kevlar vest is.

What she was asking the most of this picture was the meaning of OP KINGFISH.

As they waited, suddenly, the door in front of them was opened and revealed Miho. She was wearing her long-sleeve buttoned dark green shirt that has two pockets on her chest. She was also wearing grey jeans along with her belt pouches on her left side and front along with the straps along her torso that attached to her belt, not including the pistol holster for the straps. She has a left drop bag to hide her M9 Berreta inside, in case of self-defense. A grey boonie hat was on her head and she didn't wear any gloves.

Shiho looked up to her youngest daughter's face. And as expected, Miho had sighed to see Ami was here. Miho then approached the table and then sat down with her legs crossed instead of sitting in _seiza_ position. Though, Shiho and anyone else won't argue about how she sits since she was living in London for year which might have affect her seating. Kikuyo then came into the room from Shiho's left and served a tea for Miho. Then, Kikuyo sat down at the table in between Maho and Miho at the corner of the table.

Don't worry, Kikuyo knew about Miho as the 141 along with Maho.

They had heard Ami sighed as she was working on her laptop. Ami then closed her laptop but not fully so she can continue on her work, she then looked over to Miho. Her elbow landed on the table with her fist holding her cheek as she gave her disbelieve expression to Miho. Miho didn't flinch as always and kept her calm and casual attitude. Miho then looked at Ami and raised her eyebrows as if she was tired of something for a moment.

"Well, well, good to see you coming over here, Ami," Miho started, which made Ami to smirk.

"Really, Miho-san?" Ami asked with sarcasm. "Well, it's good to see you up this morning too."

"How's your job doing back there?" Miho asked as her eyes staring at the laptop.

"Oh, doing well, Miho-san," Ami replied as she straightened her back off the table. "How's it doing on your end?"

"Just another day in the office, mate," Miho replied with a flat smile, but then Ami raised her right brow to that.

"But it's not in the office, doesn't it?" Ami asked suspiciously, which caught Shiho's and Maho's attention.

"Well, you're right about that," Miho admitted before looking over to Maho. "Isn't that right, Maho?"

"Erm, yeah," Maho awkwardly replied as she stopped on her homework. "I'm guessing you're upset about what we did back in Pravda school, Ami-sama?"

"Yeah, I'm upset about it," Ami replied with a nod, still staring at Miho.

"Would you care to tell us why you did that?" Shiho asked softly, the only thing she could do to not angering her youngest daughter.

"We were there, raiding the Pravda School because we have to rescue Akaboshi from there," Miho replied calmly and she sighed. "No one died from that raid, right?"

"Thankfully, none," Ami replied with a relieved sigh as she crossed her arms. "But for those student who got shot by your darts they all got wet by buckets of ice waters to wake them up. And there are some of the students got small bruises on their faces."

"You really gave a bad night for the Pravdas that time," Kikuyo commented with astonishment of what Miho did.

"Sure I did," Miho replied with a nod. "They just made things personal."

"But from the reports I got from the Pravdas, they said that Akaboshi was actually visiting Pravda that night until you raid and kidnapped her from them," Ami stated as she looked onto her laptop. "Your team ran out from there along with Akaboshi and escaped with the Black Hawk, but not after a small chopper shoot out its miniguns to the ground to stop the Pravdas running up to you."

Miho raised her eyebrows as she leans her head forward a little to Ami. "That's bullshit, mate. They're the ones who kidnapped Akaboshi, before we have to raid the school and get her out of there."

This happened to surprised Ami and Shiho for that. "Do you have any proof about it?" Ami asked.

"If you referring to what Katyusha said to us through the phone, then no," Miho replied. "But Katyusha did call us by Erika's phone yesterday."

"Really?" Shiho asked as they were tempted to hear that. "What did she said to you?"

"They demanded that the Kuromorimine's commanders to give up their plans for the future National Tankery Match or they'll hurt Akaboshi," Maho answered flatly. "Katyusha and her right hands kidnapped her about 3 days ago yesterday. And thanks to Miho here, we didn't give up our plans to the Pravdas because she said we don't care about her. Which actually she was bluffing about it."

"And then you raid the school to free Akaboshi from there," Kikuyo added to continue their explanation.

"Correct," Miho nodded with closed eyes. "We have to use non-lethal attacks to get through those students. We wanted to avoid any diplomatic incident and not deeming us as terrorists for killing them."

Ami and Shiho was relieved to Miho's answer. "Honestly, that was a wise decision you made."

"Yeah," Ami added in agreement. "Because you're the one who do all that stuffs, I believe you."

"I know, if you happened going to meet Katyusha again," Miho said to Ami. "Just tell them you know they're lying and give her a warning of what she done."

"Why?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"I want her to think twice before doing something stupid again," a reasonable thing that Miho ever said right now.

"Ah, alright, I'll give them a warning about that," Ami replied with a nod.

Miho then looked over to Shiho, only to notice that she was holding a small picture stand. "What picture you're holding there?"

"Umm, I got this from your room, Miho," Shiho replied as Kikuyo left to excuse herself to take care the kitchen.

"No wonder I lost a picture from my table," Miho commented as looked at the back of the picture. "Why did you take it?"

"I'm actually curious," Shiho replied as she showed the picture to them. "That's Soap and Ghost. Umm, is this old man Cpt. Price you mentioned about?"

"Yeah, that's him," Miho replied with a nod as she remembered her time with him.

"And who's this American soldier?" Ami asked as she pointed to the American soldier in between Price and Ghost. "You didn't mention about him before."

"That's Sandman, an Operator of the US Delta Force," Miho replied, she then paused as she was reminded of the moment of his death. "Ehh, umm…"

"Are you okay?" Shiho asked in concern after seeing Miho's agitated attitude.

"I'm fine, it's just…" Miho paused for a moment with a long sigh. "He's a fine soldier. The best guy we ever met."

Miho only nodded to herself, as they paused for a moment, until Ami started. "What about Soap?"

Miho quickly flinched at that and quickly looked straight at Ami. "What did you say?"

"I'm just curious, what happened to Soap?" Ami asked.

This severely upsetting Miho of the topic. "That's out of question, Ami."

"Miho, can't you tell us about it?" Shiho asked, but Miho shook in denial.

"No, I'm not talking about him!" Miho quickly retorted with a little patient in her tone.

"Miho, just tell us about Soap," Maho added quickly for her curiosity.

*BAM*

Miho just banged the table in front of her hard as she was very pissed of their questions. This took Ami, Shiho and Maho by surprised and off-guard as they jumped to Miho's reaction. They watched as Miho had her hands on the table turned into fists and tried to calm herself down by taking many deep breathes as she looked at each person in the room with her. As they stayed silent to themselves and watching Miho took many deep sighs with heavy concern, Miho then took her cup of tea and drink it. Before she put her tea back on the table, and she looked down to her right.

"I hear one more word about Soap, I'm going to blow us up with a grenade. Understand?"

They were taken back and gulped to Miho's threat, they didn't want to piss her off for sure. "Alright, we're sorry. We won't ask about him again," Shiho said out to Miho, which comforted Miho for that.

"Good."

They stayed silent for a moment, this was a deadly kind of silence. Miho just gave in her dark and dreary eyes toward all of them from underneath her hat that shadowed her eyes. Something that Shiho was really afraid of. If she saw Miho just turned from a soldier into a monster, she would only hope that was only a nightmare. Still they stayed silent until Miho just stopped giving them her dreary eyes.

Shiho had doubted a little to ask something, but then she goes for it. "May… I ask something? Just one question?"

Miho sighed angrily with her eyes closed, before looking back to Shiho. "What is it?"

"Why in this picture had a writing said OP KINGFISH?" Shiho asked, when she looked at Miho, she could say Miho was still willing to answer about it despite she was still angry.

"It was a joined operation executed by the 141s and the Delta Force, the objective that time was dealing on a High Value Target," Miho replied as she looked away, keeping some to secret. "I never been in that operation since it was 3-4 years ago. That's the only operation I know that got backfired to which got Price locked up in the gulag for 3 years."

They quickly amazed on what she said, they couldn't believe if Price ever got that as the risk. "I-I see… thank you, Miho-san," Ami replied with a doubtful nod.

They fell silent again, to which then Maho was reminded of something. "You know? Miho, I forgot to tell you about something."

"About what, mate?" Miho asked, hoping Maho was not asking her the forbidden topic.

"It's about Anchovy, Chiyomi Anzai," Maho replied, which made Miho leans her head back in surprise.

Ami and Shiho was also surprised about this as they widen their eyes. "Wait… the overall commander of Anzio?" Ami asked.

"Yeah, she kinda called me about 3 times for the past week when Miho was not around me," Maho replied with a nod.

To hear Anchovy called Maho three times, it made Miho curious. "Why did she call you 3 times?"

"Well… she was asking about what's up with you," Maho replied, everyone including Miho was surprised as Miho could felt the disbelieve as she puts down her boonie hat on the table. "I think she was interested with you."

"Did she said anything else?" Miho asked softly somehow as she stares to Maho in nervous.

"She asked me if you're actually living here and want to know how are you doing. Yesterday night after our raid in Pravda, she called me and she wondered if she can meet you today," Maho replied, this took Miho off-guard and shock to hear that by only giving her an amazed stare.

"Oh… I think… I can meet her today," Miho said in unsure. "Where do I meet her?"

"At Anzio school carrier, Aquila," of course, why not in the city? "In the Anzio's main plaza in the afternoon."

"Hm, sounds like she's inviting me to eat, didn't she?" Miho asked, which was agreed by everyone including Maho with a nod and 'mmhmm'.

"Why all the sudden you sounded warm after hearing Anchovy wants to know about you?" Ami asked as she was confused to the sudden change of Miho's attitude.

"Because she's fall in love with Anchovy," Maho replied, unaware she just said that as Ami and Shiho stared frozen to her while Miho surprised that Maho said that.

It took her a moment before she realized she said that "Oh… oops."

…

…

…

…

…

"Does… Anchovy know about this?" Shiho asked awkwardly to Miho to break up the silence.

"Not yet…" Miho replied slowly and nervously as she looked down to her right, not even show a blush. "But…"

"I can't believe you're not straight," Ami stated in disbelieve. "Does your men back in 141 know that?"

"Well, they already know that," Miho replied, but then shrugged. "But they rather took it 'too well'."

"Huh?" everyone was now confused on that. "What do you mean by that?" Maho asked with a tilted head.

"Well, it's not something unusual for them to see people who weren't straight."

Now that sums things up. "I see. So… you're good to go to meet her?" Ami asked.

"Alright, I think I'm good to go there, mate."

* * *

BC Freedom High School, School Cafeteria. 10:00 AM

Andou was right now in the cafeteria, eating her lunch at a table. She was sitting at one of the tables near the window next to her. Sitting there all alone as she eats her lunch and studied the biology book that she brings with her on the table. While she was sitting alone there were a lot of students from both factions eat there as well. But Andou doesn't care about it and only wanted to get a peace of mind.

It was another usual day for the BC Freedom. The Escalator Faction being noble and had a good conversation with each other as the Examination Faction were working hard on the jobs they had whether it be inside or outside the school. There are still be apparent fights all around the school, which including the cafeteria. Andou had looked out the window to see that a student each from Examination and Escalators fought each other at the sidewalk with other people watching. And when she looked back around the cafeteria, most of the Examinations and Escalators are taunting to each other endlessly and on some couple occasion they had a fight which involved the food they brought.

Examinations and Escalators still hate each other? Yeah. But it seems pointless for Andou for her to keeping up like the both factions, especially when getting into a fight. Like she said a week ago, she doesn't want any fight even if they had taunted her. For what she's going to involved into the troubles between the both factions anyway?

She's only thinking to her own business as she can hear students from both factions were calling to her. When the Examination students were calling out to her because they wanted to accompany her, Andou denied their offer and tell them to sit elsewhere and leave her alone. When the Escalators came over to her for them to only taunt her, she didn't flinch or even taunted back to them and she only ignored them by kept reading her book. When the Escalators found out that Andou wasn't giving the fun they need, they decided to left her without any taunt to her. Glad to see the Escalators just fucked off, Andou took a spoonful of her food and kept reading the book.

It was a moment of peace for her, until she felt a presence next to her as she was reading her book. She heard a shuffling sound on the chair next to her as she stopped reading and her eyes looked forward. After the chair next to her stopped shuffling and the unknown person puts her book on the table, Andou turned her head to see who was with her. To her surprise, it was Oshida who just sat next to her. Why did she sat next to Andou? she doesn't know, but whatever it is, it was telling Andou that Oshida wanted to accompany Andou.

Andou only stayed silent as she watched Oshida was about to read her book, until Oshida looked at Andou. "What's wrong?"

"Oh… it's just…" Andou paused, unsure what to say. "I'm surprised that you seat here with me."

"Well, what's wrong with that?" Oshida asked again.

"Well, I actually wanted to be alone," Andou then turned her head forward on her table, then she shrugged. "Just wanted to get my own peace that's all."

"Then you're not doing it well," Oshida stated the fact with a chuckle.

"That's true, I'm bad at picking a good place for peace," Andou admitted with a shrug.

"That's right, maybe it's because there are some places you know that you thought you can find some peace for yourself," Oshida added with a small smile. "Which you're wrong about it."

"Yeah," Andou paused, then turned her head slowly to her. "Why you're here with me?"

"You looked like you need some company," Oshida replied as she flips a page of her book. "So I decided to sit here with you."

"But…" Andou paused doubtedly as she looked down, before looking back to her. "Don't you worry about what'll happened when the Escalators and Examinations seeing us like this?"

"I don't think so, seeing everyone in here having lot of fights that they didn't even pay attention to us," Oshida replied with a shrug after she looked around the cafeteria. "I'll say we're fine here."

Andou stayed silent for a moment to stare at her neutrally, before she asked. "You still hate me, right?"

"Well…" Oshida paused in thoughts, seemingly in doubt. "I still hate you."

"Right," Andou replied awkwardly as she looked away and then took a spoonful of her food. "This is awkward."

"Yeah…" Oshida awkwardly replied, she then flips a page. "So… how's your day?"

"*Sigh* fine I guess…" Andou replied nervously, she then shrugged. "How about you?"

"Well… not quite a good day," Oshida replied, again with a shrug. "Someone just busted my engines of my tank. You didn't do that right?"

"Really? You ask that to me while I'm not looking for a fight?" Andou asked in annoyance.

"Just checking if you're back in your old days," Oshida replied as she flips another page.

Andou just sighed to hear that as she crossed her arms and leans her back against her chair whilst looking forward on her table. "If you want to beat me up, just do it, alright?"

"Easy, I don't mean that, okay?" Oshida replied softly, comforting Andou.

"Then why you asked me that, aside from 'checking if I go back to my old days'?" Andou asked back emotionless as she looked at her.

She did have a point, Oshida stayed silent afterwards. She had gathers her thoughts for a moment before she replied. "Well… it's just I'm still worried about you."

Andou paused in silent to hear that, but then chuckled. "Really? You've been worried about me for the past week?"

"Well, yeah," Oshida admitted with a nod. "Do you still bothered about Miho Nishizumi?"

"Well, a little for now," Andou replied. "Right now, there are other rumors I heard from around Japan."

"What rumors?" Oshida asked with a raised brow.

"There are reports from people all around Japan stated that there are some unknown soldiers appearing all around the city," Andou replied. "The most recent one I heard was the news from Ebino City, there were around 12 unknown soldiers armed-to-the-teeth took down around 7 robbers who were robbing people in a bus without taking any loss either the soldiers or the people."

After hearing that, Oshida was reminded of a recent news she heard. "Huh, I heard there were the soldiers you mentioned appeared again yesterday."

"Really? Where?" Andou asked, she was surprised if there's something happened yesterday.

"Right in Pravda High School," Oshida replied, this caught Andou off-guard. "There were around 3 soldiers who raided the school."

"What? Why?" Andou asked in shock.

"I heard there was a student the Pravdas kidnapped from Kuromorimine," Oshida replied. "The unknown soldiers somehow knew the Pravdas kidnapped and held Akaboshi in the school, so they got her out and successfully escaped."

"Did those unknown soldiers kill anyone in there?" Andou asked, worried of the fate of the students of Pravda."

"Oddly, no," Oshida replied with a shook, Andou was confused by this. "They used a lot of tranquilizer darts to the students that time and the only way to wake those get shot was by flushing them with buckets of ice water."

"Huh, that's odd," Andou commented. "How did they escape?"

"They escape using their helicopters, a kind we never seen before," Oshida replied. "Of course not after one of the three helicopters there shoot out a straight line of warning shot on the ground with its machine gun. You know what's more surprising? The pilot of one of the helicopters was giving the Pravdas a threat warning in Russian."

"Jeez, that's something I never heard before," Andou commented in disbelieve. "But why would those unknown soldiers really bother to not kill the Pravdas?"

"I don't really know about that," Oshida replied with a shrug. "For the police, they dubbed those soldiers as the 'elite good soldiers'."

"At least that's something nice to hear," Andou replied with a smile. "So… what happened to Akaboshi?"

"She's back in Kuromorimine after the events yesterday," Oshida replied. "She did say to the JSDF that she doesn't know who were those soldiers that saved her, not even the name of the faction."

"I see…" Andou replied in understood, but then frowned at thought of Oshida is still with her. "Oshida, you still worried about me?"

"*Sigh* like I said before, yeah," Oshida replied calmly. "Why?"

"It's nothing, it's just…" Andou paused as she rolled her eyes down to her right. "I just don't want you to be bother about me. I'm still doing fine until now."

"Well… not for me," Oshida replied as she looked at Andou and smiled. "Not after you changed."

"I see…" Andou said weakly, frowned to Oshida's answer.

Oshida surprised to see Andou frowned to her answer. "You're okay?"

"I just don't want you to bother about me, alright?" Andou said to her as she took a spoonful of her food.

"Nah, I would feel bad if I do that," Oshida replied, which made Andou chuckled.

"Vraiment, Oshida?" Andou replied with a small smile, then sighed. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

Oshida could only smiled to Andou's answer, but then she reminded of something. "By the way, the St. Glorianas just sent us a letter."

"Oh?" Andou surprised to hear that as she asked lowly. "What kind of letter did they sent?"

"Invitation one," Oshida replied. "Darjeeling invites everyone who joined and watched the Exhibition Match."

"Well, well, Marie is going to be happy to eat cakes with Darjeeling," Andou commented with a smirk.

"Yeah, that's for sure," Oshida added in agreement. "But I don't like about what will happen with the other schools joining the invitation."

"What do you mean?" Andou asked confusedly.

"Ooarai and Kuromorimine, remember?" Oshida asked back, then Andou suddenly remembered about it.

"Oh yeah, but I doubt that would happen," Andou replied, which made Oshida raised a brow.

"Why?" Oshida asked.

"I got a feeling that Maho will bring in her sister, Miho to the invitation party."

…

…

…

That was something 'nice' to hear.

"You mean that Miho-?"

"Yeah, that's right."

…

…

…

Oshida and Andou both stayed silent, before Oshida break it up. "Well, at least we can't deny the invitation from Darjeeling. You're coming right?"

"Yeah," Andou replied with a nod. "If Miho was really at the tea-party there, let's hope she didn't retort after she sees us."

"Like what happened to you back in Kumamoto?" Oshida asked.

"Yeah, I want to avoid any fight or beatings."

* * *

 _"Contingency"_

 _Day 5 - 11:22:34_

 _1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi_

 _Task Force 141_

 _Inside Internationalist's base, dock area, 14 Miles SSE of Petropavlovsk, Russia  
._

 _"I'm going for the sub! Cover me from that guardhouse by the west gate!" Captain Price shouted as he quickly splits up from the team and run for the docks near the sub._

 _"Roger that! Roach, Miho, we have to get to that guardhouse by the west gate to cover Price! Follow me!" Ghost shouted as he and the rest of the team followed him._

 _"Copy," Roach replied._

 _"Right behind ya'," Miho replied._

 _Ghost, Miho, Roach, along with other 5 surviving 141 operators quickly ran upstairs at a side of the guardhouse and quickly secure and made a perimeter on the roof of the guardhouse by the fences of the roof. They all were facing towards the courtyard full of containers and rest of the base and the sub harbored at the dock. They all quickly opened fire back at the incoming enemies that are coming to them from below, right from the courtyard filled with containers and snow. Miho quickly puts her M240 w/ heartbeat sensor and red dot sight on the fence and starts firing to below them while Roach snipes any bastards he can get with his MK14._

 _Ghost and his team managed to mow down around 4 hostiles at the very left side of the courtyard-filled containers. Miho able to kill 6 herself in burst firing mode and managed to kill other 3 with a grenade she threw down the building and landed near the containers where the hostiles took cover. Roach shot three hostiles at the containers and other 4 hostiles on the far side who were about to entered the courtyard. The hostiles just keep coming up to them._

 _"They're coming out from woodwork!" Roach said aloud in his radio as he sniped two hostiles in the head near the destroyed jeep._

 _"Just sod off, ye' bastards!" Miho said aloud in the radio as she fires her machinegun. "Ghost, 11 o'clock!"_

 _"I see them, hit 'em," Ghost radioed as he and a few members of his team divert their firing onto their 11 at the enemies hiding behind the circle shaft, killing them._

 _"Tango down," Roach radioed as he shot one in the head through his scope._

 _"All right, I'm inside the sub! Cover me, I need a few minutes!" Price radioed as they still firing at the enemies from the guardhouse._

 _"Roger that, Price," Miho radioed back as she fired her MG. "Just stay safe."_

 _After hearing Price went inside the sub, Ghost spotted something down the road on the right side of the courtyard. "Incoming! Two trucks to the east!"_

 _After the enemy showed up on the far east, Miho smiled to hear what Soap said in the radio. "AGM missile is online."_

 _"Sending in the missile, standby," Roach radioed as he controlled the predator by his tactical laptop and took cover away from the fence. "Missile away."_

 _The missile was sent out from the Predator in the sky and quickly struck the trucks that are coming from the east. *DUUUUUUUAAAARRR* Killing all enemies inside the trucks as the trucks blown and thrown forward to pieces. It was a beautiful explosion for Ghost._

 _"Now that's just beautiful," Ghost commented for a moment before firing again to the hostiles in the courtyard._

 _"Good effect on target. Multiple enemy vehicles KIA," Soap radioed who's back in base, monitoring on how the 141s on the field are doing. "Arming AGMs, standby."_

 _"Keep hitting them hard, Roach," Miho radioed as she fires her machine gun and threw a grenade far away, killing three hostiles who were about to come out from the path next to the road on their right._

 _"I hear ya'," Roach replied, before he began sniping again *PENG*. "He's down"_

 _As they returned fire, one of the 141 operators got shot in the chest and quickly fell back. "Shit, man down!" another 141 operator said before returning fire._

 _"Corn! Handle him!" Miho ordered aloud to the said operator before he quickly moved away from the fence and quickly tending the downed 141. "Contacts near that truck on our 1 o'clock!"_

 _"30 Mike-Mike out!" another 141 operator said as he launched a 'nade launcher to the said hostiles, destroying the truck and killing 5 hostiles._

 _"Nice shot!" Miho shouted in compliment, before she heard Soap radioed. "AGM missile is online. I repeat AGM missile is online."_

 _"Copy that," Roach replied, before Miho saw something ahead in a distance as they fire. "Another cavalry is coming in!"_

 _"More vehicles to the east! Use the UAV!" Ghost barked as he not bothered to look at Roach and kept firing at the hostiles down there._

 _"Sending in the missile," Roach radioed as he used his tactical laptop, sending in a missile from the sky and quickly blew a jeep and a truck that were coming from their front (on their east) on the road. "Got them."_

 _"Good kill. Trucks destroyed," Soap radioed as Roach began sniping again and Miho quickly reloads her MG._

 _"Reloading," Miho radioed as she reloads quickly, and then cocked her machine gun and began firing back again._

 _"How long we need to keep up like this?" Roach asked as he sniped two bastards in the head, with some of the 141 operators were reloading._

 _"Long enough for Price to stop the sub from launching the nuke," Ghost replied as he fires his ACR to the enemies behind the containers._

 _As they kept firing back, Miho noticed that there are some of the ultranationalist were running away. "Looks like they're starting to thin out."_

 _"We see it," Ghost replied as Roach approached him from behind and everyone slowly stopped firing. "Looks like that's the last of them."_

 _"All units, be advised. The Predator Drone is down," Soap radioed which made everyone in the field surprised. "I repeat. The Predator drone is down."_

 _"What happened to the Predator?!" Roach asked furiously, who hates to hear that._

 _"The bastards shot it down," Soap replied. "I don't think I can send anymore of it."_

 _"Don't worry, we take it from here," Miho radioed in sincere as she watched the perimeters._

 _As they watched the perimeter, Ghost turned his head to their north (their left). Until he was tensed up to see something, "Contact to the north, on the dock next to the sub!"_

 _"What?! Shit!" Miho shouted in shock as they quickly shifted fire to the north, spotting some enemies took cover at the crane, jeep and the container near the bridge to the sub. "Engaging hostiles."_

 _"Enemies at the crane!" Roach shouted as he sniped two bastards at one of the leg of the crane._

 _"Shite, can't get a shot!" Ghost shouted as he ducked from the incoming gunfire that just passed his head._

 _"Got them on my sight," Miho said aloud as she cocked her machinegun and began firing, the spray of her machinegun killed 3 who took cover near the jeep. "They're down."_

 _"Nice shot, mate," Ghost commented as he returned fire at the fence to the north. "Plywood! Send in another grenade launcher!"_

 _"Affirmative, sending in," the said 141 replied before launching his one round of 'nade launcher, killing the last two hostiles behind a leg of the crane. "All hostiles neutralized."_

 _They all quickly ceased fire and secured the area from the guardhouse. None of the bastards sure coming back again. But then, they were surprised by a loud sound that was coming in from the sub. As they looked at the sub, they were shock to found that the silo doors are open. Miho stood off the fence and watched with her jaw open and eyes widened as her machine gun was left hanging on her right hand and the rest of the 141s only frozen to see the sub._

 _"Price, are you there? The silo doors are opening on the sub, I repeat, the silo doors are opening on the sub!" Ghost quickly said on the radio as they watched the sub._

 _To their fear, there was no response from Price. "Price, come in! They're opening the silo doors on the sub! Come on! Hurry!" Ghost barked in his radio as everyone was agitated as the sub was opening its silo doors._

 _Again, there was no response. Miho had feared the worst happened to Price. "Price, do you copy?! The silo doors are about to open fully!" Miho shouted in her radio in worry._

 _Still no response from Price as the sub had fully opened its silo doors. It was from bad to worst which Ghost had to shout panickedly in his radio. "Price, do you copy?! The silo doors are open! I repeat, the silo doors are open!"_

 _After two seconds of silence, they heard the reply. "Good."_

 _"What? wait-," Ghost replied, before a missile begins its launch from the silo doors._

 _The missile quickly engulfed itself in flame before it flew up slowly from the sub. They had to watch in shock. Miho can't believe at what she was seeing. Roach was deadpanned to the sight of the launching missile. While Ghost was the only person in the group who was in panic. All of this happened in seconds_

 _"Wait, Price, no!" Ghost shouted in panic and agitated, Price had let the missile launch._

 _"О Господи..." Miho said to herself lowly as they stood frozen and watched the missile flying away._

 _After the missile was far enough from the sub in the sky, Ghost began to shout out his alert._

 _"WE HAVE A NUCLEAR MISSILE LAUNCH. MISSILE IN THE AIR! MISSILE IN THE AIR! CODE BLACK, CODE BLACK!"_

* * *

"Eeegh!" Miho grunted as she quickly wakes up from her sleep.

"Oh, Miho, you're awake," Erika, who sat beside her replied in surprise and worry. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Miho replied reluctantly as she looked at her. "Just… another nightmare."

"You sure?" Akaboshi asked, who was driving the Kuromorimine's Krupp Protze truck. "You don't look fine for me."

"I'm sure, it's not like I've been through worst yet," Miho replied as she looked over to the rest of the 5 commanders of Kuromorimine including Maho in the back of the truck. "How long I just slept?"

"Long enough for us to reach the plaza soon," Geshiko replied with a shrug. "You must've been tired after you did a raid to Pravda yesterday."

"Heh, I ever did much more than that," Miho replied with a smirk.

"Really? That was a close call, we barely made it out from there," Maho added in disbelieve of what Miho said.

"Well, at least you didn't come with me to jump a 25 plus meter gap," Miho replied, which made Maho and Erika shivered to imagine that.

"You made quite a show back there, Miho-san," Ritaiko commented, before continued by Mauko. "I bet the JSDF was angry about that."

"Yeah, they did," Miho replied with a nod. "But I got it under control."

"You sure?" Sangou asked with doubt, before achieving a reply from Miho with a nod. "Alright then."

"Girls, we have arrived," Akaboshi told them, before she stopped the truck and turned the ignition off.

"Akaboshi, remember about what we talk about what happened after Pravda?" Miho asked to remind her.

"Sure, I only say that I don't know who were those soldiers and I never seen one," Akaboshi replied with a nod and a smile.

"Good, now let's get off from this bloody thing."

After Akaboshi stopped the truck, they dropped off the truck one by one with Miho as the last person who got off the truck. The truck was parked right outside of the Anzio main plaza at the sidewalk. They decided to take a walk from there until they reached the plaza. Miho can't be sure whether to be happy or to be worry about this situation. Because soon she's going to meet with Anchovy.

Miho was still wearing the same outfit back from the residence, even the left drop bag with pistol hid in it she brought it here. Maho, Akaboshi, Erika and the rest of the commanders in the other hand wearing their Kuromorimine outfit, plus with accessories that would help them from getting cold because of this winter snow. Maho had wondered why did Miho brought her gun here since there is nothing they need to worry about here. But then again she won't argue about it, the reason for self-defense was more than enough.

They walked as they admire the places they passed around them. It was something that made Miho cringed to see something that wasn't supposed to be here. Most of the fucking buildings around here are built in Renaissance-style architecture. She swears that this place was a bloody copy-paste of Rome architecture from the 14th centuries and beyond. There was Fontana del Pantheon in front of the Pantheon building and the Church the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore when they passed by.

They kept walking on as they went through a lot crowds of people on the road. There were a lot of Anzio students in present that time. If Miho had taken a moment to look at the Anzios, she would say that those students were quite a fun-type of people but still she still likes having a chat with the Brits. That what'd she guessed. Though, it still bothers her to know that the Anzios still wearing their school outfit with little winter protection.

As they walked, Miho had noticed that there are some of the Anzio students starting to recognize her. The students stared at Miho as she looked back at them and followed her group. The look that the Anzios made were the followings. Surprised, Shock, Amazed, Disbelieve, Cringed, and Curious. She could see that some of the Anzios were starting to whisper to each other in a gossip about Miho. Miho could hear a low voice from a distant that one of the Anzios just mentioned her name, her rumors spread fast for sure.

"Hey, you're getting popular here," Mauko said to Miho as Miho divert her attention at her.

"I know, mate," Miho replied with a nod. "I didn't expect the rumors about me spread that fast."

"I'm guessing that Anchovy will hear more news about you while you were away," Sangou added.

"That's for sure, mate," Miho replied, a few moments later they have reached the plaza.

They looked around the Plaza, and to be sure it was a such sight for them. Everything in Anzio is a goddamn exact match to the city of Rome. Well, Anzios are Italian-Japanese like people so how Miho would argue about that? If Arguing about that right now, they would say it will be very late to do that.

The Plaza was composed of some famous architectures. The Plaza area is called Piazza di Spagna, the whole area had filled with citizens of the city schoolship and the Anzio students. And then there's a fountain called Fontana della Barcaccia which made into the shape of a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides into a small basin. The water flows from seven points of fountain: the center baluster; two inside the boat from sun-shaped human faces; and four outside the boat. They could see some crowds were standing there and took picture of it.

And then there's The Spanish Steps. Located between the plaza area and church on top of the stairs. It has a monumental 174 steps (In which the slightly elevated drainage system is often mistaken for the first step) and some square-like blocks putted in between the stairways on the left and right. And then last but not least, the famous church on top called The church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti. It was the exact beautiful building as the real building back in Rome.

Miho wanted to give a compliment on whoever create this such sigh. They know how to make someone feels in Rome.

Miho, Maho, Erika and the rest of the group had decided to wait at the bottom of the stairs in front of the fountain. Erika, Akaboshi, Ritaiko and Mauko had decided to sit down on the stairs while Miho, Sangou and Geshiko had decided to stood at their spot and waited. While Miho had an appointment to meet with Anchovy, the rest of them except Maho had an appointment to meet Carpaccio and Pepperoni. As they wait, Miho watched the atmosphere around her.

Crowds filling the stairs on top and the plaza area at the bottom. They could saw some of the Anzio students were having fun play throwing snowballs. Miho chuckled to see one of the snowballs they threw hit Ritaiko's face. Ritaiko jolts in surprise upon impact and quickly two Anzio students walk over to them and apologized to Ritaiko about it. Ritaiko only wiped her face of snow and sighed, before she forgives the Anzios for it. The Anzios bowed with thanks before they left them alone and continued playing snow.

Miho only looked over to Ritaiko as she watched the Anzios leaving. Ritaiko had left a little smile on her face. It was either it was a usual thing for them, or she had forced to make a little smile so Miho won't retort on what she's doing. Miho then looked away from her and continued to look on her surroundings.

Without any expectation, someone called her from their right. "Hey there!"

They all quickly turned their heads to their right, and quickly smiled at who they were looking at. "It's good to see you," Anchovy said as she along with Carpaccio and Pepperoni walked over to them.

Miho's group quickly turned around to Anchovy and her friends with some of them stood up from the stairs. "It's good to see you too, mate," Miho replied as Anchovy walked over to her and shook hands with her.

And suddenly Anchovy cheek-kissed her twice, which made Miho startled. "I'm happy that you can meet me today," Anchovy said as she lets go of Miho.

As Miho's group cringed at what they saw, Miho on the other hand softly asked Anchovy with a little blush. "Umm, forgive me. But… why did you do that to me?"

"It's an Italian greeting among friends," Anchovy replied with a smile. "one kiss for a stranger, two kisses for a friend and three for a family member."

"Oh… I see…" Miho replied slowly as her eyes amazed to her.

"What's wrong about it?" Carpaccio asked with a tilted head.

"Sorry, I thought Anchovy was going to kiss me."

…

…

…

…

…

 _"She said what?"_ Everyone except Anchovy thoughts in their hearts as they gave their empty eyes to Miho.

"Ermm, sorry," Miho awkwardly replied as she looked away from Anchovy and scratched her head under her boonie hat. "You just surprised me like that."

"Oh, that's fine," Anchovy replied with an understanding nod. "It's your first time?"

"Yeah, but why two?" Miho replied in confusion as she looked at her. "I mean, we just met a couple of times. I'm a stranger to you."

"No, you're already my friend after what happened in Yokohama and visiting me at my friend's grave…" Anchovy trailed off with sorrow, but then continued with a smile. "Once again, I thank you for all of that."

"Don't worry, it's fine," Miho replied sincerely with an open palm. "It's… what I do."

"I see," Pepperoni replied with a nod, before looking over Miho's group. "Commander Maho Nishizumi, it's good to see you along with the girls you brought here."

"It's good to see you, Pepperoni, Carpaccio, Duce Anchovy," Maho replied with a nod and a shook of her hand with her. "How's your day?"

"Good as always," Anchovy replied with a warm smile. "You girls want to have a break at our place here?"

"Yeah," Geshiko replied, before continued by Mauko. "Especially for Maho to spend her time with her sister here."

"Oh really?" Pepperoni asked. "By the way, regarding that accident on the bridge back in Ooarai…"

"What is it?" Akaboshi asked, waiting for her question.

"Where have you disappeared for a year?" Pepperoni asked to Miho, she along with her friends never got the time to ask Miho that.

"London, UK," Miho replied, Anchovy and her Anzio friends jumped their heads back in surprise. "Quite a good place for me."

"Huh, no wonder you sounded like a British," Anchovy commented in understood.

"I take that as a compliment, thank you," Miho said with a smile.

"So how's life in England?" Carpaccio asked.

"A little bit rough, but I can handle it," Miho replied with a shrug and a smile.

"But I think I should warn you to not give her an edge," Erika interrupted, to which Maho and Akaboshi facepalmed with Miho only sighed while the rest of the Kuromorimine's turn their eyes into an empty one.

"Umm, why?" Anchovy asked with her eyebrows raised.

"I admit I'm actually a hard girl," Miho answered doubtedly. "I think it would found you... uncomfortable about it."

"Oh, it's alright, I think I understand what you meant," Anchovy replied sincerely with a smile, it comforts Miho. "By the way, what's with the choice of your outfit? You were wearing that kind of outfit when you visited us at the graveyard unlike the other girls around."

"Oh, I just found that I don't really fit and don't like the clothes that the girls used these days," Miho admitted with her hands raised to her sides. "So… yeah… this is my kind of favorite outfits."

"That's the first time I heard," Pepperoni commented as she looked over Miho's outfit. "Well, at least not the ones you wear for Tankery Match."

"I agree," Sangou added, before continued by Maho. "To think of it would be such a hassle of course especially on the uniform regulations."

"Yeah, so…" Miho paused with a shrug as she looked at herself, before looking back to Anchovy. "What do you think?"

"Honestly? It suits you well," Anchovy admitted as she looked over Miho's uniform again with a smile. "You looked perfect and neat."

Miho only chuckled at that. "Thanks, my lady. I'm glad to hear that."

"No problem, Miho-san," Anchovy replied happily, comforted to hear Miho called her a lady. "Now... how about we go to the stands near the Colosseum?"

"Sounds great, my lady," Miho replied with an agreement. "Let's go there."

"Follow me."

Anchovy gripped Miho's hand and pulled her in to follow Anchovy to the stands near the Colosseum. If Maho had to admit, seeing Anchovy taking Miho for a walk was kind of cute. After Miho and Anchovy left first, the Kuromorimine's commanders looked over to Carpaccio and Pepperoni for a moment. And then they set off to their destination by following Miho and Anchovy. They walked toward the Colosseum as they chatted to each other of their day.

As they walked down the road and saw the Colosseum in the distance, an Anzio Tankette just passed by next to them. One of the two Anzio crew of the Tankette was right on top of its turret and waved at Anchovy happily as the Tankette passed. After the Tankette crew left, Miho let out a small chuckle of Anchovy waving her hand to the Tankette crew which is kinda cute. Maho and the rest of the group noticed Miho just chuckled, which is a sign that Miho really liked Anchovy. Well, that's what they think actually so they weren't so sure if that's true.

After a small walk in the park, they reach the place Anchovy meant near the Colosseum. When Anchovy said stands near the Colosseum, she meant food and market stands. The place was bloody amazing to be honest. Besides there are some stands that sells flowers and other miscellaneous items. There were a lot of Anzio students that are kind of cooking (and selling?) foods at a lot of food stands.

Made Miho wondered about what happened to their budget.

They walked over to a food stand and met an Anzio there. They all greeted her and have a chat a little there. As time moves on, everyone except Miho, Carpaccio and Maho decided to split up and wanted to go somewhere from there. While everyone had decided to split up from that stand to look for something interesting somewhere, Miho, Carpaccio and Maho had decided to find a bench around the market stands. They found one near a big fountain in the middle of the market stands and sat down there.

As Miho looked around from the bench, Carpaccio called her. "Hey, Miho-san. Everything alright?"

"Y-yeah, everything's alright," Miho replied with a nod as she leans her back against the bench. "Everything in here looked so different than in London."

"Really?" Carpaccio asked, before continued by Maho. "You mean by how much crowds and how the atmosphere in here compare to London?"

"Actually, the crowds in here are different than in London, because the Anzios in here looked very fun for me," Miho explained with a smirk as she looked at them. "As for the atmosphere… everything in here has a very good sight than in London, except in London it has Big Ben that I really love to see."

"I'm glad to hear that," Carpaccio replied happily as she closed her eyes. "You know, the architects who build this place had to put out a lot of budget here."

"Erm, I assume this has to do with these stands in here?" Miho asked, Carpaccio quickly fell silent and stare blankly to her.

Checkmate.

"Well… yeah… you know us Anzios," Carpaccio replied awkwardly, unaware she was scratching her own neck. "We can't spend our time without thinking about snack time."

"Oh, no wonder you girls had budget problems," Maho added as she leans her head forward to looked at them both, then looked only to Carpaccio. "I assume Anchovy is tired about writing down paperwork."

"It's not that bad," Carpaccio replied as she leans back against the bench. "Actually, I would love to hear Anchovy is cooking Pasta for us."

"Don't make me hungry, mate," Miho replied with a sigh. "I'm still not in the mood to eat anything else for now."

"You're not on a diet, right?" Carpaccio asked, which made Miho laughed lowly and Maho snorted hilariously.

"Nah, I'm not on the diet," Miho replied with a shook. "I'm just not in the mood to eat anything, really."

"We just had a lot of breakfast this morning, Carpaccio-san," Maho answered to her.

"Yeah, so let's just have a trip around here for now, alright?" Miho asked as she smiled to her.

"Ok, Miho-san," Carpaccio replied with a nod, then she placed her hands behind her head and on the bench. "Let's just enjoy our snowy day here."

"Miho, you don't want to play snowballs?" Maho asked, Miho just gave a flat smile to her.

"Nah, I'm good," Miho replied with a shook, which made Carpaccio smirked as she was reminded of her childhood.

"Come on, Miho," Maho asked again softly. "It's just like our childhood."

"Maho, no thanks," Miho replied again with a weak tone. "Just… being like this is enough for me, alright?"

Carpaccio and Maho had confused of Miho's reaction, but they understand what Miho meant aside from 'not wanting any childhood memories'. "Alright, I'm not pushing you," Maho said softly with her palms open to Miho, before closing them and put her hands above her thighs.

And then silence again, as they watched their surroundings of the market stands. Aside from the Anzios make their regular Italian foods, they also made foods that they need to warm themselves. Like soup, hot cocoa, porridge, and etcetera, etcetera. Well, besides that they knew the winter will stop soon enough. Man, Miho actually missed to see the buildings that Anzio has are covered beautifully in snow.

And Miho won't fell sick and cold to see the students are lacking of cold protection in the middle of the bloody winter.

As they watched their surroundings, they suddenly heard a loud noise coming from their right. They looked to their right and saw what was going on. To Carpaccio's shock, Anchovy and Pepperoni was having a talk fight with 15 girls from Bonple High School. Carpaccio had recognized the two Bonple girls within the group. There was Jajka, the overall commander from Bonple High School. And also Uszka, Bonple's High School's second-in-command.

Jajka is a medium-sized girl with long blonde hair and a pair of green eyes. She wears her blonde hair in a long braid originating as a swirled bun. While Uszka is a medium-sized girl with long pink hair and a pair of brown eyes. She wears her hairs in a long braid.

Miho and Maho had noticed the expression Carpaccio made, which made Maho asked her. "What's wrong?"

"It's Jajka and Uzska," Carpaccio said quickly to her before she looked back at the Bonple group with Anchovy and Pepperoni. "They're taunting Anchovy right now!"

"Can I ask why they were taunting at Anchovy?" Miho asked, wanting to make sure to know the reason before doing what she should or should not.

"We had a Tankathlon Match, a match limited to the use of light tanks and tankettes," Carpaccio replied to her in worry. "We had a few match with Bonple who are the master of Tankathlon and we… we lost every time we had a match with them and Jajka taunts us about how severe our skill is and mocked our name in the Tankathlon."

This gave Miho a heavy worry about what will happen to anchovy, Maho was also worried about this. "We should help her," Maho suggested quickly.

"Yeah, let's go," Miho agreed as she corrected her boonie hat and quickly came over to Anchovy and Pepperoni who are still talk fighting with the Bonple girls.

They were a halfway there to reach Anchovy, until…

*SLAP*

They were shock to see Jajka just slapped Anchovy's face. To Miho, this made her anger boil.

They quickly reached Anchovy and Pepperoni as the Bonples quickly stepped back from them. Miho quickly looked up to Anchovy's face as Anchovy held her own cheek in pain. Miho was able to contain her anger for now as she was worried to see Anchovy's left cheek was already red from the slap. Maho, Carpaccio and Pepperoni only stood in front of Anchovy and Miho to protect them from the Bonples. Miho rubbed Anchovy's cheek softly as her friends divide them from the Bonples.

"You alright?" Miho asked softly in worry as she kept rubbing Anchovy's cheek.

"Ye-yeah, I'm fine," Anchovy replied doubtedly.

"Oh, how spoiled you are," Miho heard Jajka taunted, Miho turned her head through her friends to Jajka and turned around and walked forward from Anchovy.

Before Miho passed through her friends, Anchovy grabbed her arm from behind and said to her lowly, enough for the Bonple to not hear them. "Miho, look. You shouldn't help me right now."

"Why?" Miho asked lowly.

"Miho, just go away from here. Just go."

"Hey, you've been hurt enough," Miho said to Anchovy softly, she then holds her shoulder then continued with a stern tone. "Let. Me. handle this."

Miho then turned away from Anchovy and passed through her friends. She quickly confronts Jajka right in front of the other 14 Bonple girls. This did surprise Jajka and the rest of the Bonples. But that doesn't matter for them as Jajka smirked evilly to the person she thinks a stupid girl. Miho only gave a flat smile and a sharp eye as the rest of her friends just stood back and watched at what Miho is doing.

"And who might be are you?" Jajka asked curiously in an evil happy tone.

"A girl who wants to finish up this problem with you," Miho quickly answered as her eyes shadowed by her boonie hat, something that made Maho afraid of her dreary eyes. "Is this about the Tankathlon Anzio had participated in?"

"Oh? How did you know that?" Uszka asked with a raised brow, still evilly smiled. "Strange thing to know from a stranger. And what's with the Kuromorimine commanders here?"

Miho and her friends quickly turned around to behind them to see there were the rest of Kuromorimine's commanders coming up from behind them. "What's going on?" Erika asked as they walked over to Miho's group.

"Erika, let her deal with this," Maho ordered her, to which Erika nodded and they quickly formed a line in front of Anchovy with Miho on the front, confronting the Bonples.

"How great this is," Jajka taunted in a teasing tone. "The Anzios asked help from Kuromorimine, how weak you are."

"Hey, you're done yet?" Miho asked aloud, making the Bonples get their attention back to Miho while the people around them including the Anzios looked at the fighting groups.

"Oh yes, I forget about you," Jajka said, pretending she easily forgotten her as the Bonples including her didn't saw the scar Miho had due to her boonie hat. "You should not interfere with our problems with Anchovy."

"Problems, eh?" Miho asked back. "That's intimidating, wanker."

"Well, that's true," Uzska replied. "How about you go away before it's too late?"

Miho paused for a moment, before she gave her reply. "Sorry, wanker," Miho replied with a shook softly, this surprised the Kuromorimine's and Anzio commanders except Maho and Akaboshi. "Your problem is my problem."

Miho's friends stepped back as Jajka walked closer to her, somehow still fail to see the scar on her eye. "Then we should hurt you as well, shouldn't we?"

There were the words yesses coming from the Bonples behind Jajka, but still Miho didn't flinch nor she was afraid. It's the first time Anchovy sees something like this. "Really?" Miho asked, disbelieve of what she said but not showing off and she took this seriously.

"Yeah, really," Jajka replied slowly and in confident. "Maybe you got Maho Nishizumi here along with the Kuromorimine's commanders here. But you will lose, you know that?"

"Hey,-" Maho was about to say something until she received an open palm from Miho, a sign to stop.

"Don't, Maho," Miho said to her. "I'll take care of this by myself."

"You sure?" Erika asked, unsure of what Miho is doing.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Miho replied with a nod, before looked back to Jajka and the rest of the Bonple with a determined and angry sharp eyes. "This is already my problem."

"You want to take us down by yourself?" Uzska asked, as all the Bonples laughed lowly at that. "You are a reckless girl."

"Reckless?" Miho asked with winced eyes, something that made Jajka confused of Miho's expression. "You're all shortsighted."

Jajka then stepped closer to her and leans her head to Miho as Miho bowed her head to not reveal the scar. "Do you know who're you talking to?"

"The overall commander of Bonple High School," Miho replied. "I believe the last time I heard you lost the 63rd National Match with the Pravdas at the beginning."

That did trigger them, the Bonples behind Jajka quickly screamed in denial and taunting to Miho. To see Miho triggering them for the first time made Maho, Anchovy and the rest of the group to disbelieve on what are they seeing right now. Miho just made Jajka angry on that. To Anchovy, this was something that Miho shouldn't say to Jajka.

"H-how dare you talk to me about that!" Jajka shouted as she points her finger to Miho.

Miho on the other hand somehow kept her calm and stay neutrally to her. "It's a bad thing actually. To hear a high school is good at that instead of National Tournament."

"Youuuu goddamn idiot!" Jajka shouted to her as she tried to held back her retort to no avail, until she quickly calmed down. "Well… looks like we need to teach you a lesson."

Jajka then steps back from her as Miho lifted her head to see Jajka walked away and turned around at her Bonple girls. "Deal with her."

"As you wish," Uzska said with a nod, before one of the Bonples got a permission from Uzska to beat Miho.

After Jajka reached behind her group, she turned around again and looked at one of her girls was walking over to Miho, ready to beat her up. Maho, Erika, Anchovy and the rest decided to not interfere on what Miho is doing. Like what Miho said before, let her deal with this alone. They only watched at what Miho is doing while a girl from Bonple coming over to her to get beaten up.

Miho patiently waited for the first Bonple girl to hit her as she walked over nearer to Miho. Miho carefully looked at the girl about what's her attack first. After the Bonple girl was already close enough to Miho, she attacked her by sending her left fist to Miho's face. Miho quickly blocked her attack with her right arm quickly and grabbed her back of her elbow with her right hand. Miho then quickly pulled her arm in to pull her in close and quickly strikes her chest hard as a brick. She bellowed in pain as her chest quickly jolts back before Miho held her back elbow and holds her front hand with Miho's left hand and quickly… forcefully hit the elbow hard.

*CRACK*

"AAAAGH!" the Bonple girl screamed in horrified and in pain, as both of the groups were taken back and horrified on what Miho just did.

For the rest of the people who are around them, they flinched and shock to see that.

After Miho broke her arm, she quickly kicked her back of her legs with her right foot and she fell hard on the snowy ground. The girl quickly screamed-short in pain as she endlessly groaned in pain and held her broken arm on the ground. This led to another 2 Bonple girls to attack her. One of them reached Miho and about to send in her fist, only to receive a hard kick to her left knee to make her drop to kneel in pain. Another girl quickly attacked her from her right, Miho quickly sidestepped to the left to avoid right fist attack from the girl. Miho quickly grabbed her attacking arm by the elbow with her right arm and quickly bent it and hits her stomach with her right knee.

Miho quickly spins her arm around to behind her and quickly kicked her back of the shoulder while pulling her arm away from her.

*CRACK*

"AAAGHH!" the girl screamed hellish in pain as she cries, Miho quickly let her go by throwing her to her right to the ground.

After throwing her, Miho quickly confronted by the girl she did kick on her left. The girl quickly attacked her with a fist to Miho's chest but quickly blocked by Miho's left arm and she quickly hits the girl's face. Miho then kicked the girl's right knee to force her to kneel and then kicked the girl's left knee that was on her front right at the side, breaking her leg. *CRACK* the girl screamed in pain from the broken leg as Miho quickly grabbed her head. And then bashed her head to the food stall's table on Miho's left, knocking her out unconscious as she quickly dropped to the ground on her back with blood came out from her nose.

Seeing 3 girls had been Knocked-out by Miho like that brutally, it made Jajka and Uzska shocked and worried about who were they dealing with. Maho, Erika, Akaboshi and the Kuromorimine commanders all cringed in disbelieve at what they saw. Anchovy, Pepperoni and Carpaccio left their jaws opened in amazement on what they saw. The Bonple girls were all taken back in shock at what they saw. While all the people including the Anzios who watched from afar, were all shock and horrified on what are they watching.

Another Bonple girl had decided to try to take Miho down, by attacking head on to Miho. As she was about to send her right fist to her, Miho quickly responded by quickly ducked down to avoid the fist and counter attack by hitting her stomach. As the girl taken back by the hit, Miho quickly struck her head and then kicked her right knee to force her to kneel. Miho then quickly grabbed and held her shoulder and continuously punching her face harder and harder. Until her face bleeds and quickly thrown to Miho's left after a last hit on her face, knocking her out unconscious.

And then another girl from the group came closer to Miho, and had decided to do a right sidekick to Miho. Miho foreseen the attack and quickly steps forward closer to her and grabbed her ankle in the air, locking it with her hands in front of her stomach. Before the Bonple girl could wiggle to free her leg, Miho quickly steps back and pulled her and forced her to land on the ground with a sitting split hard. *CRACK* the girl screamed hard after the cracks on the thigh wrist occurred as Miho quickly dropped her leg. Miho then proceed to stomps the girl's knee on the leg she dropped *CRACK* and broke her leg. Before the girl could scream, Miho quickly do a sidekick and kicked the girl's face. The girl then quickly fell back to the cold ground while still leaving her leg in a split-sitting position.

Uzska was the last person to try to take down Miho. She quickly ran from the group before Jajka could stop her. Miho saw her running up to her with her fist ready to swing from behind to front. After Uzska was close enough to Miho, she then swings her fist to her. But not after Miho quickly took a step forward to avoid the incoming attack. She quickly counters attack by hitting her face with her right elbow after stepping forward closer to Uzska. Quickly stopped her attack and puts her down to the ground on her backs.

Uzska wasn't knocked out unconscious, she was stunned. Miho quickly grabbed her by the collar and quickly forced her to stand up on her feet. Uzska, in fear quickly looked at the redhead's eyes. Uzska quickly realized the scar Miho had on her right eye, which made her heart race faster than before. Uzska may not know who was this girl in front of her, but she admitted that there was a very dark aura coming from her when she looked straight on her eyes. Jajka and the rest of 8 Bonple girls with her could only stood at their place while Maho's and Anchovy's group could only fear on what Miho is doing to Uzska. All the while people around them are starting to murmurs about what's going on and what are they seeing right now.

Uzska could say nothing in fear, it was a long moment of tensed silent as she looked to the scarred-eyes girl.

…

…

…

"Left or right?" Miho asked, which made Uzska confused.

"W-what do you mean?" Uzska agitatedly asked as Miho gripped her collar harder.

"Right handed or left handed?" Miho asked calmly, somehow made Uzska's fear increased.

"Ri-right!" Uzska quickly replied aloud, this made everyone especially Jajka and Maho confused on what she's saying because they didn't hear what Miho had asked her.

"Alright, I'll call the ambulance for the girls I just beaten up here," Miho said to Uzska aloud, confusing everyone of Miho's sympathy attitude. "But after you do one thing."

"W-what i-is it?" Uzska stammered worriedly.

"I want you to apologize to Anchovy after this," Miho told her as her grips became a little softer on Uzska's collar. "Now give me your left hand."

"Wha-what…?" Uzska asked lowly in fear as she winced her eyes to Miho.

Miho quickly grabbed her face by the sides of her head right under her ears with a *SLAP*, before she pressed her sides of her head harder to feel the pain and stared through her eyes into Uzska's soul. "Give me… your bloody left hand… now…"

Uzska was about to left a tear from her eyes in fear as she unwillingly gave her left hand to Miho. Miho then softly let goes her sides of her head and held her hand. Miho's left hand held and gripped her index and middle fingers while Miho's right hand held and gripped her ring and pinky finger. Miho then split those fingers into a V shape in the middle of the fingers. Uzska had feared on what Miho was going to do with her fingers.

"I'm expecting that you promised me to apologize to Anchovy, you understand?" Miho asked coldly as she lifted her head to look at Uzska's panicked face.

"Ye-yes, I will!" Uzska panickedly replied as her fingers shook in fear.

"Remember, not for me, mate. For who?" Miho asked coldly as she stares down Uzska's closed eyes.

"For-for Anchovy," Uzska replied as her body trembling in fear.

"Alright, for who?" Miho asked again.

"Anchovy," Uzska quickly replied.

"Who again?" Miho asked again coldly.

"For Ancho-"

*CRACK*

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Miho just broke Uzska's fingers.

"Mein Gott…" Maho, Geshiko, Sangou, Mauko and Erika said as they trailed off.

"Che diavolo…?" Anchovy asked fearfully.

"o mój Boże…" Jajka said as she trails off in horrified.

To see Miho broke Uzska's fingers, everyone who watched Miho did that would have nightmares when they returned home to sleep.

"AAAAAAAHHH! M-MY FINGERS! AAAKH!" Uzska screamed as she dropped and lie down to the ground, holding her broken fingers with her other hand.

As Miho watched Uzska holds her broken fingers, she pulled out her phone and called in the ambulance. "Hello, is this the emergency channel? I need an ambulance to come to the food stalls near fountain, right next to the Colosseum. I got around 6 Bonple students who got beaten up to the ground hard here. 5 of them have broken legs, arms or fingers while one of them is bleeding on her face… When?... alright, please be in a hurry. Thank you." Miho then closed her phone and put it back in a pouch of her belt.

"There goes your ambulance, now if you excuse me," Miho said coldly towards Jajka and the rest of Bonple students that are still standing on their feet. "I should go now."

As Miho turned around and walked away to her group, the Bonples quickly ran over to the beaten up girls including Uzska. As the Bonples began to tending the beaten up girls, Jajka had made a grave step. "I will have my revenge on you! Remember that!" Jajka shouted angrily but also in worry at the walking away Miho.

Instead of continuing to walk back to her group, she stopped on her tracks with her head bowed. Jajka just said a word that had tied her for so long. A word that shouldn't have said before.

Revenge.

Maho's and Anchovy's group weren't so sure about why Miho stopped there as the people around them were curious about what Miho will do. Miho then slowly turned around, and slowly looked towards Jajka with her head lifted. Jajka had just realized the scar she had on her right eye, and she was also taken back by it. Then everything went silent.

After a few seconds of silence, Miho starts to step forward to Jajka slowly and calmly. Jajka gulped a little to this, she wasn't sure if it was either her stupidity to shout words to her or the scarred-eye girl wasn't done with her. Miho kept stepping forward, closer and closer and closer to her. Until she stopped, right in front of her face with her hands inside the pockets of her jeans. Miho just stared straight to Jajka's eyes with her dead eyes.

Then there just silence…

Until Miho opened her mouth. "You said you will get your revenge on me."

"Y-yes, I did!" Jajka said quickly aloud.

"What would you do if you want to get your revenge on me?" Miho asked flatly and coldly, this sort of question had caught Jajka off-guard.

"I-I…" Jajka paused in thoughts before replying back aloud. "I will humiliate you and I will threaten all day until you begged for me to stop."

Miho knew her answer was that. The only thing Miho did is only sighed sincerely and took off her hat from her head with her left hand and put it on her right side of her stomach. Miho looked down, before looking back to Jajka. Jajka wasn't so sure why she reacted like that, but she knew her answer won't work.

"Even if it sounds intimidating, that won't work on me," Miho replied, this caught everyone on the scene including the spectators off-guard. "If you want to get your revenge on me, there's only one kind of revenge that would work on me."

Everyone surprised if Miho had admitted that, that made Jajka nervous but also curious. "W-what is it then?"

Miho then threw away her hat softly to beside her on a table of the food stall. She then opens one of her pouch on her belt and pulled out something. Miho then quickly puts her hand right next to Jajka's neck, to her shock Miho had Jajka in knifepoint on her neck. Everyone in the scene were all horrified with gasps to see Miho knife-pointed Jajka. Jajka gulped as she froze while in knifepoint.

None of them including Miho make a move for the moment. Until Miho retracts her hand armed with knife away from her neck to in front of her. Miho then throws the knife in the air to do a flip, and landed on her hands which the knife's handle facing at Jajka. Jajka doubted if Miho really wanted her to take the knife, but she slowly and doubtedly decided to take the knife by its handle.

Before Jajka could take the knife away from Miho, Miho quickly startled her with something that she didn't expect. Miho pulled Jajka's armed-knife hand right next to Miho's neck. Jajka and everyone else in the scene were all shock and confused on what Miho was doing. Jajka gasped a few times as Miho was holding her armed-knife hand right next to Miho's own neck as Miho only gave her cold face and didn't shook in fear on what she's doing.

"If you want to get a revenge on me," Miho said aloud and then paused, before continued. "Then you must kill me right now."

"NANI?!" Maho's, Anchovy's and Bonple's groups all shouted in shock to hear that.

"W-what?! No! You're crazy!" Jajka shouted in disbelieve as she couldn't shake her armed-knife hand off from Miho's grip on her neck. "You're bluffing! There's no way you want me to do that!"

"Why do you think I'm bluffing?" Miho asked coldly and softly.

"Because there's no way you want to die right now," Jajka replied aloud in little retort and disbelieve. "You're bluffing!"

Miho then reacted by forcefully pressing Jajka's hand armed with the knife down to Miho's neck. Not enough to cut through her neck, but enough to not make a very small cut on her neck. As Miho forced the knife Jajka's holding push slowly down on her neck, Jajka quickly notices that Miho's eyes had somehow… gone dark as she does that. This severely made Jajka panicked on what she's doing right now.

"Honestly, I want to die right now," Miho replied coldly to her. "All you have to do now is only to kill me."

Jajka gasped as Miho lets go the knife Jajka was holding, leaving it still on her neck. "Come on, kill me."

Jajka very doubted on what she's doing as if she's starting to lose her sanity and her body shook trembly. "Isn't this the revenge you want, Jajka?" Miho asked coldly.

"This is the only way for your revenge to work."

Jajka wasn't so sure what she will do right now. Her kind of her evil personalities somehow have gone from her soul along with her arrogance, just because of this scarred eye girl. Maho, Akaboshi and Erika had never seen a girl like Maho's own sister to be as dark as her aura when she was a soldier. Anchovy had never seen a girl that is very tough, very determined, very brave, and very eager to finish any problems with her insane ways. For everyone who watched this including the Bonples, they thought Miho just lost her mind.

As Jajka doubted to do any move, Miho continued to speak. "Do you know who are talking to right now?"

Jajka stared back to her eyes in fear as her hand armed with knife still sticking on her neck. "N-no… Who are you…?"

"My name is Miho Nishizumi. And you're about to kill someone that just came back from her grave."

To hear Miho just said her name right in front of her with the knife next to her neck, this took Jajka and the rest of the Bonples gone horrified with their eyes widen and their jaws dropped wider. For all the spectators who watched the scene, they all gasps in shock to see Miho was alive right in front of them (some of the Anzios were disbelieve that they were right she was Miho Nishizumi). They may not know how's Miho's face looked like, but they know who is Miho looked like. And to see the girl back from the dead here, they all would freaked out on that.

Jajka quickly pulled away the knife from Miho's neck to her right side, and then in agitation dropped it from her hands to the snowy ground. Jajka then looked up to Miho's eyes nervously and agitatedly as she steps a few times backwards before she stopped.

"Why you didn't kill me, mate?" Miho asked coldly as she steps closer to her. "You almost got your revenge. Why with the change of your decision?"

"No, no…" Jajka replied lowly as she fearfully shook her head. "I… I can't…"

"Why you can't kill me?" Miho asked again as she stopped step forward right in front of her.

"I'm… I'm…" Jajka paused as she doubted on what she's saying, before she continued. "I'm not a murderer…"

"Good," Miho said with a nod, before she continued coldly. "I give you a chance here. You walk away, stop harassing my friends here especially Anchovy and I guarantee you won't have any trouble. I will not look for you and I will not chase you. But… if you don't… if you continue harassing my friends here… I will look for you… I'll find you… and I'll do a lot a damage that you can't even sleep at night every day. Understand?"

It is not sure whether what Miho's threat is true. But for the Bonples, Jajka, Maho's and Anchovy's groups, the threat was sounded like a dead sentence for them. Jajka gasps a lot to hear the threat as the fog of breath created due to the cold winter and their breathing flew in front of her face. To see Miho didn't breathe hard from all that fight and telling her to kill her, it wasn't a girl she was facing at.

Miho was more than a monster and more than the Nishizumi style.

Jajka let her sweats pouring down her forehead as she willingly replied. "Alright, I understand. I'll stop, okay? Just don't…"

"You made the right decision," Miho quickly interrupted her. "Now go, take care of your friends. I'll leave now."

Miho then turned around and walked away from Jajka, picking her boonie hat she threw to a table first before heading back to her group but not after she picked the knife Jajka dropped. Jajka only stood frozen at her place, watched Miho walked away before a girl from Bonple quickly comes up to her. Jajka yelped in surprise after the Bonple girl patted her shoulder and she looked at her. Jajka nodded to the girl as they both make their way back to the injured Bonple girls, not after Jajka took another few moments to see Miho walked away and then turned her head toward the injured students.

Miho took a calming walk back to her group as her friends back there were all quiet shock that Miho had finished up the problem Anchovy had. It's the first time for them to see that Miho just finished the problem, flawlessly. After Miho reached them, she stopped right in front of Anchovy as she looked over to her eyes. Maho, Erika, Akaboshi, Pepperoni, Carpaccio and the rest of the Kuromorimine's commanders had all noticed that Miho's expression turned into a frown after looking at Anchovy's fearful face. Then there's only silence amongst them not including the noises around them who are the spectators of the scene.

Miho stayed silent for a moment in thoughts, before she said to Anchovy softly. "I'm… I'm sorry about that. My life back in London gave me… rough times."

Anchovy then began to be comforted by her words as she starts to calm down. "I… I can't believe you've done that by yourself."

"Yeah, I know," Miho replied softly, as she was felt guilty doing the fight brutally in front of her. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't to mean to scare you after you saw what I just did. Like I said before, I'm a hard girl."

They paused after that, but they didn't expect to see Anchovy smiled to Miho. "It's alright. There's no need to apologize to me. You have protected me and I'm glad you did that. I'm thankful for that, Miho. I owe you one."

Miho smiled back thankfully to hear as the rest felt the same to hear that Anchovy wasn't afraid of Miho. "It's very good to hear that, my lady."

"Don't mention it," Anchovy replied back happily to her savior.

"Umm, shouldn't we get out of here?" Ritaiko asked worriedly. "The crowds will be coming a lot soon."

"You're right, let's go, Miho," Pepperoni said in agreement to Miho, and received a nod from her.

They then decided to move out from to avoid any commotions that might coming up to them. Anchovy held Miho's hand as they walked out from there. If she had to be honest, she felt that she was being protected by a war veteran. To which Miho thankful that Anchovy didn't know she was a soldier. Miho smiled to know that she was holding her hand with Anchovy's.

Maho and the rest of the group then turned their heads for a moment to look at Miho and Anchovy. It was cute to see them like that, as if they were like dating right now. But they know they are not dating right now and they decided to keep their mouths shut from saying something stupid. Anchovy then looked over to Miho, before lean her head onto Miho's shoulder. Something that Miho didn't expect from Anchovy as she didn't blush but she was confused on what she's doing.

Miho didn't know that Anchovy liked her.

As they walked on, Anchovy reminded of something that she forgot to tell Miho. But though she had to hold it back for a moment because she doubted that Miho had heard about it. But then again, Anchovy decided to ask her because she wasn't sure if Miho ever heard everything said in the letter. Anchovy stopped as the rest did the same and looked over to Miho.

"Umm, I remembered something," Anchovy started as she scratched her head. "Have you heard the letters sent by Darjeeling?"

"Pardon me, who?" Miho asked because she had misheard.

"Did you have received any letters from Darjeeling?" Anchovy asked again, which reminded the Kuromorimine commanders including Maho about it.

"Oh, yes, we got and read the letter," Erika replied with a nod. "But, Kommandant. You didn't tell Miho about it, right?"

"Umm, yeah, but I'm sure Miho wasn't so interested about it," Maho replied with a nod which made Miho curious about it.

"What kind of letter did Darjeeling sent?" Miho asked, she ever heard a girl by that name but not meet with face to face.

"An invitation letter," Pepperoni replied. "We'll be coming over to St. Gloriana Girls College for a tea party."

"Yeah, every school who joined and watched the Exhibition will be there, including us," Sangou added.

"So… you're coming to the invitation party, right?" Anchovy asked, but she was surprised to see Miho had doubted to come to St. Gloriana Girls College.

"Um, I don't know, I don't really interest about it," Miho replied doubtedly as she looked down to her left.

"But, why?" Anchovy asked with her raised brows.

"It's just… I don't really want to meet them," Miho replied. "I rather be stay away from trouble before something worse happened there."

"I'm sure everything will be fine," Anchovy assured her, Miho felt comfortable to hear that. "Just come to the invitation at St. gloriana, please?"

Miho didn't want to go there because it would be a fuss to her, but also she doesn't want to upset Anchovy about it. So… she made her decision.

"Alright, I promise I'll come," Miho answered with a nod. "I'll try to watch my attitude when we get there, but I can't promise that."

"It's good to hear that, Miho-san!" Anchovy said aloud as she cheek-kissed her twice again, something that made her friends giggled. "Come on, let's continue our trip!"

And then, they spend their rest of the day walking around Anzio until the evening. It was a really great day for Miho, to know that Anchovy really liked her besides the hard and dark side she had. She enjoyed her day as she has funs with her friends around Anzio, well not really much. She also gave the compliments of the Anzio school to Anchovy and she loves to hear that. Which Miho reminded on one thing.

She wished everything here was like back in London, she missed it.


	22. Chapter 21 - Invitation Party

...

Task Force 141 Motto

"We fight in hell and darkness to ensure peace, tranquility and future. We may not be heroes. We may not be prodigy. We are soldiers, whom our names will not be forgotten."

Cpt. Miho Nishizumi, commanding officer of Task Force 141

* * *

 _Mental and Physic. Two different words that describe of how the status of a soldier is, or exactly a person. Mentality, affects everything inside your head. Your mind, your emotion, your conscience, your intellect, your soul, that's mentality. Physic, affects everything that outside your mind, specifically the health of your shell for your soul. Your body, your limbs, your muscle, your skin, your blood, that's physic. May the physic be holding alright, how's the mentality doing? If both didn't weight the same, can the person be broken?_

 _Miho was standing in the middle of the field. All around her was nothing but city of rubbles, a leftover of a bloody war. Buildings tainted in heavy dirt, sand, and leftovers of explosions that marked a lot of buildings in black mass of color. Miho looked up to the sky, the sky wasn't in blue. But horrifyingly faded into orange-dark grey skies as if the apocalypse of the earth had come strike to the ground as the loud thunders shot the surface of the earth. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder, blood, sweat and tears. There was no gunfire, no mortars, no rockets, no missiles, no shouting, no nothing._

 _She was inside a dead city._

 _She trembled to breathe as she slowly looked away from the sky and decided to looked down to herself. She's in her standard issue 141 uniform consists of 141 jacket, Kevlar vest, grey combat pants and her tactical black gloves. A pistol, strapped in its holster on her left leg as she noticed her rifle was nowhere to be found along with her grenades and her boonie hat. She sighed at this as she closed her eyes with a bow, felt the breezy winds that flew throughout the dead city._

 _She then opened her eyes nonchalantly and looked forward. But only to be shock at what she was seeing, something that is very devastating for her. Miho began to panic as she shook and turned her head to her left, right and behind her. However, all of it was no avail to do as her heavy guilt came back to her heart. Her hand turned into a fist as she angered and began to cry at the same time as she looked at what she was seeing._

 _Thousands of people's corpses were all on the ground, mangled and scattered all throughout the city, the buildings, the streets. Soldiers, men, women, children were all there. They all are dead right in front of her. None made a noise, none made a move, none made a try to listen, they're all dead right here. All of their corpses charred with bullets and explosions, a bloody massacre of nightmare that haunted Miho so much. Miho only stood there, cannot shout but to gasped to herself in regret and guilt of her failure._

 _A bloody thing that hurts her so much to the deepest of her heart, scared her, spook her, broking her into insanity._

 _"Captain Miho Nishizumi."_

 _The voice…_

 _"What do you think of what you're seeing right now?"_

 _It's the bastard… Makarov…_

 _"You know you can't change the inevitable," Makarov said from behind her, as she slowly turned around to behind her._

 _Her anger is boiling up, her sorrow is drowning her, her sanity is fucked up. Makarov was now standing in front of her, stood sternly and confidently evil towards her. Miho grinned her teeth angrily as she tried to control herself by her heart. Her eyes never leave the sight of Makarov in front of her._

 _"Here it is, a soldier who tried to change the world. But fail to change the fate of the world because you were too late to stop it."_

 _Miho narrowed her eyes angrily in guilt as she stood frozen there, as Makarov steps closer to her slowly. "A stubborn girl who denied the reality of the evolution. Deny the reality of the dominant power that changed the course of history. You think that you would get the world back to the right way. But you failed because you were hopelessly enough to stop the changing world when I had succeeded."_

 _Miho grinned her teeth open as she narrowed her eyes angrily to him, starting to lose her self-control._

 _"You knew that no one could stop this. Not even you."_

 _"But… you just keep trying and you failed."_

 _This is starting to set Miho off as she remembered about all the things that she did to try to stop the war, especially when dealing with Makarov._

 _"This is where all it ends, Captain."_

 _"There will be no government, no politics, no soldiers that would stop us. We are already the dominant power of the world. We will be… Invincible"_

 _"Ад ждет тебя, Капитан нишизуми."_

 _Makarov quickly pulls out his pistol and aimed at Miho. Before he able to pull the trigger. Miho quickly pulled out her pistol and aimed it at her rival. Then they both pulled their triggers._

 _*DOR – DOR*_

* * *

"GAAAAHH!" Miho shouted short as she quickly jumps out from her bed.

Miho quickly looked around as her cold sweats came down from her forehead. She feared if that really happened right now, she's doomed. But then, what she's seeing right now was that she was still inside her bedroom in the night. She took deep breathes quickly but then calmed down to know she was still safe and not in some sort of war. It was really a dream after all.

The moon shone through the window in front of her, seeing how night it was outside it was beautiful. Miho then quickly and agitatedly checked the alarm next to her. She was surprised and froze to see the time was 2 AM in the morning. She then with a sigh let herself fell back to her bed. Knowing It was just a nightmare, she just decided to go back sleep again.

She then turned her body to her left, facing the wall. She then closed her eyes, and struggled to sleep again.

She has a day coming for her.

* * *

On the road, St. Gloriana Schoolship. 10:00 AM.

(The High Kings, Rocky Road to Dublin)

"Are you alright, Miho-san?"

"Just tired from my sleep, that's all, mate."

"And what's with this song? It's quite catchy."

"It's an Irish song I got from UK. You don't like it?"

"No, it's just sounds catchy for us."

"Then enjoy it. How long 'till we get there?"

Miho was right now inside a car with Maho, Erika and Akaboshi. Miho was sitting next to Maho who was driving the car while Akaboshi and Erika was on the passenger seat behind them. Miho was leaning her head facing to outside the window as she enjoys the sight of the snow outside with a flat smile. It was a long trip for Miho, not for her sister and her friends. But they will reach the St. Gloriana Girls College soon enough.

While her friends were wearing their official Kuromorimine school uniforms, Miho was wearing a really casual clothes. Miho was wearing her long-sleeve buttoned dark-blue shirt underneath her black jacket with UK flag on her left shoulder. She was wearing her grey pants along with the belt plus pouches that contains small tools and a tactical baton in her right pocket of her pants (Maho was not sure it is a good idea to carry a baton around but she let Miho do what she wants). She was wearing her usual grey boonie hat on her head and does not wear any gloves.

Miho was not sure if this trip is really worth her time, especially on one thing. Miho had promised Anchovy that she would come to the invitation at St. Gloriana Girls College. What really worried her right now… was her behavior when she will be in the invitation soon. Like she ever said before, she's a very hard girl. Miho won't dare to tell the bloody truth. Because she wanted to hide her identity as the 141 and a war veteran, and also she doesn't want Anchovy hate her because founding out she was a soldier.

There was nothing to do for them to do but to wait until they reached their destination, knowing the only people who can go there only them four while the rest of the commanders were all busy at the moment. Erika and Akaboshi stayed silent as Maho drives the car and occasionally looked over to Miho to know how she is doing. Miho was right now enjoying the bloody music she was playing right now. While her friends and sister on the other hand could only just gave empty eyes to listen to the song. Even they heard Miho was singing the song she played.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road.

And all the ways to Dublin.

Whak-fol-lol-de-raa."

Yep, they don't know how they would comment on this.

Miho could only sing the song until the end of the song. Miho doesn't care if everyone around her are disturbed, the only thing she cared about right now is enjoying the song. The song she got really helped her to lighten up her mood before they reached the school. Therefore, everyone with her cannot do anything else but try to enjoy the song Miho carried with them.

After a few moments of driving, they reached the destination. Maho stopped and parked the car at the sidewalk before turning the engine of the car off. Miho quickly snapped out from keep staring out the window on her right and looked over to Maho. Miho sighed as her sister and her friends get off the car, before she gets out from the car. She then turned around near the car and faced to the school as she corrected her boonie hat with only by the tip of her finger forward.

There was the door less gateway on their left, the walls around the school colored in red and made from bricks. Then there's the Gloriana school, it was like one of the UK schools which was colored in elegant red-brownish color. The top of the school was a high bell tower to alert all Gloriana students if there will be any studies for them. There's nothing more special than the school's building style was looked like one of the school from Cambridge with little difference, aside from the bell tower. Honestly, she rather visited an elementary school to meet the children than going to this school meeting with friends with the same age as her.

While the look of the school was like that, Miho couldn't stop to notice the snow that was covering the path to and on the school building. Still, it's a good sight to see at all while they looked around more than the school. They greeted some of the St. Gloriana students that were coming to the school and talked in groups at the gate from near the car. Miho only greeted them with a nod whilst holding her hat and bowed it down to them. They then turned their attention to the school again after greeting some of the students.

"Huh, at least we're not in Pravda," Miho commented, her friends and her sister get caught off-guard by that.

"Oh, yeah, it's true," Erika replied in agreement.

"At least I'm not getting into trouble when we're inside this school," Akaboshi added in relieve.

"Ain't that true," Maho added with a nod.

"Yeah, they'll be having a bad time with me if that happened again," Miho added coldly.

"Like what you did to Nina back there?" Maho asked, if that's what Miho meant she wouldn't like it.

"Yeah, something like that," Miho replied with a nod. "It's getting cold out here."

"Let's go inside," Erika said to them.

"Alright, let's go mates," Miho said before they all went through the gateway and headed for the front door of the school.

They looked around again as they walked for the front door. Nothing interesting for them see right now except for the gardens on the front yard of the school. But, adding the snow covering the trees and bushes, it looked as beautiful as one of the gardens in London (not Jubilee Park for sure). Miho smiled before she turned her head back to the front door of the school.

Well, the front door of the school was open when they arrived. They just walked through the front door and waited there. They then looked around the interior and was comforted on what they are seeing. Cream-colored and red comforting and elegant color on the walls, square-box windows copied from the houses in London, and all the interior inside the school was looked like something she could see from inside Buckingham-fucking-palace.

Then they decided to walk forward from there again. But then, stopped to see who were they expecting. Miho didn't recognize the three Gloriana girls in front of them, but Maho, Akaboshi and Erika recognized them. Darjeeling was in front of her group, still drinking her tea in her cup. Orange Pekoe was right next to Darjeeling but didn't drink any cup of tea. While Assam was beside Darjeeling, she also didn't drink any tea with her. The three Glorianas stood in front of them as Miho's group stopped in front of them.

"Good morning, Commander Maho Nishizumi," Darjeeling greeted with a bow of her head. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's also a pleasure to meet you, Darjeeling-san," Maho replied with a bow. "We received your invitation."

"We know," Pekoe replied with a smile. "Erika and Akaboshi, It's good to see you again."

"Thank you, we surely won't miss this invitation," Akaboshi replied with a nod. "It's our pleasure to meet you."

Assam darts her eye on one particular strange girl with Maho's group. "So… may I ask who this girl you bring here is?"

The Kuromorimine girls suddenly went nervous when Assam asked that, but Maho then kept her calm after that as Miho only glanced at Assam and then Darjeeling and Pekoe. "Why all of you suddenly looked… jumpy?"

"Forgive us… about that," Maho replied flatly. "This is my sister actually."

"Oh? You didn't tell us you have another sister beside the one who died," Pekoe paused as they glanced at her. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to offend."

"It's fine, Pekoe-san," Erika quickly said, then continued by Maho. "Besides… what you said was actually the opposite of it."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Darjeeling asked as the Gloriana girls confused by that.

"What she meant was, I'm not dead yet," the boonie hat girl replied coldly, then took off her hat as she looked at Darjeeling. "My name is Miho Nishizumi. Just came back from the grave."

Darjeeling, Assam and Pekoe suddenly gave their frightening faces as they were shocked to see the girl they from the rumors was right here. Darjeeling nearly dropped her cup as their jaws dropped and their eyes widen. To see Maho's sister still alive and standing right next to her, it just liked she just defied all odds. However, Darjeeling and her noble girls were able to calm down after that. Darjeeling shifted her cup to her left hand so she can shake her hand with Miho.

"I-it's a pleasure to meet you, Miho-san," Darjeeling said as she shook hands with Miho. "These other two girls with me are Orange Pekoe and Assam."

"The pleasure is mine, my lady," Miho said after she shook hands, but then bowed to her formally. "It's good to see you, Ms. Darjeeling. And it's also good to meet you both Ms. Pekoe and Ms. Assam."

"Oh? How polite you are," Darjeeling comented in surprise and with a smile. "I'm surprised that you sounded like a British."

"Well, you're actually talking to one, mate," Miho replied, which surprised the Gloriana girls after that.

"Wait, aren't you a Japanese yourself?" Assam asked as she was confused by Miho's statement.

"Miho is both Japanese and British," Akaboshi replied back. "When she disappeared, she washed up in London for a year."

"How did you get a citizenship as a British?" Pekoe asked, to which Miho and her group began to keep quite about it.

"It's… quiet a long story," Miho replied awkwardly. "But the story was also not pretty."

"Oh, then let's talk about that another time," Darjeeling replied in understood, something that relieved Miho's group in their hearts. "By the way, what happened to your eye?"

"I got scratched by a tiger, nothing to worry about," Miho replied in which she was expected, the Glorianas shocked to hear that.

"You got scratched by a tiger?!" Assam asked in a moderate voice but worry. "That's dangerous, you should be worry about it."

"Heh, I had worst, mate," Miho replied with a small smirk. "Besides, it's not like I was going to get rape by a tiger."

That… had made everyone glance at her in horror. "Oh, sorry. I got carried away by my dark humor," Miho added awkwardly as she puts back her boonie hat back on her head.

Then they heard a giggle, they all including Miho glanced at who was giggling. To Darjeeling's and Pekoe's amazement, it was Assam. As Assam giggled, she then snapped to see that everyone was looking at her. But the only person who looked fine to hear Assam giggled was Miho herself.

"Oh, uhm… forgive me about that," Assam solemnly replied with an open palm. "I just felt hilarious on that."

"Did you just giggle after what Miho said?" Darjeeling asked to confirm. "That was…"

"Yes, I did. Forgive me about that," Assam replied with a sorry bow to Darjeeling.

"Oh, don't be like that my third favorite British girl," Miho suddenly added with a smile. "You looked fine for me."

"Eh?" everyone including Assam asked in surprise, then continued by Pekoe. "You're fine on that?"

"And third favorite British girl…?" Erika asked as she trailed off. "Now I'm wondering what's going on in your head, Miho-san."

"Well, you'll see that for another time," Miho replied as she turned her head to her before turning to Assam. "You're into dark humor as well?"

"Well… a little," Assam replied sheepishly as she shows how much dark humor she had with her two fingers.

"Sorry to interrupt by the way, there's something… odd for me," Darjeeling said as Miho's group turned their heads to Darjeeling. "Miho, you said you washed up in London. How did you get washed up there? It's like you just magically turned up to the other side of the globe without any valid reason."

"I'm wondering to myself about that to, Ms. Darjeeling," Miho replied with her arms waved to her sides, then continued by Akaboshi. "Miho was knocked out cold after the bridge collapse back in Ooarai. No one including herself here know how did Miho end up in London."

"I see," Assam said with a nod, then a smile. "At least we're glad to see you still alive and well."

"I agree," Maho added with a nod, then she looked over to Darjeeling. "So… is everyone already here?"

"We're actually still waiting for the BC Freedom," Darjeeling replied, Miho scoffed at that.

"What's wrong, Miho-san?" Pekoe asked confusedly as the Kuromorimine commanders remembered what Miho was thinking just now.

"If those BC Freedoms are he-," Miho said as she turned her head to behind her group, and suddenly she was upset by who just came up from behind them. "Well, if isn't you monkeys again?"

Darjeeling's group looked over through Miho's group as Miho's group turned their head to looked at who Miho was looking at. There were the girls from the BC Freedom, Andou, Oshida and Marie were there. The BC Freedom commanders were very surprised to see that Miho was with the Kuromorimine's group. But for Andou, she was starting to hope that Miho didn't get angry to see her again after what happened in Kumamoto. After they reached both Miho's and Darjeeling's group, they greeted them.

"Bonjour ... tout le monde ..." Marie awkwardly greeted due to Miho's presence. "It's… good to meet you again, Miho-san."

Miho paused with suspicion, before replying coldly. "Bonjour, mademoiselle Marie. Bonjour à vous aussi, vice-commandants."

Darjeeling, Pekoe and Assam were all deadpanned to hear Miho just spoke French. "Wait, I thought you can only speak German, Japanese and English," Assam said in confusion.

"She had language classes if you asked," Erika replied, which clears up the confusion for the Glorianas.

Miho looked sharply at each of the BC Freedom commanders, but then caught the agitation that coming from Andou. "What's wrong Andou? Are you afraid that this will happen like back in Kumamoto?"

"Ah? No, I'm not," Andou nervously replied with the shook of her head. "I'm not looking for any fight I swear it!"

"Hmm…" this made Miho interested about what happened to her as she looked over to Marie. "What's up with your vice-commander?"

"For a start, she didn't have any fight with any students in our within the past week because she didn't want any," Marie explained as she was upset of Andou's condition. "Not even want to talk to her own faction and even ignore the Escalators that are taunting her. So for a short version, she changed here…"

Miho paused with a cold look, then looked over to Andou as she became uncomfortable when she looked at her. "Good for you, mate. I appreciate to hear that from Marie."

"Huh? You… you're not mad?" Oshida asked, everyone was confused by Miho's change of heart.

"I'm not mad, I'm relieved to hear that," Miho replied as her eyes never leave Andou. "I pull my words about what I said to you, Andou."

"Wait, really?" Andou asked in disbelieve, and then remembered what she needs to say to Miho. "Oh, umm, I also want to say that I'm sorry about what I did back in Kumamoto. I shouldn't have threatened to get out from that place."

"I forgive you, mate," Miho replied with a little upset look. "Just try to not give me an edge, alright?"

"Alright, I won't give you an edge," Andu replied with a nod, before they all looked back to Darjeeling. "So, Darjeeling… still in the same place right?"

"Correct," Darjeeling replied with a nod and a flat smile. "So, the rumors about Kumamoto were true after all."

"Yeah, we can't believe at what we were seeing that time," Erika replied with a shrug. "Miho did gave her a hard day."

"Ahem," Maho coughs to attract everyone's attention to her. "We better go to the tea party now. This is the last people you were waiting, right?"

"Ah yes, come this way," Darjeeling replied quickly, and she along with her noble sisters lead the way for them.

They followed Darjeeling and the noble sisters throughout the school. Darjeeling of course had to admire about Miho, especially the style of the clothes she was wearing that made Pekoe and Assam surprised when they first met her. To see Miho wearing dark-blue buttoned shirt, a black jacket, grey pants and a boonie hat instead of Kuromorimine uniform, she looked like a tough girl for Darjeeling with the touch of the British look. Pekoe had asked about the jacket Miho wore, especially about the UK flag on her left shoulder. Miho had replied that the jacket she had bought from a store nearly military look-alike, the BC Freedom commanders were all wondered about the store while the Glorianas admired the jacket she had was a special one since it has an affiliation with the British.

It was a one-minute walk to go to the place Darjeeling meant. It seems the trip to St. Gloriana Girls College went well for now. Miho had started to hope that Anchovy was really here, because she had one problem that kept troubling herself. She has trust issues sometime so, she's careful for herself and doesn't want to happen like that time General Sheperd betrayed her and the Task Force 141. Remembering that, she was pissed to herself silently as they walked.

Which caught Pekoe's attention on that. "Is something bothering you, Ms. Miho Nishizumi?"

Miho quickly snapped herself out and looked straight to Pekoe coldly. "Excuse me?"

"Is there something bothering you, Ms. Miho?" Pekoe asked again, to which Miho nearly raised her brow while her face is still cold.

"There's nothing, Ms. Pekoe," Miho replied with a shook.

"Are you sure? You looked angry about something," Pekoe asked again which everyone glanced at her for a moment.

"Can we just be silent?" Miho asked coldly, to which everyone flinched of her answer and quickly shut their mouths as they walked and turned their heads forward.

Andou had felt uncomfortable to feel the cold expression from Miho. Darjeeling, Pekoe and Assam might have been wrong but they felt this unusual aura from Miho, they can't tell what aura was it. Maho had thought that there's something personal that had bothering Miho. While the rest of them, could only stay silent and won't dare to bother Miho about what's up with her.

They then reached the place Darjeeling meant. The party was held in her huge office, Darjeeling opens the door and they entered one by one. Everything inside the huge office was quite pretty. There was the wooden good-looking round table which was decorated with a lot of tea and cakes and cupcakes. Miho felt like she's back in Wallcroft's tea party again while the rest felt this is nice to spend their time to finish all this cakes. And when it comes to cakes, Oshida will be annoyed to see Marie eating cakes with Darjeeling again.

There were everyone Darjeeling invited according to the letters she sent. Besides Kuromorimine and BC Freedom, there were the Pravdas, Chi-Ha-Tan, Saunders, Jatkosota, Anzio, and surprisingly Ooarai. The Pravdas were Nonna, Katyusha and Klara while the Chi-Ha-Tan was Kinuyo Nishi, Haru Tamada and Fukuda. Jatkosotas were Mika, Aki and Mikko while the Saunders were Naomi, Alisa and Kay (someone that she glad to meet with). The Anzios were Carpaccio, Pepperoni and gladly Anchovy was there as well. While Ooarai, it's those student councils, Anzu Kadotani, Momo Kawashima and Yuzu Koyama.

Maybe Miho was annoyed to see the Pravdas were here, but what annoyed her the most was the presence of the Ooarai's student councils.

Everyone in the room who were waiting for the last people all turned around toward them and all greeted them happily. But then when they changed their sight to Miho, they all quickly gave a flat smile to the stranger with the boonie hat. Everyone fell silent awkwardly as they winced their eyes to Miho, except for the Anzios and Kay who recognized her. They began to murmur amongst them as they can't recognize the girl they're looking at because of her boonie hat, while Anzios and Kay stayed silent for the moment along with Darjeeling's, Marie's and Maho's group. Then Anzu took a step forward to her and winced her eyes in suspicion.

Anzu then raised her eyebrows as she noticed something. "Umm, you… look familiar."

"May we know who are you?" Nonna asked as she along with her Pravdas were also felt familiar with the boonie hat girls' hidden face.

Instead of answering, Miho gently took her boonie hat off her head and glanced at them. The girls from Jatkosota, Pravdas and Ooarai were the only ones who were shocked to see her.

"MIHO?!" the said girls from the specific schools shouted in disbelieve, as the rest girls from the other schools except Anzios and Kay were all surprised by the name they mentioned.

"EH!?" the other schools replied in surprised.

They all then fell silent for a moment for this discovery, until the silence had been broke up by Mika. "You… you really are alive, Miho-san…"

"Mika, it's good to see you again," Miho greeted with a nod as she puts back her hat. "I guess there were quite a lot of rumors about me lately."

"Yes, it's true," Mika replied with a nod and then paused. "I'm… surprised to see you right now."

"I know, Mika," Miho then looked over to Kay who was with her girls from Saunders at the corner. "Hey, Kay. How are ya' holding up there, mate?"

"As good as always, Miho," Kay replied as she made an 'OK' gesture with her hand while everyone else except BC Freedoms and Kuromorimines who were surprised if she knows her. "I didn't think you would come."

"That's because I invite her," Anchovy answered quickly as she walks up to Miho, she smiled to see Anchovy in front of her.

"Morning, my lady," Miho greeted, then Anchovy cheek-kissed her twice. "You looked as great and beautiful as the winter's snow."

"Aah, thank you," Anchovy replied shyly. "I didn't expect to hear that."

When they saw this, Assam had whispered to Oshida. "This is weird."

"I know," Oshida whispered back and then they looked back to them.

"Ahem, it's good to see you, Miho-san," Nonna interrupted as they all glanced at her. "You looked like you have a fine day."

"But not on your end?" Miho asked, which made the Pravdas surprised on what question she meant while everyone in the room confused on what she meant.

"Y-you talking about those weird soldiers who raid our school?" Katyusha asked quickly. "Wait, you knew about this! Did you hire them to raid our school?!"

"And save me? No, they didn't and we don't know about who are they," Akaboshi replied angrily, to which everyone knew the Pravdas kidnapped her. "You gave me a lot of pain, you know that?"

"Why would you dare to do that?" Nishi asked in disbelieve.

"We had to find an advantage for our next Match in the future," Klara replied to her to which Miho scoffed at that.

"Advantage my arse!" Miho said aloud coldly, which made everyone flinched and startled by the statement as Anchovy was surprised of Miho's reaction. "You hurt Akaboshi up real bad than it should, mate! Didn't we told you something bad would happened to you if you did that!?"

"Hey! Watch it!" Katyusha replied aloud as she pointed finger at her. "Do you know who are you talking to?"

"Yeah, can you stop being rude for the moment?" Pekoe asked worriedly with her brows half-raised.

"Forgive me if I'm being sarcastic, I have a bad temper after what happened," Miho then sighed before looking back to Katyusha. "At least, I can thank you enough to see Akaboshi is still alright here."

"I heard you Pravdas had trouble with the JSDF," Yuzu stated with her finger on her chin.

"Yes, we did," Nonna replied. "Odd though, they know we kidnapped Akaboshi but they just gave us a warning to not do that again."

"Huh? Why?" Pepperoni asked as she was confused of what action JSDF took.

"We don't know, but I'm glad we're still alright," Katyusha replied in relieve as Miho could only smirk on that.

"That reminds me, Maho," Klara called. "Are the you one who talked in Russian while we were calling you that time?"

"No… but her," Maho replied awkwardly as she points her head to Miho, everyone just stared at Miho in disbelieve.

"Pah! There's no way you can speak Russian," Katyusha replied with a fake confident, taking note that she was a little bit afraid about Miho here.

"I agree, you were a student in Kuromorimine and Ooarai before," Alisa added with her arms crossed. "There's no way you can speak Russian because you're not a Pravda student nor even a Russian."

Miho tilted her head with her right eyebrow raised. "Извини, чёрт возьми, ты там сказал?"

…

…

…

…

"Did you just…?" Marie asked.

"Да, почему?" Miho replied quickly as she looked at her, not really amused.

…

…

…

…

They all except Kuromorimine's commanders and Kay dumbfounded to Miho's ability to speak perfect Russian language. "I… didn't see that coming," Carpaccio interrupted awkwardly.

They all then paused, until Klara decided to talk with Miho. "Ты, должно быть, шутишь."

"Нет я не," Miho replied calmly as she lazily turned her head to Klara. "Если бы я это сделал, я буду бы отвали пошел отсюда прямо сейчас."

Nonna and Klara both flinched of her reply while Katyusha was annoyed to hear them speaking Russian. "Can you two stop speaking Russian now?" Katyusha asked softly as if she was demanded.

"Alright, we'll stop," Klara said with a nod, before looking back to Miho. "How about we just sit down right now on our chairs?"

Miho paused as she looked around the room, before looking back to Klara with a nod. "Sounds good enough for me."

They all then proceeded to sit on the chairs according to their own place. Miho decided to sat down between Anchovy and Erika while the rest sat down on their chairs randomly. After they sat down, someone else came into the room and to Darjeeling's disbelieve, it was Rosehip. Miho smiled a little to see Rosehip was much more energized unlike the rest of the St. Glorianas. Rosehip then sat down at her chair next to Darjeeling so she can helped her calm down (To Miho, Darjeeling meant 'controlling' her). They all then introduced themselves to Miho one by one except for those who had been recognized by Miho.

Miho looked around as the Glorianas were serving them with teas and cakes on the plates and she puts her boonie hat beside her plate. Everyone looked doing alright now, but Miho noticed some of them do not look okay. Anzu, Yuzu and Momo gave their suspicious stares to Maho, Erika and Akaboshi as if there was something that they hate them. Mika along with her schoolmates and Marie along with her schoolmates were felt uncomfortable with Miho's presence as they decided to stay silent. Anchovy had a chat with Miho happily as her schoolmates were glad Miho had calmed down. While the rest of students from Chi-Ha-tan, Gloriana and Saunders except for Kay were wondering what else Miho had gone through for a year.

As Miho finished her talk with the girl she loved silently, Anchovy, Nishi called her and Miho turned her head to her. "So… where have you been for a year?"

"I've been in London for a year, actually," Miho replied as she drinks her tea. "I got washed up there."

"Huh? That's a long way for you to wash up there," Fukuda commented in confusion. "It's like you've been washed up the other side of the world."

"Yeah, there's no way you survived that bridge accident in Ooarai and then washed up in United Kingdom," Naomi added as she still blows her bubblegum on her mouth.

"I would say it's a miracle," Erika replied. "She doesn't remember how did she washed up there because she was unconscious that time."

"True, I was badly injured that time," Miho replied sourly to her memories. "Took many shrapnel to my ribs and limbs."

"Ouch, that sounds very painful," Oshida commented with a small grin of horror.

"Don't worry, I had worse," Miho replied with her hand waved to her.

"So… where are you living right now?" Tamada asked in wonder.

"In the Nishizumi Residence for now," Miho replied, but then she noticed everyone's face looked a little nervous. "Is there something bothering ya'?"

"I'm surprised you still live with your mother and sister," Nonna commented. "I thought you were kicked out from there."

"I did and she let me live there after she met me," Miho replied with a shrug, hugging her hands to each other on the table. "I imagine you did send a sorry card to my sister?"

"Yeah, I did," Katyusha replied with a nod, and a grin. "You should have called me or tell Maho to tell me you were alive that time."

Miho raised her right brow to Katyusha. "Well, I tried to make this a surprise."

"Yeah, it's bad though that we found out you were alive because of those rumors," Assam added as she sips her tea.

"Even Yukari had watched about what happened in Yokohama city," Anzu added lazily as leans her head against her chair and drinking her tea, which halted Miho to drink her tea for the moment.

"My mate from my former Anglerfish team?" Miho asked as she looked at Anzu, coldly. "That reminds me, how are they doing?"

"They were devastated at first, but then they were glad to hear and see you were alive," Momo replied.

"Though they will be much more glad to see you came back to Ooarai again," Yuzu added with a smile, to Miho's annoyance.

"Why should I go back there, mate?" Miho asked flatly, hiding her tone of annoyance.

"Because your friends there wanted to meet you again!" Rosehip quickly replied enthusiastically. "Then we can spend our time to have fun with them!"

Everyone glared at her including Miho who felt very odd of Rosehip's attitude. "E-er, forgive me about that," Rosehip shyly replied as she comforts herself in her seat.

"Is she always…?" Miho asked as she trailed off to Darjeeling.

"Forgive me, she's always so energetic like this," Darjeeling apologized with her open palm facing to Miho. "And also she's… kind of a speedster girl."

"Rosehip is a fast runner?" Miho asked in surprised with her brows raised.

"Yeah, forgive us about that," Pekoe quickly replied with a nod.

"Nah, it's fine, I love to see a good runner," Miho replied with a shook and her open palm waved at her.

"You do?" Aki asked with her head tilted in surprise. "She ever broke the sound barrier just by running, you know."

Everyone had glared at her to Rosehip's true fact. "Wait, you're kidding?" Erika asked in disbelieve.

"That's not just possible," Maho replied as her arms crossed on her table.

"She's not kidding, I ever saw Rosehip did that," Akaboshi answered immediately, which surprised Maho and Erika of her discovery. "Though, that was when she wants to go to the restroom quickly."

"Rosehip…" Miho called, Rosehip and the rest looked at her. "You're officially my first favorite British girl, mate."

The Glorianas who all were sipping their tea quickly choked and spit them out from their mouth to hear that, Rosehip however was pretty thankful to hear that. "Really? Thank you, Miho-san!"

"Wait, what about me?!" Darjeeling asked nearly showing her emotion and nearly aloud.

"You're my second favorite," Miho replied, they all glanced at the poker face of Darjeeling's with their empty eyes. "While Pekoe is the fourth."

"And… how do you know that?" Fukuda asked as she winced her eyes to her.

"That's what I think, mate," Miho replied. "I didn't say that's what everyone thinks."

"Oh, I see," Anchovy replied n understood.

Before anyone of them able to ask again, there was a song…

(REMOVE KEBAB (perfect loop))

This was the first time to hear a strange song out of nowhere. They all looked around them, only to end up to see Miho was the one who was responsible for the song. Turns out, Miho had pulled out her phone that was playing the music from the pocket of her jacket and looked onto it. Miho had replied to them all that someone was calling her.

"Who's calling you?" Kay asked.

"Huh, Gaarhaye is calling me."

To hear Miho just replied with such an odd name, it sounds familiar to Darjeeling. "Is that an African man's name?"

"That's right," Miho nodded as she was still holding her ringing phone. "Can I?"

"Don't worry, go ahead," Darjeeling replied with a 'go ahead' gesture.

"Thank you," Miho then answered the phone and put it on her ear (stop the song). "Hello?"

They all stayed silent as Miho heard what's her friend saying on the phone to which everyone in the room couldn't hear. "hello Sideed tahay?"

"Waan fiicanahay, waan ku mahadsanahay," Miho replied, they all surprised and deadpanned on what Miho just said. "Sidee ayaad u qabanaysaa dhammaadkaaga?"

"Oh, waxaan haystaa maalin weyn, kabtan!" Gaarhaye replied happily. "haddee xagee tahay hadda?"

"Waxaan ku jiraa xaflad shaaha halkan," Miho replied as she sips her tea while everyone glanced at each other in confusion of the language. "Waad ogtahay? Waxaad iigu yeedhey waqtigii khaldanaa halkan."

"Runtii?" Garhaaye replied in disbelieve in the phone. "Waxaad u egtahay sida aad ku raaxaysato wakhtigaaga."

"Wax iiga sheeg," Miho replied with a huffed. "Sidee ayaa Hal Afartii Mid dib ugu qabataa halkaas?"

"Hadda wax ganaax ah," Gaarhaye replied. "Ghost, Hannibal, Bazarov iyo makaanikada ayaa dhamaantood isku dayaya inay ku daraan tayada qamriga ee taangiyada hadda."

"Oo sidee bay u socotaa?" Miho asked on the phone.

"Si aad u fiican, laakiin Bazarov ayaa sheegay in darawalladu isticmaali karaan nitro 10kii ilbiriqsi," Garhaaye replied, something that Miho glad but only gave a flat smile.

"Ha ka welwelin, taasi waa nagu filan nagu filan," Miho replied. "Wax kale oo aad rabto inaad ila hadasho?"

"Waxaan la yaabay, markaad dib u soo noqoto mar labaad?" Garhaaye asked again. "Waxaan helay cabitaanka aad rabto halkan."

"Marka aan helo waqtiga, saaxiibkay," Miho replied. "Waa inaan tagaa, dib ayaan kuugu arkayaa saldhiga, Garhaaye."

"Hagaag, dib u arag, Kabtan," Miho then closed the call and puts back her phone back inside her pocket.

Miho then looked around the room, only to see everyone in the room at their tables were glancing at her with their blank eyes. "You okay, lads?"

They all stayed silent as they weren't sure what to say, until Pepperoni asked. "In what language were you talking on?"

"Somali, why?"

…

…

…

…

How would they comment about this? Miho just fucking talk in a language that is very hard even Klara had her brains upside down to hear that, imagining that language mixed with her Russian language. Erika, Maho, Kay and Akaboshi on the other hand, were wondering how many languages does Miho know because knowing these many language looked so outrageous. Miho only gave her cold face as she was observing everyone's faces including the girl she loved, Anchovy, to see that everyone's face were looked amazed.

"How did you learn that language?" Mikko asked as they were still amazed.

"Took a language class with an interpreter," Miho replied. "Took a whole month for me to understand the bloody language."

"For real?" Naomi asked with her head pointed to her. "Sounds like a pain in the ass."

"Yeah, I agree with you, mate," Miho replied as she fills her cup with tea. "I rather took Russian language class than that, can't believe I'm going to have a friend from Somalia."

"By the way," Anzu said aloud. "How's your mother doing right now?"

"She's doing fine right now," Maho replied. "Still working on her stuffs in Kuromorimine."

"And we both had a good time back in the residence," Miho added with her hands clumped at each other on the table with a shrug. "At least, after I came back from London."

"That's odd, I thought your mother should be hard after you got out from there," Yuzu replied with a raised brow.

"I know, but at least…" Miho paused, before continuing. "She apologized to me of what she did to me."

To know Shiho had apologized to Miho after her disappearance for a year, this was a surprising thing to hear for everyone including Erika and Akaboshi. "She did?" Katyusha asked.

"Yes, she did," Maho replied with a nod.

"Oh well, that's nice to hear," Anchovy added with a nod.

"So… you're joined up with Kuromorimine after you came back?" Anzu asked, which caught the Kuromorimine commanders off-guard and also including Miho who didn't surprise by the question but she was annoyed instead.

"And why are you asking that?" Miho asked coldly, something that discomfort Anchovy and her Anzios a little.

"Well… since you did come here with your sister, Erika and Akaboshi who are from Kuromorimine," Yuzu explained softly. "Aren't you also one of the Kuromorimine now too?"

"No, she's not, Yuzu-san," Pepperoni replied, instead of Miho answering.

"Huh? You're kidding," Nishi asked with a smirk.

"No she's not, Nishi," Erika replied with a shook. "Miho is not really with us, Kuromorimine."

"Even though she helped us a lot in Kuromorimine," Akaboshi added as she looked over to Miho. "Is because she volunteered to do so, not joined back with Kuromorimine."

"Then what school you joined with?" Darjeeling asked with a raised brow to Miho.

Miho replied with a shook first, before said it to her. "None."

"None?" Mika asked confusedly as she halted to eat her cookie. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't joined up in any schools in Japan apart from my affiliation with Kuromorimine," Miho replied as she sips her tea.

"But… don't you would worry about yourself?" Oshida asked in doubt as she puts her elbow on the table with her hand underneath her chin. "Like…won't it be a burden for you to not get a scholarship for your future job?"

"I already got my own job, mate," Miho replied, which of course surprised them all except the Kuromorimines and Anzios and Kay.

"What kind of job?" Tamada asked as she tilted her head.

Miho looked over to Maho, before looking back to Tamada. "Let's say that I do volunteer jobs. I got my volunteer jobs from either my mother or Ms. Ami Chuono."

They all except the Kuromorimines and Kay widen their eyes in surprise. "Wow, that's a faster way to get a job," Kay commented, it was sounded convincing enough for everyone to fall to that lie.

"Even without scholarship?" Carpaccio asked again.

"I don't need one," Miho replied with a shook and her eyes closed. "My time living in London taught me a lot for sure."

"Why've you grown up so quickly, Miho?" Maho asked as she wondered how her young sister able to beat her. "You're still younger than me, you know?"

"I know, you're still in the school and I'm just a drop out," Miho replied with a sincere sigh. "Don't ask me how did this happened, alright?"

"Shame…" Anzu commented as she lazily check her own fingers, they all looked at her in confusion as Miho felt discomfort and suspicious to Anzu. "I really wanted you to join back in Ooarai, so you can meet your friends again."

"I'm sensing there's more than just 'meeting my old friends'," Miho replied coldly as she sharply stared straight at Anzu, they all were wondering why Miho stared so sharp like that.

Anzu paused of Miho's reply, which then she smirked. "Well… actually I wanted you to join back to Ooarai so you can lead the tankery again back to its feet."

They all looked back to Miho again, only to see her cold face was somehow look a little… angry. "That's out of question."

To hear that reply, it made Anzu smirking even more while her student councils were looked like want to provoke her. "What's wrong, Miho? You sounded angry when Anzu mentioned Tankery."

"I'm not going back to tankery, alright?" Miho replied coldly, her both hands were already clumped on her chin with her elbows on the table.

"Hey, why would you don't want to go back to tankery?" Momo asked sternly. "Is it because that incident back in Ooarai?"

"It's more complicated than that," Miho replied again coldly, that Maho, Erika and Akaboshi don't know what they would say to stop them from giving Miho an edge.

"Hey, what are you doing to Miho?" Anchovy asked angrily. "Don't you make her angry!"

"After Miho had avoided on joining Tankery?" Katyusha asked with an evil grin. "I don't think so."

"What are you going at?" Miho asked still coldly as she winced her eyes to Katyusha.

"You are still bad as usual, Miho," Katyusha replied confidently with an evil smile, forgetting her fear on meeting Miho while everyone couldn't do anything but to stay silent. "Like what happened back in 62nd National Tournament."

They all expecting to see Miho flinched and upset by that, but what they got right now was her very cold face. This was something that Katyusha didn't expect to see from Miho.

Seeing this, Katyusha took this moment to insult her more as Klara and Nonna silently agreed to Katyusha's move a little. "You got your shot that time back in the tournament, but instead you did your useless act of saving Akaboshi here instead of leading your former school to victory."

Miho still only glancing at her coldly, nearly giving the impression of she was having low-blood pressure. "Really, still silent? Is it because you failure back in that tournament? If I recall, the Kuromorimine students mocked you endlessly and Erika slapped you for that like you were a stupid girl."

Miho only stayed silent as she listens to Katyusha's insults. "So what? You got to Ooarai, faked your death that time on that bridge so that you can avoid joining the Tankery? No wonder you are useless for everyone in the Tankery and no wonder you begged to your mother to apologize to you."

Miho raised her brows to that, not a sign that she was flinched or angry. "Hurts like a cyka doesn't it? Soiled your family's name because of your own heresy and kicked you out like a beggar on the street."

Miho only stared at her in silent, as Katyusha grinned evilly to her. Everyone looked at Miho to see her face was rather more cold than ever, which then make Katyusha laughed at Miho. Miho was now actually annoyed and angry at Katyusha even though she was showing her cold face. Miho swears that she tried to control herself from committing a worse assault on an 18 years old short Pravda girl who looked like a 7 years old kid.

Miho kept staring at her until Katyusha slowly stopped laughing. "Oh, you think you're funny, eh? You looked funny enough for me if you sucks a man's dick with no fucking teeth."

That made everyone stared at her in disgust, not for Katyusha and Anchovy who stared at her in horror. "Are you done now, you little fuckhead?" Miho asked after she stood up from her chair and put her boonie hat back to her head.

Anchovy didn't really like to know that they just got on her dark side, as Katyusha and everyone else in the room were all shocked and flinched to Miho's reply. "You crossed the fucking line here," Miho continued, now with her brows narrowed to show she was angry despite her cold tone.

"You can go ahead and keep insulting me but you better start digging your own grave for that," Miho threatened coldly, this had Katyusha felt afraid along with Nonna and Klara while the rest felt discomfort of the threat.

"Don't you dare to threatened Commander Katyusha!" Nonna said flatly and angrily as she pointed to Miho. "Or you're going to face a lot of pain."

Miho only stared at Nonna, completely not amused. "I rather more glad if you kill me right now, Nonna."

That's the second time for Anchovy, Maho, Erika and Akaboshi to hear Miho asked that, while Nonna and everyone else surprised of what she said.

Miho then throws a butter knife forward a little further from her table and asked. "Now the question is, would you want to kill me right here, right now?"

Nonna can't answer on that, she was left in silent to consider the answer for that question. Miho only scoffed sadly as the everyone in the room glanced at Miho in worry except for the Ooarais, and then Miho made her way to the balcony on her left near Darjeeling's office. To know Miho even dared Nonna to kill her right now was something very rare to hear and to see. They only watched Miho walked away to the balcony as Nonna only stood there in frozen and can't answer her question whilst she was doubt if Miho said that for real or bluffing.

But to Nonna, the way Miho asked her was sounded like a killer. Nonna can't do what she asked because she wasn't a murderer.

Though, as they watched Miho walked away from a table, Momo made her move. Before Miho was a little further from the table Momo quickly walked up to her from behind. They surprise of Momo's move, why would she wants to confront her like that instead of letting her walk away. Momo quickly stopped right behind her a little further from her as Miho slowly walked away.

"Hey! We're not done yet!" Momo shouted angrily as she pointed to Miho.

Miho stopped, and then she looked to her right a little while her eyes looking to behind her underneath her boonie hat. "Why we're not done yet?" Miho asked coldly instead of replying to her angrily or with a shout.

"Because you can't get away from this!" Momo shouted back angrily.

Miho then turned around, and walked up to Momo with 3 steps before stopped right in front of her. "Oh really?" Miho asked coldly with her eyes narrowed down to her.

"Yeah! You better get back to Tankery in Ooarai!" Momo threatened aloud very confidently. "Or I will force you to put you back in Ooarai!"

"Really? You're very confident to do that," Miho replied coldly with a shook. "Overconfidence makes you careless, you know that?"

Everyone who were behind Momo were all surprise of what Miho said, while Momo only continued carelessly of Miho's reply. "I don't care about that, you're still a high schooler and you can't get away from it to be an unemployment and don't have any scholarship. You must get back to Ooarai or else…!"

"Or else what, wanker?" Miho asked coldly, the Glorianas who understand British words were all flinched of her swearing. "Don't even think that forcing me to go back there would work."

"Hey, you think so!? I know you faked your death because you want to get away from Tankery!" Momo stated angrily as Miho only stayed cold while everyone in the room were speechless of their fight. "You're going back to Ooarai no matter what, you bitch!"

Miho, who felt insulted in silent only stared at her darkly as everyone else able to noticed the dreary eyes that Miho made instead of Momo was the one who sees this.

"Momo, you better don't give me an edge," Miho warned sternly and coldly. "You're messing with the wrong person."

"Oh, am I?" Momo then clenched her fist and about to stike Miho. "How about this!?"

Miho had foreseen the attack that Momo would make. After Momo swings her right fist to her, Miho quickly blocked her attack with her left arm and at the same time pulled out the baton from her pocket and extend it. Miho then quickly counter-attacked by hitting Momo's waist with the baton to make Momo bents quickly to her left before Miho hits her in the head on the side very hard. Everyone was taken back by Miho's counter attack reaction as their eyes widen in surprise and astonishment and quickly get themselves into a safe distance from the fighting girls.

Momo quickly steps backward almost falling down if not for her back hits the table and puts her hands on hold to it. Momo quickly looks back at her to see Miho was twisting her extended baton around her hand like a pro though her face was giving a dreary-cold look. Momo quickly took a cup from the table desperately and quickly lunged and attacked Miho. But Miho of course foreseen the attack again, Miho quickly grabbed her hand by the wrist and quickly hits Momo's deep elbow, forcing her to clamp her arm in pain and dropped the cup she used to attack with a scream. Miho then kicked her right knee to force her to kneel and turned facing the table, before Miho quickly grabs her head and slammed her face into the table.

*BUAK*

Everyone startled to see Miho did that to Momo. Momo quickly bounced her head back in the air only to be hold by Miho with her hand-armed baton. They looked at Momo's face and they felt sorry to see her. Her face was quickly bruised, her nose was bleeding and most of all her single eyeglass was already cracked badly from that slamming. Before Momo could do anything else aside from being helplessly beaten up and nearly KO, Miho quickly slammed her face into the table again and hold her head on the table as hard as she can. Miho then puts her baton across and above Momo's neck and pushed it down. Miho was right now choking her on the table brutally.

Now everyone has seen the true nature of Miho herself. Everyone aside of those who had seen her fight before were all shocked to see this. The Pravdas and the Ooarais were already realized how brutal Miho would be instead of what they were expecting. They can't dare to do anything to stop Miho choking Momo to death.

What was worst of all from Miho was, they just made her turned black eyes.

Miho was still choking Momo down on the table as she grinned angrily and her dreary eyes were shadowed due to her boonie hat. Her eyes had strike everyone right in their souls and everyone quickly felt very afraid of her including Maho and Kay who were the 141. The only person who was concerned of her instead of afraid of her was Anchovy herself, as she only watched her worriedly and hoping Miho would stop. Miho is still choking her down as Momo desperately and in fear holds the baton behind her neck and try to push off her neck with as much energy that she can use.

While Momo tried to resist Miho's choking, Momo had let out her sadly plea. "P-ekh… P-please… e-akh… s…stop…. I… akh… beg you…"

Just listening to her pathetic plea, it had hit Miho right in her heart. She slowly realized what she was doing as her face went from angrily cold to neutral cold. Miho slowly lessen her strength on her choking with the baton, before she lets go her neck by retracting her baton off from her neck. Momo quickly kneeled on the ground and holds her own neck as she took a deep breathe and keep breathing as if she was in desperate for getting a clean air. But still, Miho was still angry of her so she let out her single strike.

*DAK-BUAK*

Miho hits her back of the head and forcing her own face to slam to the table, before falling back to the ground. Miho had knocked Momo Kawashima out cold.

Miho only glanced at the KO Momo as she retracts her tactical baton and put it back inside her pocket. Before looking back to everyone in the room with her cold emotionless face. She could see what faces they were showing. The Saunders including Kay, the Jakotsotas, the Pravdas, the BC Freedoms, and the Kuromorimines including Maho were all afraid as hell as they widen their eyes in fear with sweats climbing down their foreheads. The Glorianas were all shaking their cups on their hands as they tried so hard to hide their fears, Rosehip on the other hand was already left her jaw open in shock and agitated. The Chi-Ha-Tans, Ooarais and Anzios were all gulped in fear as their eyes looked away from Miho. The only person who still dare to look at her and worried about her was Anchovy herself.

Miho looked at all of them before finally looking towards Anchovy who was worried of Miho herself. Her face expression quickly change as she looked at her. Miho left her mouth open and her brows raised for a moment, before she frowned with her eyes closed. She sighed and then looked over to everyone again. She had regretted of what she had done in front of everyone.

"I'm sorry," Miho said softly, before she turned around in sorrow and headed out for the door to the balcony.

After they had watch Miho had left from the room, Andou and Yuzu quickly ran over to the KO Momo and began tending her. Everyone was left in agitation after watching the brutal fight Miho and Momo commited. What they can't believe was Miho can do more damage than anyone else in the bloody room. This was the time when Katyusha and the Ooarais had learned that they had set off the girl who had a soul of a beast off.

Anchovy was the only person who was disappointed that they had set Miho off instead of angry to Miho of what she's done. Why? It's because Anchovy understands Miho. Miho was a person who cares even for a single life. Miho was a person who would pay her respects. Miho was a very hard girl who had gone through a rough life that she doesn't know of. Miho was a person whom understands what is right and wrong.

Anchovy only stood up from her chair and sighed as she walked away from there. Everyone was quickly confused to see that Anchovy was walking straight to the balcony. Anchovy was already halfway there, until Klara came over to her and stopped her. Anchovy with a sigh turned around to her and looked up to her.

"Why are you heading over to the balcony?" Klara asked in confusion.

"I warned you to not make her angry," Anchovy replied with her angry eyes. "But you didn't listen."

"Wait, you want to talk to Miho?" Darjeeling asked as she comes over to them both with her cup of tea on her hand.

"You do know how dangerous she was right?" Klara asked worriedly, hoping that Anchovy what she's doing.

"That's because you got on her dark side," Anchovy replied as she leans her head to her. "She also has a soft side. And you didn't want to get that one."

Klara and Darjeeling paused, until Darjeeling agreed to Anchovy. "You can never tell a book by its cover."

"Edwin Rolfe and Lester Fuller," Pekoe answered, who came up from behind Darjeeling. "Are you sure you want to talk with Miho, Duce Anchovy?"

Anchovy paused for a moment to consider, then reply. "I'm sure, let's see if I can calm her down now."

"Can I come as well?" Darjeeling asked, she also wanted to talk to Miho.

"Well… you're okay to Miho so I guess you can come along," Anchovy replied with a nod.

"Can I too?" Mika asked with a begged look as she showed up behind them after Pekoe.

"Yeah, you can too," Anchovy replied with a nod. "How about we go talk to her now?"

"Can I come along as well?" Anzu asked, but Anchovy had the suspicion of her.

Anchovy paused for a moment, until she replied with a nod. "Sure, but I warn you to not make her angry."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind," Anzu replied with a nod and in understood.

* * *

Miho slowly walked over to the fence of the balcony and rested her arms on top of it. She gazes her eyes to in front of her to the large yard of the St. Gloriana School. The field of snow covers the whole yard as the breezing wind mixed with small snows filled the air as the weather above was cloudy with no sun did shone to the ground. Despite no sun shone through, everything she sees was so clear that she could see anything beyond 2 kilometers from there. She smiled at the sight in front of her eyes.

But then Miho bowed her head down and frowned. She had remind herself of what she had done back in that tea party. She had beat up Momo to the ground right in front of everyone, and worst of all in front of Anchovy. Miho hoped that Anchovy won't be angry to her, it was a good thing that Miho said that she can't promise to watch her behavior when she got here. What she had promised to Anchovy is that she will come over to the invitation party, and she did it.

Miho had this feeling that everyone back there were terrified of her actions, so that's why she had left the room into the balcony. The longer she stays there, it will go worse sooner or later. As she felt regret of what she's done, she only calmly pulled out one of her cigars and put it on her mouth. She then pulls out a lighter and burn the tip of the cigar before proceeding to inhale it to make it burn more as her lighter was putted back into her pocket. She then inhale it, then holds the cigar away from her mouth and breathes out a fog of smoke into the air before dispersing with the breezing snowy wind.

As Miho was smoking on her favorite cigar, she heard the door behind her opens as she watch the view from the balcony. She was surprised about that, considering that she had knocked out Momo brutally. Miho only turned around and looked at who was coming through the door as she holds her cigar on her right hand. To her surprise, it was Anchovy, Klara, Darjeeling, Mika and Anzu. Miho was much more surprised but able to kept her calm to see that Anchovy was worried to her instead of angry to her.

Miho could only turn back towards the view again as she continued to smoke, they didn't able to see that Miho was smoking. Anchovy, Klara, Darjeeling, Mika and Anzu then decided to approach her from behind and then stand to her left right. Anchovy and Klara were on the left while Darjeeling, Anzu and Mika were on the right. After they approached her, everyone including Anchovy were all surprised to see Miho had actually smoke. They did hope that the cigar she had actually a fake kind like a cigar-like chocolate, but instead they have smelled the smoke of the real cigar. Anchovy only waved her hand to sweep away the smell of the cigar as she looked at Miho.

"I don't know if you're smoking," Anchovy commented worriedly. "Are you a smoker?"

"Kind of," Miho replied flatly as she breathes out another fog of smoke. "Why?"

"It's not healthy you know?" Mika answered as she rested her arms on the stone fence.

"Well… it's for stress relieve," Miho replied back, everyone was comforted on what she said.

"I see," Klara replied, then asked. "Are you okay?"

"Nah, I'm not," Miho replied with a shook, her cigar still on her mouth. "Not after your commander there insulted me and I fucked Momo up."

"Easy, Ms. Nishizumi," Darjeeling begged softly as she holds her shoulder gently. "Just calm down."

Miho could only paused as she bowed her head down and smoked. "I shouldn't have did that to Momo."

Anchovy raised her brow to her. "What makes you say that?"

"It's just…" Miho the paused, then holds her cigar in her hand tipping the ash of the cigar. "Life in London gave me a little rough times."

"Don't worry about Kawashima," Anzu added as she leans forward to see her face. "Our friends just brought her to the infirmary."

"Alright, when she wakes up…" Miho paused, before looking back to Anzu with her cold eyes. "Tell her to not set me off again, alright?"

"I got it," Anzu replied with a nod, then continued by Mika. "That was a good fight back there."

Miho just chuckled at that without grinning. "That wasn't a fight."

"Huh? Then what was that?" Darjeeling asked with her brows raised.

"Self-defense," Miho replied again as she breathes out a fog of smoke.

"What's the difference?" Anchovy asked, then continued by Klara. "It looks like the same thing for me."

"Self-defense has the element of surprise," Miho replied softly. "Fighting does not."

"Oh?" Klara asked back in surprise. "It's the first time to hear that from you."

"You've been taught a lot to fight, didn't you?" Anzu asked with a smile.

"Yeah, I've been taught a lot," Miho replied with a nod. "Since my life in London was a little rough, it's kinda important for me to learn that."

"Well… I still owe you one, right?" Anchovy asked as she smiled to her and hugged her shoulders.

Miho then breathes out her fog of smoke then looked over to Anchovy with a calm and sincere look. "You don't owe me anything, Anchovy."

"Huh? But…" Anchovy said but then cut off by Miho.

"Please, it's alright," Miho cut her softly. "It's what I always do, you don't have to owe anything to me. It's alright."

To hear Miho didn't ask for any debt, this made Anchovy concerned of her choice. "Are you sure of that?"

"I'm sure, it's alright," Miho replied genuinely. "I'll be fine about this."

"Oh, I understand Miho-san," Anchovy replied with a nod. "Still, you're a good friend to me."

Miho looked at her with a soft smile, before she looked over to Klara. "Hey, Klara. You're from Novosibirsk, Russia, right?"

"Huh?" everyone asked in surprise, before Klara asked. "How did you know?"

"I asked Maho for that," Miho replied as she tipped off her cigar. "I'm still surprised that you were sloppy when you signed up the wrong paper while you're drinking your vodka."

"Wow, she did tell you a lot about me didn't she?" Klara replied with a smirk, before facing to the view from the balcony. "And if you're asking, I was drinking the non-alcoholic one."

"I know, your father Is working for foreign intelligence agency, right?" Miho asked which made everyone surprised of her knowledge, but Klara replied with a reluctant nod. "And also… I… heard about your mother."

Klara quickly stared at her as everyone was amazed of Miho's knowledge of Klara's family. "How did you-?"

"Let's just say I have heard it from my friends who are far away from here," Miho replied quickly, then softly looked at her. "I heard about what happened. Your mother… died from a hit & run accident a couple of years ago. I'm… very sorry to hear that…"

They all looked back to Klara, who was right now felt so sorrow right now. To hear Miho had said of her mother, it was personal. But Klara also understands that Miho has no intention to either insult or provoke her. Miho had heard about this silently from her friends in higher places, escpecially from Ami who was able to provide her an info of Klara's bio along with her family. Ami did ask why, but Miho only replied that she was curious. The reason why she was curious of Klara is because her nationality as a Russian. And like Miho said before, she likes Russian, even though this Russian joined Pravda School.

Klara only sadly looked over to Miho as Anchovy did the same, before Klara said. "Thank you, Miho-san."

"It's alright, сестра," Miho replied with a nod and a small smile. "And I'm sorry for bringing that up."

"Don't worry, there's nothing wrong about that, Ms. Miho," Darjeeling said to her.

"I agree, life can be hard one day," Mika added with a nod, before they all looked over to the view ahead of them.

As they watched in silence, Anzu then breaks up their silence. "Well… this is not bad."

Miho then reminded that Anzu was among them. "Did you want to talk to me so you can provoke me again?"

"No, no, I'm not," Anzu quickly replied with her head shook and her hand waved at her as everyone looked over to her in suspicion. "Forgive me about what happened back there. We're just in desperate to look for a new member for our Sensha-Do team."

"Oh really?" Anchovy asked in disbelieve and a little angry. "Then why did you insult her first?"

"Because she was a member of our Sensha-Do team a year ago before she disappeared with that bridge," Anzu replied. "We just want Miho to go back to Ooarai's Sensha-Do team as soon as possible, even if we have to force her to do it."

"And now you know you can't force me to go back there," Miho replied coldly as she stared her down sharply. "Why did you try to force me to go back there?"

"Well…" Anzu paused in thoughts looking for fitting words, before continuing. "We need a member for our Sensha-Do team because we are lacking one member for one tank. Which is your Panzer IV tank, Miho."

"Give me a better reason than that," Miho coldly said to her, Anchovy tried to calm her down by holding her shoulder.

"Well… it's also because we want that our school is not to be degraded by everyone because we have poor skills of Sensha-Do and they insult us a lot because they recognize our school as the very worse school in Japan," Anzu replied confidently and lazily.

"That's true though," Mika added with a frown as she looked to Miho. "Ooarai's having a hard time after you disappeared."

"And that school was taunted a lot after their failure back in the previous National Tournament," Darjeeling added with concerned eyes.

"Hmm…" Miho paused, that was a good enough reason for her. Which then she was reminded of something. "That reminds me, how's Ooarai's relation with Kuromorimine?"

That question took everyone off-guard. It was clear, they didn't expect to hear Miho asked that. Miho could sense their nervous and agitation except for Anchovy who was only felt concerned. There was something going on right now.

After a long pause, Anzu replied. "To tell the truth, we're enemies until now."

"It's all because of what happened to me that time?" Miho asked with her raised brow.

"Yeah," Anzu replied with a nod. "More than that aside from blaming us for forcing you to join our Sensha-Do, they criticized us to be the worst and to be an insult in the Sensha-Do Nationals. They even hurt our students."

"Like who?" Miho asked coldly, she didn't like this a bit.

Anzu paused to remember a fight, before replying to her. "Mauko beaten up Yukari once."

The only thing that Anzu achieved from Miho, was her dark glare of disbelieve.

Miho slowly looked back to the view in front of her and sighed. The girls who were with her didn't like the atmosphere she had made right now. Even Anchovy had to worry about what Miho is going to do next. Anzu, Darjeeling, Mika and Klara could only felt discomfort from Miho.

"That motherfucker..." they heard Miho said slowly, something that discomfort them more was her dark tone. "No wonder you didn't talk with my sister, Erika or Akaboshi."

"Actually, except for Akaboshi because she was your good friend," Anzu quickly added, which somehow comforts Miho. "The reason why didn't she talk to us is that her friends from Kuromorimine would scold her about it."

"Alright then, I'm going to have a nice talk with the Kuromoromine commanders and my sister about that," Miho said as softly as she can as she was pissed at the same time.

The word 'nice' was quite unfit the sentence because of her dark tone. They started to worry about what Miho is going to do with the Kuromorimine commanders.

Anchovy then rubbed her shoulder to calm her down. "Miho, please don't be mad right now."

Miho then sighed softly, before looking over to Anchovy. "Thank you for comforting me, my lady."

Everyone smiled to hear that, Miho only shook her head with her little smile as she thoughts of something. Which then they all fell silent as they watched the view ahead with Miho holding her cigar on her right hand. Miho who was in thoughts, had decided to sing something for now to calm herself down.

(Of monsters and men - Human. if you want to hear the song)

"When the words...

Weigh...

heavy on the heart..."

They all only looked at her as they tried to enjoy the sing

"I am lost...

And led...

only by.. the stars..."

Klara had enjoyed on what she was singing, even though she doesn't know what song she was singing. And Miho singing it Beautifully.

"Cage me like an animal..

A crown with gems and gold..

Eat me like a cannibal..

Chase the neon throne..."

They then started to shook their heads in rhyme following the song.

"Breathe in, breathe out

Let the human in...

Breathe in, breathe out

And let it in...

The plants awoke

And they slowly grow

Beneath the skin...

So breathe in, breathe out

Let the human in..."

They starting to love the song Miho is singing, Mika had to sing some of the 'oh' part as Miho sings like she sees it coming.

"The air...

is silk...

Shadows form a grin

...

...

If I lose...

control...

I feed the beast within...

They then all sing along.

"Cage me like an animal..

A crown with gems and gold..

Eat me like a cannibal..

Chase the neon throne...

Breathe in, breathe out

Let the human in...

Breathe in, breathe out

And let it in...

The plants awoke

And they slowly grow

Beneath the skin...

So breathe in, breathe out

Let the human in..."

Miho then sings the 'ooh' part along with Mika and Klara, it's good to say Anchovy love the song Miho sings very much. It's going to become of her favorite she ever listened.

"Oooooooh-ooh-oooh... ooooooh-oh-ooh-oooh-ooh-oh-ooh... oooo-ooh-oh-oaoh."

Then the last part, only Miho.

"Cage me like an animal..

A crown with gems and gold..

Eat me like a cannibal..

Chase the neon throne..

If I could only let go..."

And after that, they spend their time watching the view in front of them.


	23. Chapter 22 - The Robbery

(MW2 Rangers Theme (Short Version))

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Miho: Alright people, listen up. We have another assignment.

Kay: What kind of job now?

Miho: We have a big robbery going on in Wakayama. It's a hostage-rescue, siege and fast rapid response situation.

Maho: Why is it a big robbery?

Miho: The bank that got robbed right now is the famous Resona Nagashi National Bank located in Tanabe city.

Overviewing area of operations…

Standby…

…

…

…

Area overviewed

Miho: The bank is basically an 8-story building with a small warehouse at the ground floor behind the bank.

Rotating the view of area of operation…

Miho: There's nothing special about the small warehouse except we would assume that they will escape from the bank through there. There's also 3 floors of basements below bank, all filled with gold. At least worth around 20.000.000 dollars.

Ghost: That's enough money for making their own small army.

Miho: That's right, to make things worse is that there a lot of people held hostage in that building.

Kay: What kind of opposition waiting for us?

Miho: 40 plus hostiles armed with assault rifles and pistols. Three shotgunners located on the third floor and 5 plus hostiles are currently in the basements loading the gold out the bank.

Royce: So what's the game plan, boss?

Miho: Since the police already have the bank surrounded from the ground floor, we'll be coming in through air. Ghost, Royce, you'll be our snipers. The last time I heard from the police that these robberies were all experienced ones and they able to took out around 5 police snipers by sending one of their own to the snipers position unexpectedly on their previous robberies, killing them all with knives. So you need to find the police sniper and save him before the assassin able to kill him, and assist him to snipe the hostiles in the building.

Royce: Got it.

Miho: While the rest of us will assault from the roof via little birds and clear the whole building down. Get Bazarov, Trunk, Chemo and Vicek to keep an eye on the warehouse in case they got out that way and get Garhaaye, Ustin, Viktor and Jiri to assist the police at the barricades.

Maho: Yes, Captain.

Kay: Let's hit them hard.

* * *

Erwin AKA Riko Matsumoto

Erwin was with her history buff friends, Saemonza, and Oryou. They were watching from a distance inside a building on the second floor to be safe from the makeshift barricade of police cars that the officers made on the street. There's been a big robbery going on here as they saw the police were putting up a team to assault the bank. Though they were in trouble doing that as they watched the robberies from the bank were shooting out bullets onto the officers at the barricades. Thankfully, no one was harmed.

Erwin was felt more scared to know that one of their known friends, Caesar was inside the bank the robberies are in. She was hoping that she will be alright to know Caesar was held hostage inside that bank. Erwin felt more agitated to know there were around more than 40 robberies are inside the building, this is more than the police could do. She's starting to hope that everyone in that bank including Caesar are all aright. She was about to get on her nerves about getting inside the bank and get Caesar out.

Until they heard something…

"Erwin? Do you hear that?" Saemonza asked as they were dumbfounded at what are listening to.

"Umm, no?" Erwin replied with a doubtful shook. "What did you hear?"

"I don't know," Oryou replied as puts her palm on her open ear to listen sharply. "But I think something like an engine."

"Engine?" Erwin asked in disbelieve as she felt if she misheard. "We didn't bring our tank here. There's no way there's an engine as louder than those firearms the police and the robbers have."

"Wait, you hear that?" Saemonza asked, they then focused their ears to hear something odd from inside the building.

And that's when they heard the engine sound Oryou meant.

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRR*

"Nantekotta i? Erwin asked in disbelieve as the sound of the loud engine was starting to closing in.

Saemonza quickly approached the window and looked to her left, that's when she spotted something. "Erwin, look!"

Erwin and Oryou quickly came over to the window and looked over to their left to see what Saemonza saw. To their shock, there were 3 small helicopters that they never seen. They do know a lot of helicopters but not this one. The helicopters were too small but not as small as a mini-copter, all of them were colored in black, and to their shock that one of the chopper at the very front was armed with machine-guns (didn't know those were miniguns) and some sort of weapon launch rockets. As the choppers quickly flew pass the building she's in, they quickly took notice that two of the small choppers were not armed with weapons, but they were bringing in their passengers of soldiers toward the 8-story bank.

Erwin was very confused on how did those soldiers were sitting right outside the small chopper instead of inside, they might have fall down.

As the choppers approached the bank, they all stared in awe as Saemonza asked one thing to Erwin. "Are those… the soldiers the rumors mentioned?"

"I think so," Erwin replied nervously. "I hope they come here to save Caesar."

* * *

Police Sergeant Nobuji Nazen, Japanese Police Sniper Unit.

He was on sniping duty at one of the roof of the 5-story building that was facing to his north towards the 8-story bank. His eye was on the scope as he crouched at the edge of the roof to hid himself. He corrected his helmet to comfort his own head and wiped the sweat on his mouth along with the small sharp mustache with his hand. He didn't fire any single bullet because the radio told him not to.

Though… as he was keeping an eye on the building, he didn't realize he was in danger. He didn't feel that there was a man, an assassin of the robber team was walking up to him from behind. The assassin had pulled out his knife and approached him slowly as the sniper, Nazen still has his eye on the scope. The assassin raised his knife as Nazen didn't even think about looking back.

Then the assassin made his move.

*SHAK*

"AAAAAAGGGHHH!"

Instead of Nazen being the one who got stabbed, he was the one who was startled by the screaming.

He quickly turned his head around as he hugged his sniper and leans his back against the wall of the edge of the roof. In shock, he saw the assassin robber was right in front of him. The assassin robber turns out got backstabbed by another person, a man with the skull mask. The skull masked man then pulled the knife out from the assassin and threw him away to his right. Nazen was so surprised that the man he's looking at right now was the mentioned soldier in the rumors through out Japan. The skull-masked man with the dark red sunglasses and headphones only stared at him and holstered his knife while another man was a white man in his 30s, with his short black hair and his mustache and beard on his chin which also a soldier came up from behind the skull-masked man with his sniper at ready.

"You okay, mate?" the skull-masked man asked casually as he prepped his sniper.

"Umm, yeah I'm fine," Nazen replied doubtedly. "Thank you."

"Good thing we got here in time," the other soldier who had the beard and mustache replied, as he crouched down next to Nazen and aims his sniper to the bank. "Need some help on the sniping?"

"Oh, sure, that would be appreciated," Nazen replied with a nod, before Ghost crouched beside Nazen and aimed his sniper to the bank.

"We're all set," the skull-masked man said, before he said to his radio. "Bravo 6, this is Archer 1. We're in our position along with the police sniper, waiting for your mark."

After the skull-masked man said to his radio, Nazen asked him. "Who are you?"

The skull-masked man only stared at him, he didn't notice the smirk the man made under his balaclava. "We're the 141."

After answering him, they then heard the loud noise up in the sky.

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRR*

They all looked up and saw three small helicopters, one armed for bear and two carrying passengers. They all flew passed the building they're on and headed toward the bank. Nazen can't believe they got some help from some unknown soldiers called as the 141. Nazen widen his eyes as he left his mouth open awe and astonishement.

"Now that's just awesome…"

* * *

(MW3 Soundtrack: Battle For New York)

"Black Gold"

10:13:45

Kay

Task Force 141

Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan.

.

"All units, report in."

"Bravo 6, this is Archer 1. We're in our position along with the police sniper, got visual from 6th to ground floor. waiting for your mark."

"This is Dekko 3, we're at the police barricade and setting up the perimeter."

"Dragon 1, we're in our position near the warehouse."

"Halo 5, we're locked and loaded."

"Roger that, people. Vulture 2-1 get ready for targets."

"Affirmative, approaching the target area."

.

Kay was sitting next to Miho on the little bird, taking part as Bravo 2 in Miho's team. All of them were wearing their urban combat uniforms with specific differences. Kay only wore blue sleeveless T-shirt underneath her MVT Kevlar armor with shoulder and neck guard while Miho wore her grey TF 141 Jacket underneath her usual kevlar and Maho who was sitting on the other side of the Little Bird was wearing her green-cream long sleeve buttoned shirt underneath her Kevlar as well. Kay and Miho wore blue jeans while Maho wore black combat pants. Kay's headgears was her cap (hair tied into a ponytail and her sand-colored mouth-nose balaclava, Miho's headgear was her combat helmet and her tactical clear polarized sunglasses along with her green camo bandana tied around her neck, Maho's headgears was her ballistic helmet visor that covers her eyes like the tactical sunglasses.

All of their headgears were enough for anyone to not recognize their faces fully.

For their weapons, Kay's weapons were her favorite M4A1 w/ Red Dot Sight assault rifle and her Glock 17 pistol as her secondary. Miho's weapons were ACR w/ grenade launcher and bayonet with her Glock 18 as her secondary. Maho's weapons were her suppressed Kriss Vector w/ Reflex Sight with HK P30L pistol as her secondary.

Kay was also by chance brought her M72 LAW Rocket Launcher to the fight. Miho had asked why Kay bring that thing around back in base, Kay answered with 'just in case we're going to get run over by a car'. Miho only gave her flat face with her brows raised and tilted her head with an okay.

The teams who will assault the bank by rooftop will be Kay's team plus one member of Japanese 141 named Taji. The other team callsign Halo, its members are Mouse (British), Capper (US), Somboja (Somali) and Crank (Iraq).

And like this, Miho said this is their another day in the office.

As the Little Birds they're on are approaching the target building, Miho turned her head to her left to Kay. "These bastards got this place locked down. When we got down there, kill 'em all fast and clean. We also got a lot of hostages and civilians inside so check your fire. Don't left any of those bastards alive unless we got confronted by the police."

"Roger that, Cap'," Kay replied with a nod. "If the hostile used a civilian as a shield but ordering us to drop our weapons, when we will shoot him?"

"Shoot his head while he's talking," Miho replied quickly with a nod before looking over to her right toward the bank and the weaponized Little Bird at the front. "10 seconds to target area."

"Bravo 6, request permission to engage targets on the rooftop of the bank," Vulture 2-1 radioed, who was piloting the armed-for-bear Little Bird.

"You are authorized to engage, burn them with the missiles," Miho replied as she looked over to the rooftop filled with hostiles shooting back a little at the Little Birds.

"Roger that, missiles loose," Vulture 2-1 replied, he then launched his missiles off to the rooftop.

Around 6 missiles went loose and had bombarded the roof. Killing all hostiles that are guarding the rooftop. Kay even saw one flew off the roof and fell down straight to the car on the street, *BRAK* the bastard landed on the car and plummeted to death as the car looks like need some insurance. Kay was starting to wish to ride that chopper.

"Hostiles neutralized, LZ is clear," Vulture 2-1 replied with a tone of pleasure.

"Roger that, 2-1," Miho radioed back. "We're landing now."

The two Little Birds callsign Vulture 2-2 and 2-3 then land on the roof, Kay's team and Halo team then quickly stood off from the seats from the sides of the choppers and prepped their weapons.

"Vulture 2-1, we're on the ground and beginning our assault," Miho radioed as Kay along with her team and Halo team marched forward from the dusting off Little Birds. "Return to base until further notice, over.."

"Roger that, Bravo 6," Vulture 2-1 radioed back as Miho covered her face with her bandana. "Returning to base now. Good hunting."

"Stack up at the door," Maho radioed as they approached the door, then stack up there along with Halo team, Kay and Mouse were at the very front of their team.

Kay quickly raised her left hand and gave a gesture to Mouse by waving it in the air twice as her rifle aimed at the door. Giving an order to breach the door to Mouse. Mouse then lowered his rifle, stood in front of the door and then kicked it. *BRAK* Mouse quickly turned his back and took cover next to the door and Kay's team quickly went in first with their weapons raised. They quickly marched downstairs before U-turning to their left, stacked up to another door again.

"Archer 1, this is Bravo 2," Kay radioed as she aims her rifle to the door she stacks up at. "We're at the entrance of the eighth floor on the right side of the bank. Breaching in 10."

"Roger that, Bravo 2," Ghost replied who is Archer 1. "We'll provide sniper support when you're on the sixth floor."

"Kay, put a charge on the door," Miho ordered who was right behind her along with the of hers and Halo team.

"Standby," Kay quickly pulled out a door charge and plant it on the door, before retracting back to the cover next to the door.

*DUARR*

"Breaching! Breaching!" Kay said aloud as she entered the blown up doorway and began shooting hostiles.

Everything around her was starting to become slow down after she breached in. There were 6 hostiles ahead of her, 3 right in front of her and 3 far in a distance ahead awhile a lot civilians were either ducked down to the ground or quickly ran away from nearby hostiles before they were going to be held hostage. Kay was already aiming at the hostiles despite the hostiles were about to aim their AK-s and FN Fal assault rifles to her. Kay quickly pulled her trigger and shot the hostiles one by one from left to right quickly like wind, all shots in the head. Kay then aimed for the other three in a distance ahead, she killed one by his chest who was crouching at a fallen cabinet as cover, the other one got shot in the head in the open with two bullets, and the last one was standing near the window and got shot in the stomach three times before he fell out the window on her right. The time quickly returned normal as she quickly marched forward along with her team and Halo team from behind her, checking their surroundings and watched where they are aiming at since there are civilians inside.

Miho, Maho and Taji quickly walked over to the civilians on the her left while while Halo walked over to the rest of the civvies on her right. Kay walked forward as both teams were trying to calm the civvies down and telling they're here to rescue them. They quickly heard two hostiles burst through the door at the end of the office hall in front of Kay and about to open fire as the teams did the same. However, the two hostiles were quickly killed by shots in the chests and fell down to the ground. Kay turned her head to behind her and found Somboja and Crank were the ones who shot them down.

"Tangos down," Somboja radioed as they quickly marched forward with Kay to the end of the hall.

"All clear," Crank radioed as he looked around.

"Dekko 3, how is it looking down there?" Miho radioed as they all quickly approached the door leading downstairs ahead of them, and then entered through as they heard small firearms in a distance from the streets below.

"This is Dekko 3, we're taking small arms fire from the target building on the ground floor and the second floor," Garhaaye replied who is 3-1, before continued by Dekko 4, Viktor. "We are returning fire and able to kill 6 hostiles for now."

"Dragon 1?" Maho radioed interrogatively as they ran downstairs and stacked up at the door to the office hall on the 7th floor.

"Still nothing here, we'll keep an eye out," Dragon 1 replied, who is actually Chemo.

"Roger that," Miho radioed back, before Kay asked to the snipers. "Royce, how is it looking out there?"

"The hostiles from the floor below you are using a few hostages as human shield," Royce who is Archer 2 replied. "Advise to check your fire down there because they all alerted of your presence."

"No shit, Sherlock," Capper radioed in annoyance as he stacked up at the very front of his team on the other side of the wall next to the door, Miho's position was the same as Capper at the other wall next the door with Kay behind her.

"Capper, kick the door open," Miho ordered. "Kay, throw the banger."

"Rog'," Kay replied as she pulled out her Flashbang and pull the pin.

Capper quickly kick the door open hard *BRAK*. Kay then threw in the flashbang through the door from behind Miho and quickly puts her back against the wall. *BANG* Miho quickly went through the door and opened fire, followed by Capper and Kay and the rest of the team. Miho was able to kill 8 hostiles on sight right in front of her and in a distance ahead. They quickly ducked down to nearby portable walls and furniture ahead of them in the office halls as they shoots back at the hostiles.

Kay returned fire with her M4A1 by stood out from a table for cover and shoots the bastards as quick as she can, scored 3 kills. Kay saw Taji and Mouse moved up and returned fire, ignoring the bullets that are passing around them and scores 2 kills. Maho nearly threw a grenade ahead because there were two civvies were too close to an enemy, instead Maho pulled out her sidearm and quickly ran out to the next cover ahead and shot his chest twice whilst on the run with only one hand. Kay quickly moves up with Somboja and Crank to their right and opened fire, killing three enemies that were behind portable walls before taking cover at furniture and other portable walls with crouching. They all marched forward as they kept the civilians that are running around the hall to ducked their heads.

When they neutralized any remaining enemies on that floor and moved forward to the end of that office hall. Kay and the teams were confronted by a robber, who was holding a civilian as hostage and a human shield. They all aimed their rifles at the robber who held a civilian hostage. But Kay, Miho and Maho were surprised on who the robber just held hostage.

It was a student from Ooarai, Caesar AKA Takako Suzuki.

"Caesar…?" Kay asked lowly in the radio as she widen her eyes in surprise.

"The bloody hell is she doing here?" Miho asked in disbelieve as they sharping their aims to the hostile that held Caesar hostage.

"This is the wrong time for her to be here," Maho commented in worried.

"Let her go!" Mouse shouted.

"Kanojo o hanashite jū o otoshite kudasai!" Taji shouted as slowly approached the hostile.

"Modottaizai!" the hostile shouted as he holds Caesar harder on her shoulder with a pull closer to him. "Chikadzuite wa ikemasen!

"Please!" Caesar shouted fearfully as she was pulled back to the hostile behind her by her back. "Koroshite wa ikenai, onegai!"

"Damare!" the robber shouted angrily, then he puts his pistol on Caesar's back of her head. "Anata ga kanojo o shina setakunainara, anata no buki o otoshite kudasai!"

"Take him down?" Kay asked lowly in the radio as her eyes are still on the target and the hostage.

"Affirmative, shoot his head on my mark," Miho radioed back lowly, Kay nearly gave a nod to it.

"Watashi wa kanojo o koroshimasu!" the robber shouted as he pushed the firing end of his pistol harder on Caesar's head, she nearly screamed. "Watashi ga suru mae ni ima sugu anata no buki o doroppu shimasu –"

"Drop him."

*TAR-SCHAK*

Kay accurately shot the bastard's head behind Caesar, with only one bullet.

The robber quickly fell down on his back with his pistol threw away from Caesar's head without the trigger got pulled. Caesar was nothing but frozen in shock after the soldier, whom she didn't know was Kay, shot the bastard so close pass her ear. Caesar was slowly turned around at the robber behind her as Kay and Taji approached her to calm her down with their weapons lowered. Kay patted Caesar's shoulder who reacted in surprise as she looked over to her face in worry. While she does that, the rest of the team quickly set a perimeter in the hall whilst moving the civilians to a safe cover.

"You okay?" Kay asked as she looked at her face, not exposing her real face to her.

"I-I…" Caesar replied as she stammers in shock.

"Calm down, we're here to help," Taji quickly replied to comfort her. "We'll get you out of here after we cleared out this building."

"Re-really?" Caesar asked as if she was disbelieved of what he said.

"Yeah, really," Miho replied, which Caesar doesn't know that was her as well. "Halo 5, get your team to continue downstairs, now."

"Roger, moving up," Crank replied who is Bravo 5, before they headed back for the door to the stairs behind them.

"Alright, what's your name?" Kay asked, pretending that she doesn't recognize her.

"My name is Caesar," she replied, as the loud shootout was coming from the floor below. "You-you must be the soldiers that everyone talking about… who are you people?"

Kay looked over to her boss, Miho before she gave a nod to Kay and she looked back to Caesar. "We are the 141."

Caesar paused for a moment, a little confused of the name. "141?"

"Yeah, Task Force 141," the soldier with the ballistic helmet and visor added with a nod, which she doesn't that was Maho despite the only thing that hides her identity was her hair. "Best warriors on earth."

*BAM-BAM*

"Oi! Bravo 6!" they all heard Halo 4 who is Capper in the radio replied, that made Caesar surprised. "You're coming down or what?"

"We got you covered, Halo team," Royce radioed as he was sniping the hostiles in the floor below. "Keep it up, Nazen. Bravo team, you need to move now."

"Standby, Halo 4," Taji then looked over to Kay and the rest of the soldiers with him. "We need to go now."

"Taji, you stay here and get the civilians from the top floor to come down here and make sure they're alright," Miho ordered. "The rest of you on me."

"Affirmative," Kay replied as her team headed back to the stairs back there, before Kay looking back to Caesar as Taji walked over to her. "Stay with him until it's over, understand?"

Caesar quickly nodded twice for reply, Kay smiled underneath her balaclava. "Good, I'm heading out now. Be careful."

"I will," Caesar replied with a smile as Taji crouched down and looked over to Caesar, before Kay turned around headed back to the door at the other end of that hall and quickly run downstairs.

Caesar could only watched the soldier left and pray that whoever that soldier was will be alright. Kay quickly reached the next door on the floor below and quickly went in, only to found out hers and Halo team already dealt with the floor. The hostages around that floor were hugging at each other as around 13 hostiles on that floor were all neutralized, 6 of them killed by the snipers. Miho only turned her head and looked at her, unamused.

"You're done with Caesar?" Miho asked as the teams including Maho were all calming and checking the civilians.

"Yeah, I'm done," Kay replied with a nod. "Guess I'm late."

"Yeah, duck," Miho said confusingly, but somehow Kay quickly did what Miho ordered.

Miho quickly pulled out her sidearm and aimed it above the ducking Kay and pulled the trigger. *DOR* Miho just shot a hostile who just come up from behind her from the stairs. Miho lowered her gun as Kay casually straighten her back again and looked at the dead bastard behind her. Kay only gave an impressed nod as Maho only give an empty glare as the rest checking on the civilians.

"Nice shot," Kay replied with a nod to Miho. "Next floor?"

"Next floor," Miho replied as the teams including Kay returned back to the stairs behind them. "Taji, we're moving to the next floor. Move those civilians to the next floor."

"Roger that," Taji radioed back as they reached the next door and breached in, Kay was the first to enter after she puts another frame charge to it.

Kay quickly shoots 4 hostiles accurately who indeed took cover at the portable walls in the chests and stomachs. They run forward and took cover at the furniture ahead and returned fire as they check their fire to not hit any civilians. Kay took a couple of shots to her chest but thankfully she's still fine. Kay then returned fire with a swearing with the help of Halo team on her left. As they returned fire, two of the hostiles ahead got shot and killed as they quickly threw away to their left.

Ah, so that's why 50. Cal Barrett is a deadly sniper rifle.

There were only 6 hostiles left ahead as they marched forward and passed a few civilians who were taking cover. Maho able to kill 2 behind a flipped desk on their stomachs and Miho killed one with a throwing knife to his head (something that Kay would be interested to do when she got home). Halo team quickly marched to their left near the windows and walk & gunning them, killing the last three hostiles who were about to grab their hostages as human shields. After that floor cleared Kay was about to walked over to Halo team until she was held by a robber from behind by her neck. Kay quickly use her right elbow and swing it to behind her, hitting the robber right the stomach. Before Kay grabbed the robber's right shoulder with her right hand and his elbow with her left hand, then quickly scoop him up passing her back and slammed him to the ground. She quickly stepped back and raised her M4 to him and shot him.

As she shot him to death, she then got shot right next to her stomach. She flinched from the pain after killing him and quickly looked up to the ones who shot her. Only to found Maho had shot her for trying to save Kay from the robber.

"Goddammit, friendly fire!" Kay shouted furiously to Maho.

"Scheisse," Maho then awkwardly lowered her rifle from her. "Sorry about that."

"At least it's not the Captain who shot you," Ghost radioed with a smirk, Kay only turned her head to the window and looked at the 5- story building in a distance.

"Damn you, Archer 1!" Kay retorted in annoyance with a raised fist as Miho only shook his head with her flat face and the rest of the team including Maho could only face-palmed at that.

"Oy! Cut the chatter!" their captain, Miho shouted angrily. "Let's get to the next floor."

"Copy that," Capper replied with a nod, and they all headed back to the stairs behind them before Miho radioed Taji. "Taji, the next floor is clear."

"Roger, getting the civvies down now." Taji radioed back as they entered the door.

"Bravo 6, be advised," they hear Royce radioed, they stopped at the stairs for the moment. "The 4th and 3rd floor only filled with two hostiles and civvies each, we'll handle this one. The second and ground floor all filled with hostiles and no civvies inside. I think you should take a lift to go down there."

When they heard him said 'lift', they all glad about it. "Why didn't we take the lift?" Somboja asked confusedly, knowing that they used stairs instead of the elevator back in 8th floor.

"That's a perfect spot for them to ambush us and the opposite of it," Miho replied back as they saw Taji, Caesar and the civvies were all heading to the floor they just cleared out. "And by the looks of it, they pretty much care about securing the ground floor and the second floor so they can get their gold out."

"Huh, I can agree on that," Maho added with a nod. "So we can assume they're fortifying their rear defense on the second floor especially the stairs by calling their men from the said floors to there."

"Alright, we're going down with the elevator," Miho said as she along with Kay and the rest followed her to the elevators on their right at a wide pillar. "Bravo 3, you'll deal with the 4th and 3rd floor on the civvies after our snipers dispatch the hostiles inside."

"Copy that, ma'am," Taji replied with a nod as Kay's team and Halo team entered the two elevators that were open for the both teams.

Kay was the last to enter the elevator and turned around, before pressing the button on the elevator. Then the elevator closed the doors by itself and began descending. Kay then turned around to Maho and Miho again with her brows raised. Kay saw Miho looked up to the ceiling of the elevator.

"Now what?" Kay asked with her arms waved.

"Get on top of the elevator," Miho ordered, made Kay and Maho looked at her in surprise.

"What?" Maho asked.

"Get on top of the elevator, now," Miho ordered as she bust the hatch above her open and climbed out.

"Unbelievable," Maho commented as she climbs up the hatch quickly.

"Tell me about it," Kay commented to Maho who got on top of the elevator, before Kay quickly climbed out with the help of Miho.

They three then shut the hatch close as the elevator moving down. Slowly the elevator stopped at the designated floor. Kay looked at Maho and Miho by their eyes before looking back to the floor of the elevator's roof as they aimed their rifles down at the floor. They waited for a moment, until Ghost radioed in.

"Bravo 6, I got a lot of hostiles on the second floor are aiming their guns at the door. I hope you bloody know what you're doing."

"Halo 5, is your team on top of the elevator?" Miho asked in the radio.

"We just did, ready to ambush them," Halo 5 who is Mouse replied back.

As Kay and her friends cocked their rifles, she earned a glare from Maho. "Why are you looking at me?"

"You know you don't have to bring that rocket launcher around, right?" Maho asked with her raised brow. "It's quite a fuss."

"We gonna need it, sis," Miho replied back to her. "Trust me."

"Bravo 6, the elevator doors are opening," Ghost radioed as they heard the doors from inside the elevator opened.

"On my mark," Miho said lowly as they aimed their rifles to the elevator below them.

"5 of them are stepping in, hang on," Ghost radioed then there's a long pause as they heard footsteps below from inside the elevator, slowly the sound become closer until.… "Alright, they're inside."

"Weapons free," Miho ordered.

*TRRRT- TRRRRRT- TRRRRRT- TRRRTT- TRRRRT-TTRRRTRRT*

They all then stopped firing as the team on the elevator next door did the same. Kay looked down through the holes on the elevator roof they made, and she was surprised if that ambush did work.

"Nice… 5 hostiles in each elevators are dead," Ghost radioed. "Standby, I'll distract them away from the elevator."

"Roger, waiting on your mark," Kay radioed as she pulls out her flashbang and slowly opened the hatch.

"On your go, Police Sergeant," Ghost said in the radio, saying that to the police sniper they saved.

*BAM* *BAM-BAM*

"Bang out!" Kay and Halo 2 (Somboja) said in unison as they both threw their banger through the hatch into the front door of the elevator.

*BANG*

Kay quickly dropped down the elevator and opened fire as everything around starting to go slow-motion. Kay marched forward as she engage her targets on her right while Halo team engage the enemies on their left. Kay aimed her M4 as fast as lightning and killed first three hostiles in front of her in the face and then another two behind the three who took cover behind the small chairs and a pillar. Kay was about to deal with another 12 hostiles in front of her while Halo team did the same on their left, until a grenade was launched passed her and blew around 6 hostiles and flew out the window. Knowing that was Miho who killed them with her grenade launcher attachment, Kay diverts her aim to her very right and shot 6 last hostiles at the windows in the chest, and the rest 2 in the head.

The time quickly returned to normal, and Kay with her team quickly marched away from elevator and kill any remaining hostiles on their left. Assisting Halo team, Kay quickly threw a frag grenade ahead of them into a cover behind a desk which blew two hostiles took cover there. Kay quickly reloads her rifle by pressing the release button on the right side of the rifle to let the empty magazine loose and quickly took out a fresh one from her ammo pouch and put it on the mag slot underneath, before firing again at the hostiles ahead and quickly took cover at the pillar on her right. Kay peeked out to her right and shot 2 hostiles of 4 at the corner of the window before they got mowed down by Maho's Vector SMG.

Kay quickly walked out from cover and looked around for any hostiles. "All clear?"

"Area clear," Crank replied as he lowered his rifle.

"No hostiles in sight," Maho replied.

"Clear here," Capper replied.

"All right, all units on me," Miho ordered as she gestured in the air by making a circle in the air before pointing to herself.

Kay and the rest the teams followed her to the stairs ahead of them until the radio goes on. "Bravo 6, this is Dekko 3! The hostiles are running away from the target building and headed for the warehouse behind the bank!"

"Shite!" Miho shouted as they quickly ran downstairs. "Dragon 1! What's your status?"

"Bravo 6, they're bugging out!" Chemo replied. "We've just blocked their getaway path on the north-northeast side of the bank and just took out one car trying to get away for a headstart! We need assistance!"

"Roger that, we're on our way!" Miho radioed as they quickly got out from the stairs and into the empty main room of the ground floor. "Dekko 3, chase the bastards down into the warehouse. Cut 'em off if you can!"

"Roger that, Bravo!" Garhaaye replied as they can heard he along with his team was running to the warehouse behind the factory.

"Halo team, get to the basements and secure the area!" Miho ordered as she pointed at the said team.

"Copy! Em herin, em herin!" Crank quickly replied and the said team quickly run to the deeper part of the ground floor behind the reception counters.

"Maho, Kay, follow me!" Miho barked loudly as they followed her through the front door before turning left out the building and turned left again to the main road.

They kept running along the road with the police from the streets following up behind them. Kay saw the Dragon team in a distance ahead, already prepped their weapons at the makeshift barricade of cars there along with a couple of officers there. The Dragon saw Kay's team were coming up to them and Chemo gestured them to come there quickly. As they run to the barricade, Kay quickly left her rifle hanging on her front Kevlar and quickly grabbed her LAW rocket launcher from her back. Kay quickly extends the back of her rocket launcher by pulling it out from the shell as they nearly reached the barricade ahead.

After they reached the barricade, they quickly formed up their firing positions at the barricade as Kay along with Maho who's responsible for another ammo of Kay's rocket quickly crouched down next to the barricade. Kay already have her rocket launcher aiming on her shoulder as she watched the perimeter on the main road ahead behind the bank's warehouse. They waited as the police already lined up their firing positions as they heard a lot of gunfire coming out from the warehouse. Miho was busy radioing Dekko team who were already inside the warehouse and is engaging the robbers inside. The officers of the police force were all confused on why Miho was radioing her soldiers by putting her fingers on her ear, to which because wireless earphones didn't exist in this time of year.

As they waited for any hostiles coming out from the warehouse, they heard Ustin who is Dekko 1 radioed in. "Bravo 6, this is Dekko 1. Be advised, the hostiles are coming out the warehouse! They sending their truck out now. You need to take it down immediately, the cargo truck's been modified into a bulldozing truck."

"Bravo 2, get that rocket ready!" Miho barked out to Kay.

"Rocket at the ready!" Kay responded back aloud, still aiming her rocket to the road.

"Everyone, get ready to fire!" Miho barked out to everyone in the barricade, the officers replied with nods and yesses. "Dragon 2, bombed them with grenades if you have to!"

"Copy that," Vicek who is Dragon 2 replied.

They waited a moment, until they heard an engine noise revving from the warehouse ahead in a distance. They all put their fingers on their triggers as Kay tighten her grip on her rocket launcher. They waited until…

*BRUAK-BRAAKKK* *HOOOONK-HOOONK*

The truck went out through the doors of the warehouse, leaving the debris everywhere on the street. Then the truck quickly turned sharp left and drove straight towards the debris. It's like what Ustin said, the truck has been modified on the front side of the truck. It was like the blade for the bulldozer except the shape for this one was a large triangle shaped blade with the tip of the blade was pointing straight at the barricade. The officers were starting to scare shitless as Kay does her last check on her aim. Miho and the rest of them tighten their weapons and ready to fire. The range between the truck and the barricade thankfully was still far, around 50 meters

After the truck drove closer around 10 meters, Kay took her shot. *SPWUUUUUUSSHHHH-BUAAAAAMMMM*

Kay blasted the truck right on the windshield of the truck where the driver was still in, sending the roof of the truck flew high in the sky and the truck burning. The truck then suddenly turned right by itself and crashed into a building, before it flipped over and dragged forward for about 5 meters to the barricade that was still far away. Maho quickly loaded another rocket in as Kay still aiming her rocket launcher onto the street. She can hear the officers in the barricade were all glad to see that the 141 has dispatched the truck before it crashed through them. The officers including Chemo and Vicek were all wooing while Miho only looked over to Kay.

"That's what I'm talking about, mate!" Miho shouted happily before returning her sight to the main road ahead of her. "Dekko 3, the truck has been neutralized. What's the status on the rest of the hostiles?"

"They're bugging out now with their cars and vans!" Garhaaye replied as the people at the barricade heard the more revving noises from inside the warehouse. "They're heading your way!"

"All units, on my mark!" Miho barked aloud as everyone prepped their weapons, the officers were tensed up to do this.

Then they saw around 2 cars and 3 vans drive out from the warehouse and quickly headed towards the barricade. Though, Kay knew the robbers were too late to realize they were fucked up. She's aiming her rocket at one of the vans on the very front as she waits for Miho's order. Then, she heard Miho gave the call.

"All units, WEAPONS FREE!"

*SPWUUUUUUSSHHHH-BUAAAAAMMMM*

Kay shot the van accurately and sent it flipped forward and flying in the air for about 5 meters before landing upside down on the road with flames engulfed the whole van. The rest two vans and two cars quickly stopped right behind the burning van and all drivers and passengers inside quickly went out and began to open fire at the barricade. Kay quickly holstered her LAW launcher onto her back and grabbed her rifle and open fire at the hostiles ahead as Maho returned fire to cover Kay in a crouch. Miho, Dragon team, and the rest of the officers were all opened fire at the hostiles on the road ahead pretty hard as the hostiles were all having a hard time to shoot back. Some officers were to kill 3 out of 20 hostiles and Miho along with Dragon team managed to kill other 7.

Kay and Maho slowly advanced and kept return fire at the hostiles as Dekko team was seen coming out the warehouse behind the hostiles and opened fire. After another 2 got killed by Dekko team from behind, the robbers morale were all dropped. The last robbers quickly and desperately dropped their guns to the ground and quickly raised their hands up as the officers and the teams slowly ceasing their fire. The hostiles had to dodge a few bullets as they tried to surrender.

"Yamete, utanaide!" one of the robber shouted desperately after avoided a bullet right next to his head. "Don't shoot! We surrender!"

"Hostiles are complying," Bazarov (Dragon 3) said as he removed his finger from the trigger as the rest slowly stop firing.

"They're surrendering," Trunk (Dragon 4) said aloud.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Miho barked aloud as she stopped firing, all teams including Dekko team and the officers then all stopped firing afterwards. "Bravo 2, Bravo 4, keep an eye on them."

"Roger that," Kay radioed as they slowly approached the surrendered suspects who were already kneeling as Dekko team on the other side of the road outside the warehouse did the same.

Miho then turned her head to behind her to look at the police forces as she lowered her ACR. "Officers… they all yours."

(COD：MW3 【Delta Force team】 Victory soundtrack)

The officers… all women and men looked at each other for a moment, before replying with nods. Half of the police forces from the barricade walked out and walked over to the surrendered robbers, passing Kay and Maho who were still aiming their rifles in a close distance. The officers then began to arrest the surviving hostiles and Kay, Maho and Dekko team then lowered their rifles after all of the robbers are arrested. Kay looked back to Miho and smiled.

"Bravo 3, what's the status on the civilians?" Miho radioed with her finger on her earpiece.

"All alive and well, but one civilian is wounded and non-fatal," Taji replied.

"Copy, Halo 5?" Miho asked in her radio.

"The basements are clear, all hostiles neutralized and 6 of them are in custody," Mouse replied. "Capper's got hit but he's fine."

"Roger that, good work everyone our job is done here," Miho said gladly in her radio. "Vulture 2-2, Vulture 2-3, we're heading for LZ Romeo for extraction."

"Roger that, Bravo 6," Vulture 2-2 replied. "Heading to the LZ in 10 minutes."

* * *

8 minutes later…

Caesar AKA Takako Suzuki.

Caeasr was sitting at the ambulance. Relieved to know that she survived the robbery incident back in the bank. If not for Task Force 141 to show up there, she would be dead there or worse. Caesar occasionally looked over to the road at the front side of the bank to see that two teams with four members of soldiers each were waiting there. Caesar had ask to an officer passing by about why they were still here, hence because that they were waiting for extraction.

What kind of extraction those soldiers will be doing she doesn't know, the only thing she had in mind was they will go out from there by car.

She only glanced at the soldiers for awhile, until she heard a shouting in the distance to her right. She turned her head to her right and saw her history buff friends were running up to them. Caesar quickly smiled and stood off from the doorway of the ambulance and let Erwin hugged her gladly. Caesar then hugged her before letting her go, then she looked over to two other friends behind Erwin.

"I'm glad to see you all, girls," Caesar said happily.

"We're glad you're okay, Caesar!" Erwin replied cheerily in relieve. "I can't believe that you'll be trapped in a robbery incident. I'm sorry that we're not there for you."

"It's alright, I don't blame you," Caesar replied sincerely. "If not for these… soldiers to come and stop the robbery I'll had something worse."

"Yeah… who are those soldiers actually?" Oryou asked as they glanced over to the soldiers on Caesar's left.

"They are called Task Force 141," Caesar replied, much to their friends' surprise. "I did ask them who were they."

"Really? Are they some sort of Japanese special force?" Saemonza asked, but Caesar replied with a shook.

"Nah, it can't be since nearly all of them are not Japanese," Caesar replied. "But I couldn't thank you enough to them to help me out from that robbery."

"Why you said that?" Erwin asked.

"A robber had used me as a human shield, putting his pistol on my head," Caesar replied uncomfortably, her friends were all in shock to hear that. "But the robber was killed after one of those soldier shot his head while he was talking."

To hear the soldiers have save Caesar from being used as human shield, they all sighed gladly to hear that. "Thank God, I'm glad you're alright because of them," Erwin replied, her hand was on her chest

"Yeah… I'm glad that I can see you all again," Caesar replied as she held her friend's shoulder.

*WWHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRR*

They all quickly looked up after hearing the sound of engines in the air and saw two small helicopters with seats on the sides were landing over to the road in front of the bank. The 8 soldiers quickly gave their nods to each other and quickly ran over to the choppers. Caesar was surprised to see the soldiers were sitting on the seats right outside the helicopters instead of inside. Starting to hope that they don't fall because of that.

After that, she along with her friends and everyone else on site all watched the soldiers on the choppers began to ascend from the ground. The choppers then turned around to where Caesar and everyone else at and flew above them. Caesar and her friends were all in awe to watch the soldiers flew away in a public way. She was thankful for them. But she wondered one thing.

"Who was that soldier back there?"


	24. Chapter 23 - Visiting Ooarai

Kuromorimine Girls Academy, meeting room. The next day, 09:30 AM

.

Miho was inside the meeting room along with Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho. Miho was sitting on a chair in the middle of the long rectangular table while Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho stood in between Miho. They all inside the meeting room were waiting for the commanders of Kuromorimine to come, especially the 5 tank commanders she met first back in the residence. Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho for sure knew there was something that really pissed Miho off. But only Maho and Akaboshi knew what was really going on.

Miho called every tank commanders of Kuromorimine to the meeting room just because one reason. Kuromorimine's hostilities to Ooarai, especially to Miho's friends in Ooarai which is her former Anglerfish team. Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho weren't so sure about what mood Miho is in. Because Miho's current expression right now was looked so calm, but sometimes look of emotions can be deceiving. Maho could hope Miho stays that way for now.

While Maho and Akaboshi wore their school uniforms and Shiho wearing her same coat and shirt along with her jodphurs (somehow bothers Maho to know her mother wear the same damn thing everyday), Miho was in her other casual clothes. Since the winter has over, she won't be needing any jacket unless she wanted to. She was wearing her dark grey-buttoned long sleeve shirt with blue jeans. Her usual grey boonie hat, along with her belt pouches and a drop leg bag on her right leg to hide her pistol. This time, she doesn't wear any straps around her torso like Price since she felt so fuss about it.

Miho patiently waits for the commanders to come over to the room. 4 minutes have passed as they wait for the commanders to come. Then they heard the knocking sound on the door in front of Miho and her company. Miho looked over to Maho a little who was right next to her, signaling her to call in the commanders. Maho had responded back aloud to the knock, telling them to come in, and they open the door and came inside. The commanders of Kuromorimine were all in here, including Erika, Mauko, Ritaiko, Geshiko and Sangou. And frankly, they all were surprised to see Miho was sitting on her chair in between Shiho, Maho and Akaboshi who were still standing on their spot.

Maho then motioned them to seat in their respective chairs on the other side of the wide table, the other one side of the table had been occupied only for Miho. Mauko was sitting right in front of Miho with Erika and Geshiko on her left and Ritaiko and Sangou on her right, along with the rest of random commanders on site. After they all sat down except for Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho, they all quickly felt a little uncomfortable to see Miho right in front of them. For Erika, to see Miho was quiet calm like that just… doesn't add up. The commanders then looked over to Maho who was left emotionless.

"Umm… we didn't get called here because of tankery, right?" Erika asked slowly and nervously to her overall commander.

"Well… correct," Maho replied with a shrug while her arms was crossed.

"Then why are we here?" Geshiko asked to Maho.

"You should ask Miho here about that," Shiho replied to Geshiko, then the commanders all looked back to Miho.

They all paused in silence and discomfort to Miho, which then Miho began. "Do you know why I called you here?"

"Umm… no?" one of the random KKM commanders replied doubtedly.

"Well… there's one reason why I called you here," Miho replied calmly, she then stood up from her seat and landed her both hands on the table as she leans forward to them. "It's about your hostilities to Ooarai."

They all except Erika were surprised on what Miho said. "Wait, you heard about it?" Sangou asked as the random commanders with them starting to murmur to each other.

"Oh yeah, I know about it thanks to Maho, Erika and Akaboshi here," Miho replied with a nod. "But… what bothers me the most was the fact that you hurt the students from Ooarai, especially my friends from the Anglerfish team."

After she said that, the commanders then slowly looked over to Sangou, Ritaiko, Mauko, Erika and Geshiko as the 5 did the same to looked back at them. "I don't know who hurts who for sure. But… I do know one who hurt one specific friend of mine from Ooarai," Miho continued flatly.

Miho then looked straight at Mauko, in which she flinched. "You, Mauko."

"Wha- me?" Mauko asked in surprised with her finger pointed at herself as the rest looked over to Mauko in concern.

"Yeah, you," Miho replied sternly with a nod. "I heard you beaten up Yukari long ago, a friend of mine from Ooarai. Do you have a reason why did you do that?"

"N-no, I didn't hurt her," Mauko quickly replied with a shook as she made a false smile, the rest of the commanders only stayed silent in concern. "S-she asked me to have a friendly challenge to fight to see who's the tough one, so… yeah…"

Miho only stared at her sharply in disbelieve as everyone stayed silent with Mauko still forcibly smiling to Miho. "So that's how it happens, eh?" Miho asked sarcastically in her British accent.

Miho only scoffed and then leans away from the table as Mauko along with the commanders quickly frowned in fear. Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho only raised their brows and looked over to Miho. Miho was in displeasure and felt bullshit on what Mauko answered. Miho only shook then looked back to Mauko.

"I think you're lying to me, mate," Miho said to her coldly. "I'm asking you nicely here."

There was a small pause of silent, before Miho continued again. "How about this, you bastard? You kindly answer honestly to me of my question. Or…"

Miho then bowed her body down as her hands was grabbing something underneath the table in front of her. She then quickly pulled it out from underneath the table and show it to them. Before she cocked it with one hand.

*SCHKLIK-CHKLIK*

Miho just pulled out a Benelli Supernova Shotgun from underneath the table.

"Wo-wow!"

"Woah!"

"Scheisse!"

"The hell!?"

"Nani?!"

"Mein Gott!"

"Mommy!"

"Holy shit!"

Every commanders right in front of Miho reacted fearfully, panicked and loudly in shock and startled as they all quickly stood off their chairs and stepped back from her. Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho didn't see that coming and didn't know Miho had smuggled a weapon into the room, this had made them wondered how the hell Miho could do that in the first place in their presence. This action had Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho heavily surprised and felt a little afraid of what she's doing. Miho aimed her shotgun at the commanders as Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho stepped back from Miho.

"I'm going shoot you with this shotgun!" Miho said aloud straight to Mauko, her words may have been affected to the other commanders as well.

One of the random commanders was about to reach the door, until Miho saw that and aimed it at her through the group of the commanders. "The one who reached the door is the one who's getting shot first!"

The commander who nearly reached the door quickly stopped and back away from the door as the commanders looked back at Miho in fear as they stood still and frozen on spot.

"Now, sit your arses down!" Miho ordered with her shotgun aimed, the commanders reluctantly and fearfully obeyed her order and sat back down to their respective seats.

Miho then aimed her shotgun straight to Mauko, who felt she was about to have a bladder in fear. "Mauko… answer me, you wanker."

Akaboshi then held Miho's shoulder that was holding the stock side of the shotgun and rubbed it gently. "Calm down, Miho-san."

Mauko gulped in fear as she along with the commanders seated in between her left sweats over their foreheads, before answering to her. "Alright… Alright… I'll tell you. I had to beat Yukari that time because we blame her for leaving you to… die like that. Then she retorted that they had to leave you because you ordered to, which we didn't believe. We said back to them angrily saying they are an insult to Sensha-Do and stating that they want to avoid their responsibilities of your death. Yukari then shouted back to us that we were to blame to make Miho got kicked out from this school and joined to Ooarai where you got forced back into Sensha-Do again, we're to blame because we care about victory than saving people who's in danger just like what happened to you. That's when I got angry and attacked Yukari and beat her up, before Ooarai's student councils and Geshiko could separate me from Yukari."

Mauko then stopped talking, there was a small pause of silence before Miho asked lowly. "How bad is it?"

"What?" Mauko asked in misheard.

"How bad did you hurt her?!" Miho asked again in retort as she straighten the aim of her shotgun to her.

Mauko had gulped again fear as the commanders began to shiver of Miho's anger. "E-… Enough to left bruises on her face and a small bleeding on her nose."

With that said, Miho began to calm down as she lowers her aim from Mauko slowly. The fear that Mauko had along with the rest of the commanders inside including Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho who were beside and next to Miho as well. Miho only sighed in coldly with her eyes closed, before looking back to Mauko and the commanders again. She then sat down back in her chair, resting her shotgun standing next to her as she does that. Miho then gently leans her back against her chair as the commanders able to calm down and their fears had vanished.

Miho then sighed a few times as Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho were concerned of Miho's current emotion. "How… do you feel?" Erika asked doubtedly.

Miho only coldly looked at Erika and replies coldly. "I feel like I want to put a bullet into your leg."

That said, Miho was still pissed.

"I rather see you were helping Ooarai on some troubles than having a fight with them," Miho added coldly.

"Miho… but…" Geshiko said before she was cut off by Miho.

"But what? Ooarai is weak?" Miho added sarcastically. "I don't care about it, I would help Ooarai if I were you."

None of them including Shiho dare to say a word as they listened to Miho sharply. "You shouldn't have made an enemy when you make friends with them," Miho added coldly to her displeasure.

It took a moment for everyone to understand what she was trying to say. They should have realized they shouldn't have made enemies with Ooarai after Miho disappeared a year ago. They were the ones who made Miho kicked out from this school before Miho got forced to join back in Sensha-Do in Ooarai by the student Councils. Ooarai was not to blame first, but Kuromorimine was. They felt pretty ashamed to know that right in front of the redhead girl.

Miho only sighed sadly, before continuing. "This schoolship will be docking at a port right next to Ooarai's ship soon. This was no bloody coincidence or even any convenient of course."

Everyone except Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho was surprised of what Miho said as she continued coldly. "So when we docked, I don't want to hear any bloody reports that any of you Kuromorimine students had a physical fight or heavy verbal fight with Ooarai students, especially with the Anglerfish team. If any of you do that, your arse is mine before you can sod off. Especially you, Mauko. Understand?"

Fear of Miho's threat since she has shown what she can do in the public, they all in fear nodded doubtedly. "Good. You're all dismissed."

Miho then proceeds to stood off her chair and took her shotgun with her in one hand on the barrel. She then walked around the table, passing the commanders who were still sitting before walked out the door behind them. The commanders including Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho all watched her leave in concern as they frowned sadly about the facts of their hostilities to Ooarai that made Miho looked disappointed. Everyone could only stare at the door where Miho left for a moment before they all slowly looked back to each other.

Now they are receiving orders from Miho herself who is affiliated and not a member of Kuromorimine. These students might going to have a fight with Ooarai soon. But because Miho doesn't want to hear any fight between Kuromorimine and Ooarai, they fear something is going to happen to themselves if they disobeyed what she asked. They didn't like it, but they understand why Miho wants that.

Miho wants Kuromorimine to have a friendship relation with Ooarai.

They couldn't say anything but to stay silent after that. Erika, Geshiko and Sangou move and shook their legs up and down in agitation as they put their hands on the table that had been clamped to each other. Ritaiko along with the random commanders could only frowned in silent in concern. Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho only sighed impatiently as they still crossed their arms. While Mauko was the only person who was full of discomfort, pressure and fear of Miho's threat.

The random commanders were starting to talk to each other as Erika, Ritaiko, Geshiko, Sangou, Mauko, Maho, Akaboshi and Shiho only looked over to each other. "So… she wants us to not have any fight with Ooarai…" Sangou said awkwardly.

"Yeah…" Shiho said with a nod.

"But… how are we supposed to avoid it?" Ritaiko asked with an open palm in front of her face.

"Like… what if they were wanting us to fight with them?" Geshiko asked.

"If they asked for a fight, just ignore them," Akaboshi replied with a shook.

"Though, you shouldn't mock them after you declined to have a fight with them," Maho added flatly. "It would be the worse way to invite them to fight you."

"But you can explain to them why you want to avoid a fight with them," Shiho said to them, then continued by Akaboshi. "If they still don't believe, Maho and I will provided the phone number that Miho is using for now so the Ooarai students can call her and give them our proof."

"Though, that won't be necessary for now since she will be visiting Ooarai school," Akaboshi added again, this made the 5 commanders surprised a little.

"Did Anzu invite her to visit Ooarai?" Erika asked.

"Kind of," Maho replied with a shrug. "Miho had hoped that this visit was worth it."

They all then fell silent for a moment, until Shiho noticed Mauko's agitation. "Are you okay, Mauko?"

Mauko only stayed silent for a moment, she was quite nervous. "I… I think I need to go to the restroom… if you excuse me… I should go now…"

Mauko then stood off from her chair slowly and awkwardly, before turning around and headed for the door. Mauko then opened the door with a frown and left the room. After that, the remaining commanders inside along with Shiho, Maho and Akaboshi could only looked at each other in silence. Now, they weren't so sure if they can do what Miho had asked. With their hostilities to Ooarai is still at large, this might be impossible.

But because they're dealing with Miho, they need to do what she asked.

* * *

Task Force 141 Headquarters. 10:00 AM

.

Ami was sitting on a chair at a table inside the armory, watching through the window on her left to see the soldiers doing their fine work in the base. Beside the winter is over, they're still doing their job as always. Except for the fact that the Russians were complaining that the winter went over so quickly, not even 2 months and it's over. Ami had grinned at the thought as her friend, Yuko came over and sat down in front of her. Yuko did gave her a drink of booze and they both drink together. Ami then looked around the armory to see the Brits, the Aussies, and the Czechs were tending the weapons they have on the weapon stands.

Ami was having also having another thought about the so-called portal that Miho went through. The portal dubbed "The Tear" by the 141 and the SAS. She did know that the portal was first seen in Leningrad back in the 141's original world. But there was something just doesn't add up about it. Something that Ami should've asked back in the Sensha-Do Department.

How did The Tear was made?

Ami only shrugged at the thought as her best friend noticed that. Yuko only tilted her head and raised her right brow to see Ami only reacted like that. Ami Then looked back around the armory to see that the Brits were already tending their hands on the assault rifles, checking if any of those rifles are jammed. Royce was in there, currently busy hitting his rifle to a wall (wait, what?) to make it didn't jam. Ami was a little bit confused on what the hell Royce was doing, but reminded that's the Russians who taught him to do that she just stayed silent about it. Well, another day in the office for Ami and the 141s.

Ami looked out the window again to see the Japanese soldiers who were recruited by the 141 training in the field. Ami then looked back to Yuko again to have a small chat. Though, after a few seconds passed they heard someone was walking up to them from Ami's right. They looked around the armory on Ami's right and saw Ghost was coming over to them. Both Ami and Yuko greeted him by standing off their chairs and bowed to him while Ghost only replied to them with a greet and his palm open to them. The three of them then sit down at the table near the window and offered Ghost a drink of their booze, which is Sake. But since Ghost still doesn't want to open up his mask, he decided to drink later much to Ami's disappointment.

They all paused for a moment until Ghost spoke. "So, how's your day, ladies?"

"We both are doing fine right now," Ami replied. "Though, with this preparation for the Exhibition Match give me a small problem."

"That kind of thing Maho mentioned about?" Ghost asked with his head leaned back. "That's some sort of tankery match right?"

"Yeah, a 3 vs 3 teams match," Yuko replied with a nod. "Quite a big battle."

"20 plus armored tanks?" Ghost asked again.

"Yeah, that's a lot of tanks isn't?" Ami asked with a grin.

"Well, at least there's no tanks like our M1 Abrams in that match," Ghost replied with his right hand raised.

"Why would you said that?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"Because from the record we got about the M1 Abrams, there were only 14 Abrams tanks got destroyed by the result of enemy fire but around 530 tanks were in need of extensive repairs," Ghost explained with his index finger pointed to them both. "7 of them were destroyed by accidental friendly fire while 4 of them were scuttled to prevent the enemies taking over the tanks."

"Really?" Ami and Yuko both asked in unison, then continued by Yuko. "You're saying that no more than 20 tanks got destroyed by enemy fire?"

"Yeah, only 500 more of them that are need of repairs that time," Ghost replied with a nod delightfully.

"Well, that's a best tank you got there," Ami replied with a smile. "Have a thought on riding one, one day?"

Ghost felt something odd when Ami said that, but he replied anyway. "Well, if Miho was okay on that I can do that."

"Alright then," Ami replied with a nod, then she rested her chin on her hand as her elbow was on the table.

She then remembered that she wants to ask something to Ghost. "Hey, Ghost. Can I ask something?"

"About what, young lady?" Ghost asked as he looked out the window to his right, he was sitting next to Yuko.

"How did The Tear was first made?" Ami asked, that took Ghost off-guard. "Because I don't think the portal just made out of thin air, since you said you built a portal device to get Miho back home after The Tear was first showed up in Leningrad by itself. I think you're hiding something from us."

Well she was right about it, Ghost paused for a moment before he decided to said it. "Well.. you got us… we all do know how the Tear was made first."

"So… how it was made first before you do?" Yuko asked curiously as she and Ami sharpen their ears to him.

Ghost clears his throat first, before he explained. "The portal wasn't made by any kind of radioactivity, electricity anomaly nor even by magnetic field. We weren't the first who tried to build the portal."

"Wait, so you're saying there's other government who were building that?" Ami asked confusingly.

"Negative, it wasn't another government," Ghost replied with a shook, this did surprised the ladies.

"So… who?" Ami asked with her eyebrows raised.

Ghost paused for a moment in doubt, before answering. "The Inner Circle, the Ultranationalist terrorist party."

This took both Ami and Yuko heavily surprised and shocked. To hear it was the terrorists who first tried to make the portal, that was very terrifying to hear. What does the terrorist wants with the portal? If the terrorists' goal was to conquer another nation in another world in which their armaments of battle is more modern than 1960s, the Japanese including Ami and Yuko will be damned.

"W-what did the terrorists' want with that?" Ami asked worriedly.

"Remember about it was seen first in Leningrad?" Ghost asked, both of the ladies replied with a nod. "The Tear was actually seen right outside the City of Leningrad or in the 2000s called City of St. Petersburg. The year was 2012 that time 4 years before Miho showed up, we receive reports from MI6 and from the Russian Government that there is an abnormal activity happening outside St. Petersburg. Well, even the UK relations with the Russian Federation is still in the brink… we've decided to investigate the activity outside Leningrad. It was a SAS-TF 141 joint operation, called Operation Anomaly.

It was me, Soap, Wallcroft and a handful of 141s and SAS troopers were sent. We were sent to some sort of abandoned warehouses there. And that was the time we saw some sort of bright light from inside one of the warehouses. We went to investigate there and found the Ultranationalists were setting up a large portal device inside. After we saw that, we started our raid into the warehouse whilst the portal device was active. We had whole bloody lot of gunfight inside, and we had to throw our grenades around which I supposed to tell them not to. Wallcroft 'accidentally' threw a grenade straight into one of the portal device's generators where it was responsible to keep that bloody thing active, and all hell breaks loose."

"What happened?" Yuko asked curiously, and starting to not like where this is going.

"After the generator was destroyed by a grenade, it created a chain-reaction to the whole warehouse. We just found out the portal was starting to be unstable and looked about to blow up due to the light of portal became much brighter. Thankfully all 21 soldiers from TF 141 and SAS including myself made it out alive, two SAS and three 141s were wounded in the battle. After we were out from the warehouses, all of the warehouses in site were blown into pieces like fireworks in the New year's eve. None of the terrorists able to escape from that large blast, but then that's when we saw there's a portal had appeared on the hills 150 meters east from the blown warehouses. The portal was there for like 10-15 minutes before it disappeared into thin air. There is no reports that anyone ever entered that portal, until the portal showed up at our base and sent Miho there with debris from the bridge. A year later, the British Government was able to contain the portal when they build the portal device after that incident in Operation Anomaly. How did they do that I don't know. The Tear won't be appearing anywhere else again until the portal was destroyed."

Ami and Yuko were amazed of the story of the incident. "So... that's how it happens… Are you sure you don't know how did they able to contain it?" Ami asked with a rather high tone.

"Yes, I'm sure," Ghost replied with a nod and his arms crossed. "Though, the only things I heard on how did they contain the portal was that they're using some sort of electromagnetic field and EMP to do that."

"Wait, EMP?" Ami asked confusingly.

"Yeah, I think it's better you ask Miho for that because I don't know a bloody thing about it," Ghost replied with a shrug.

They all silent for a moment to think about another topic, until Ami spoke up. "Hey, Ghost. Can we have a test on your tanks there?"

"Why? You want to have a match between yours and ours?" Ghost asked with his eyebrows raised under his skull-mask.

"Yeah, it would be fun," Ami replied with a smile and a nod before looking back to Yuko. "Do you agree, Yuko?"

"Yeah, I agree," Yuko replied with her eyes closed. "Do you mind about it?"

"Well, I need to ask permission from Miho first if it's okay," Ghost replied amusedly. "Then I'll get the boys and have a match with you."

"That's great," Ami said happily. "Let's see how are you holding up in the match."

* * *

Ooarai Girls Academy, front side of the school. 11:00 AM

.

"So… here we are…"

"What are we doing now?"

"Now we wait for someone."

"For who?"

"Anzu."

"Are you sure she's-?"

"Just wait."

Miho, Maho and Erika were right now standing at the entrance of Ooarai school. Miho, Maho and Erika were all waiting for Anzu to come over to them. Maybe they can just go inside and find Anzu, but that might be risky knowing of Kuromorimine's hostilities to Ooarai. Even if Miho was with them, it would invite them into trouble too soon. So waiting for Anzu to pick them is the best choice if they want to visit the school.

Miho had looked around the front gate of the school to see if everything has changed. None of the surroundings especially the building had changed, still keeping its chocolate-oranges. And then they heard there were students of Ooarai walking in and out the gate of the school. Thankfully, the students didn't manage to see Miho's face due to she was wearing her grey boonie hat. And Miho could see that the students who passed her and Maho and Erika, the students giving their glare toward Maho and Erika. When the students looked over to Miho, their expressions changed into confusion and wonder. Miho could hear that the students were murmuring about herself and they wondered if she was a part of Kuromorimine.

Miho then looked around again aside from the school. There were the school's Sakura trees on the front lawn of the school. It looked beautiful as ever with those pinkie color of leaves there that might be best to view when sunset. The road in front of the school still the same dark-red brick color to keep its classic road style. Nothing more than that aside from the bright sun in the sky that shone the school and the city.

And then that's when they heard a footstep was coming towards them. They all looked back toward the entrance, and found Anzu along with Momo and Yuzu are walking toward them. Anzu was looked quite happy to see Miho and her group come over, except for Momo who looked afraid and worried with Miho here. Maho and Erika greeted along with Miho who only greeted them with a nod and grabbing the brim of her hat and pulling it down slightly. Anzu, Momo and Yuzu then greeted them back with their hands waved at them with a smile, in Momo's case she made a little false smile and doubtedly waved her hand to them.

When the student councils reached them, they stopped in front of them and Anzu spoke up. "How are you doing today?"

"We're doing fine as always," Maho replied with a smile, which then Anzu looked over to Miho who looked quite sour.

"Are you okay, Miho?" Anzu asked with a false high tone.

"What do you think?" Miho replied coldly, as her eyes still staring at Momo.

They all including Momo looked at who Miho was staring at, fearfully she was staring at Momo. "Ah-erm… h-how are you d-doing, M-Miho-san?"

Miho only paused to her question with a dreary look, before she replied coldly. "I'm fine… for now… you?"

Momo paused in worried as she scratched her head and looked down. "Eerr… I'm-I'm good."

"Really? You looked like got crash by train," Miho replied suspiciously, which everyone frowned at what she said in worry. "I'm a little surprised to see you have a back up single eyeglass there."

"Aah, ye-s," Momo stammered as she corrects her single eyeglass. "I have more eyeglasses to replace the old ones…"

"Good for you," Miho replied with a nod but also upset. "So I can break another one for you."

They all were taken back on what she said, this had made Momo panic as she replied not aloud. "Miho, I-I'm sorry! I-I didn't-"

"You're trying to beat me back there says the otherwise, ya' bastard," Miho replied coldly, everyone flinched at her words except Anzu who became worried. "You better sod off right now."

"Miho, please! I'm sorry!" Momo quickly replied nearly aloud, with her clamps to each other. "I'm sorry for insulting you back there, I was in desperate to find someone to get Ooarai back to its feet! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, please…"

Miho only stayed silent to hear her plea, then replied. "You know, I really regret on what I have done back in St. Gloriana just because of you."

"Wha-what?" Momo was now confused on what she meant. "What do you mean?"

"That fight back there, I had gone too far," Miho replied. "I shouldn't have too brutal to you in front of anyone."

"So you're saying-?" Momo said she cuts off.

"Yeah," Miho replied quickly with a nod. "I had to apologize to everyone for I have done to you, even though you're the one who started the trouble."

Miho paused as they stayed silent, before Miho continued. "Just... don't turned my eyes to black… alright?"

"But… what about…?" Momo asked as she trailed off.

"I forgive you, for now," Miho replied coldly with a frown. "Don't set me off, alright?"

"I promise," Momo replied with a nod.

"Alright…" Miho said lowly, before continued by Erika. "Can we go inside now?"

"Sure… follow us," Anzu said with her head pointed to behind her awkwardly, Miho, Maho and Erika then follow the student councils into the school.

They walked through the entrance and headed for the front glassy doors of the school. Miho looked around them as she had a sense on something. True to Miho's feeling, all of Ooarai's students around them were looking at them uncomfortably, especially Erika and Maho that they had a grudge with. How did Maho and Erika able to get through the grudge against Ooarai Miho doesn't know. But for sure, she hates to hear this and want it to stop. These hostilities had remind her of a war between the United States and the Russian Federation all over again.

After they entered the front door, they traverse along the hallway and passed through a few students on their right. She could se the grudging looks that the students made, by when they looked at her their reaction change into curiosity. Miho won't bother about it, it's unusual for them of course to see a girl in her casual manly-like clothes with her boonie hat hiding her face. They eventually went upstairs at the end of the hallway on their left and walked until they reached the third floor.

Miho, Maho and Erika followed the student councils along the halls. They walked forward until the end of the hall before turning left. Miho took a look around as they walked. Nothing has changed except it seems that the school seems to lose its students slowly. Miho then looked forward and found that her along with her group and Anzu's have reached the Student Council's office. Anzu only knocked on the door and entered in one by one.

Miho was the last to enter the office and followed them with the door behind her closed, and then she stood with them in the middle of the room. Miho looked on to their right and found there are students who had stood off the sofas that had been positioned into rectangular with some extra chairs they got. The students looked back at them but not to Miho, showing their faces of grudge to Maho and Erika. And Miho was silently surprised to see who were those students were. All of the students inside were all actually members of the Sensha-Do team.

There was the Duck Team, the Hippo Team, The Rabbit Team, and especially The Anglerfish team along with their members. There were around 4 new teams of Sensha-Do that are also in present alongside them. One team was three members of Ooarai's Morals Committee, Sodoko (Midoriko Sono), Pazomi (Nozomi Konparu), and Gomoyo (Moyoko Gotou). One team was the 4 members of Automobile Club, Satoko Nakajima, Hoshino, Suzuki and Tsuchiya. One team was 3 members who are online game fanatics Miho ever heard of a year ago (yes, internet does exist a little in this year), Nekonya (Nekota), Piyotan and Momoga. There was the last one team of 4 members, but Miho doesn't recognize them due to their sailor-like Ooarai uniforms. Though, everyone including Maho and Erika knew who were these 4 girls are, but the only girl who was not in present from that sailor team was a girl named Ogin.

Miho only looked over towards the Anglerfish team, in which all of the Sensha-Do team members greeted. "Ohayō gozaimasu!"

"Minasan, kon'nichiwa!" Anzu replied aloud. "It's good to see you all in here."

"It's good to see you, Anzu," Hana replied with a smile, but then turned sour once she looked to Erika. "But why are they here?"

"They just here to have a visit," Yuzu replied.

"Really? I don't believe it," Erwin replied sourly.

"You Kuromorimines never do any visits to our school," Akebi stated as she pointed at Maho. "Especially you, commander Maho Nishizumi."

"I know," Maho replied with a honest nod. "I understand you're still angry at us about it."

"We would be more glad if you didn't come," Ayumi replied with an upset look, before glancing over to the girl with her boonie hat. "Hm?"

"Who is that girl with you?" Flint asked with her left brow raised.

"Is she from Kuromorimine as well?" Sodoko asked in confusion. "Because she's wearing a different uniform than yours."

"No, but-" Erika replied, which quickly cut off by Yukari.

"Is she a spy?!" Yukari asked aloud. "Are you trying to spy on us?!"

"No, no, wait-" Maho replied back, before anyone else could cut her off, Momo shouts it out to everyone.

"Hey! That's enough!" Momo shouted angrily, before calming her tone down to neutral. "They're not here to insult us!"

"But…" Anzu continued lazily and softly. "I want to introduce you to someone."

Anzu then looked over to the girl whom face was hidden under her boonie hat and looked straight to her coldly. "You're ready?"

The girl didn't reply. But then she puts her right hand on her hat by the edge of the hat. Slowly, she took off her hat and reveals her face. Like what Miho had expected, all of them including the sailor girls who she didn't know recognize her face and all of them jumped up in shock and surprised. Nearly all of them dropped their jaws open and all of them left their eyes widen. But for Saori, Hana, Yukari and Mako, they were all also glad to see Miho right here after that incident in Yokohama.

"MIHO!?" everyone except Miho's group all shouted in shock.

"So you all still remembered me," Miho replied calmly with a smirk.

"Mi-Miho?" Hana stammered, horrified to see something from Miho. "I-Is that… is that a scar?"

"On my eye? Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Scratched by a tiger."

They all flinched on her reply, that made Hoshino who is a part of Leopon team sad. "Ouh, I love tigers."

"Miho…" Yukari started, Miho glanced at her with a soft smile. "It's good to see you again."

"I say the same, mate," Miho replied with a nod, holding her hat in front of her chest. "We should take a seat now."

"Oh uh… sure, over here, Miho-senpai!" Aya replied awkwardly as she showed Miho along with her group their seats.

"Just call me Miho," she replied before they headed for their respective seats and everyone sat down.

Miho was now sitting in between Erika and Yukari on the sofa with Maho beside Erika. The student councils along with a few students sat across them while the rest took seats available on their left and right. Miho could see everyone including Maho and Erika were all a little nervous of her presence. Though, it was Anzu who was lazily happy to have Miho here. Miho puts her hat on the table in front of her as she looked over to everyone with her.

"It's been a long time, lads," Miho replied with her British accent, made everyone surprised by her sudden change of accent for the moment. "Sorry for scaring all of you a year ago."

"We know but how did you survived that incident in the bridge?" Saemonza asked with her head tilted and her brow raised.

"Hang on a bit on that," Miho replied with her open palm pointed at her. "I remember all of you. But… I believe I never met these sailors before."

"How observant," the muscle built sailor-girl replied in surprised.

"May I know your names?" Miho asked to the sailor-girls.

The first girl was the short girl with brunette curly hair and sharp looking eyes, she and Miho shook their hands. "My- name is 'Explosive Cyclone' Rum. How are ya' doin'?"

Miho paused for a moment after she noticed the wobbly sounds Rum made. "Is she drunk?"

"Well… kind of…" Momo replied awkwardly, scratching her own head at the same time.

Miho then shook her hand with the next girl who was a tall girl with long silver hair and relatively slanted eyes. "My name is 'Great Waves' Flint, young lady."

"A singer eh?" Miho commented with her brows raised. "Fine for me."

Then Miho shook her hand to the other next girl who is a physically built girl, more muscular than other girls with black spiked hair, sharp-looking eyes, and talk quite rashly. "My name is 'Sargasso' Murakami. I hope you can show me how Nishizumi-style does fight one day."

"You're a fighter?" Miho replied neutrally, but of course she was surprise. "I believe the Kuromorimine scared about you, right?"

Everyone then looked over to Maho and Erika who only gave in their blank stares to Miho, before Erika admitted. "Well, yeah, we're afraid of Murakami because…"

"Because?" Miho asked.

"Because Murakami is like Ooarai's bulldozer," Karina replied with a smile with her eyes closed.

"Oh?" Miho is starting to imagine what she was thinking. "Are you trying to tell me that she ever took down a power pole before?"

"Yep," everyone including Maho and Erika replied with a nod.

"That sounds my kind of friend," Miho replied, which earned everyone's glare.

"Eh?" Erwin, Nekonya, Tsuchiya and Saori replied with confusion. "We had a hard time to beat her challenge so they can join our Sensha-Do, you know?" Saori stated.

"I can imagine that," Miho then shook her hand to the last short blonde girl who was in her barmaid attire. "What's your name?"

"My name is 'Fresh Whitebait Rice Bowl' Cutlass," the blonde girl replied emotionlessly. "And yes, I work as a barmaid."

"Huh… why you looked like Mako?" Miho asked, to which both Mako and Cutlass got up by that.

"Really, Miho?" Mako and Cutlass replied in cold and annoyance.

"Yeah, really," Miho replied again with a nod, it had made Maho and Erika smirked. "It's nice to meet you all, ladies. Now, you want to know how did I survived that bridge incident, didn't you?"

"Yeah, how did you survived that fall?" Taeko asked quickly and curiously.

"Honestly, I don't know how I survived that," Miho replied, everyone was confused of her answer as they made 'huh?'. "But… I got washed up to London after that."

"To London!?"everyone shouted in confusion and shock. "There's no way, you could end up there!" Hana replied in disbelieve.

"That's across half of the earth!" Suzuki stated aloud. "You must be joking!"

"Do I looked like someone who likes to joke here, mate?" Miho asked as she glared at her with her dreary look.

Suzuki was quickly felt discomfort when she stares at her like that. "A-uuuh, no?"

"Good…" Miho then looked around to everyone again, only to see they were also felt discomfort on what Miho did. "Forgive me, I was… not in the mood."

"It's alright, Miho-san," Gomoyo replied with a understanding nod.

"Well… after I washed up in London, I was still unconscious before people found me and sent me to the hospital that time," Miho continued as she leans back against the sofa. "And when I woke up, they said that I took a lot of shrapnel to my ribs and limbs."

Everyone quickly became horrified after she said that. Even if that was a half-lie, Maho and Erika couldn't forget the injuries Miho had to take when she showed up in London. "Oh God, I'm sorry to hear that," Momoga said sincerely and pity.

"Thanks," Miho replied with a nod, then she looked down in silent.

"Are you alright?" Murakami asked as she concerns the frown she made.

"It's nothing, it's just…" Miho paused, before replying emotionlessly. "I just miss London."

"Huh?" everyone except Maho and Erika asked in surprise. "You live there for a year, aren't you?" Saori asked.

"Yes, she does," Maho answered instead of her young sister, wanted Miho to get a pause for some air as everyone glanced at her. "Sorry, I just… remembering how injured Miho was it just kept bothers me."

Even the Ooarais were all suspicious of her, they all understood her. "That's okay, Maho-san," Caesar replied with a nod.

"So, how's life in London?" Yukari asked, happy for the sake of her curiosity. "Did you see Big ben there?"

"Seen a lot more than Big ben," Miho replied with a nod. "I visit Buckingham Palace a few times."

"Oh?! Is there more than that!?" Azusa asked curiously nearly aloud.

"Well, there's also the Thames River," Miho replied as she closed her eyes. "And there's the tower bridge, one of my favorite place to go."

"Wow, you've seen a lot," Satoko replied with amazement.

"Yeah, but living there has been a little rough," Miho stated flatly.

"Little rough?" Cutlass asked.

"Yeah, you know what I mean," Miho replied with a nod and a small smile.

"Don't worry, you're not the only one who had that," Rum said drunkenly with her hand raised.

"So what's your story that had you ending up to Sensha-Do team?" Miho asked with her head tilted.

"Well, the Anglerfish team here along with Sodoko were sent to find us and asked us to join up Sensha-Do," Cutlass explained plainly. "Though, we captured Sodoko to give her a lesson that time until Yukari's team showed up. Then we gave them our challenges in exchange to free Sodoko, not for their plea of joining Sensha-Do."

"And they stuck with Murakami after that?" Miho asked to her former Anglerfish team, it made them frown.

"Yeah…" Saori replied sourly, then continued by Mako. "Fighting with Murakami was the worst one. After we lose, we told them again to joined up Sensha-Do but this time with the reason of Momo needed their help. So they got up by that and willingly to help Ooarai for it."

"That's one awkward story for sure," Miho commented with her head shook a little, giving a flat smile.

"We know!" Flint replied with a smile, but then frowned. "But… at least we tried our best in Sensha-Do."

Miho didn't expect she would say that, but she also didn't surprise by that. "You lose?"

"Yeah…" Saori replied unwillingly, everyone from Ooarai frowned to remember that. "Now… we're called as an insult for the Sensha-Do Nationals."

When she said that, everyone from Ooarai was expecting to see that Maho and Erika didn't care about what happened to Ooarai. But they were silently surprised to see Maho and Erika gave in their sad emotions and they pitied Ooarai's Sensha-Do team for their loss. Miho had felt sorry to hear that, to hear from the KKM commanders and Ooarai's Sensha-Do team to say the same about that. Though, Miho was only giving her cold look on that.

"I see…" Miho replied slowly. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Thank you, Miho-san," Saemonza replied with a nod, still frowning. "Also… we have another question for you."

"What do you want to ask?" Erika asked.

"Did Miho… joined back to your school?" Mako asked emotionlessly, Miho, Maho and Erika had expected they will asked that.

"No, she didn't," Maho replied with a shook. "Even though she still lives in our residence."

"Oh?" everyone asked in surprise. "I thought you'll be going back to Kuromorimine after that incident," Saki asked, who just able to ask after she stares at nothingness for a long of time.

"I'm not going back there after I found out they care victory than someone's life," Miho replied coldly as she looked over to her elder sister and Erika.

"Oh? So you came here to join back to our school, right?" Pazomi asked in hopeful.

Miho knew they will ask that and didn't want to make them sad, but she can't say anything but to be honest. "No, I'm just doing my visit to come here."

"Wait, what?" Shinobu asked in startled and alarmed as everyone in the room except the student councils and Maho and Erika were all surprised. "You- you're not joining back to Ooarai?!"

"Yeah, I'm not joining back to Ooarai," Miho replied with a stern nod.

"But, why?" Yukari asked sadly. "We're your friends, Miho. And our team is in short of one member which is you. Why you don't want to joined back to Ooarai?"

"I…" Miho paused, before replying softly. "I already have my own job… before I met Maho here and you."

"But what of the fate of our tankery, piyo?!" Piyotan asked aloud, before continued by Momoga. "We need you back Miho-san!"

"I'm sorry, I can't," Miho replied with a slow shook.

"Why you don't want to join back to tankery?" Noriko asked.

"I had enough of tankery, alright?" Miho replied coldly, the Anglerfish team were confused the change of her tone.

"But you're still a highschooler!" Sodoko exclaimed. "You must get back to school and joined up tankery immediately!"

"She's already grown up, Sodoko," Maho replied neutrally.

"I don't care and don't call me that!" Sodoko replied angrily. "She must go back to our school's tankery!"

"I told you I had enough of tankery!" Miho replied sternly and coldly.

"Well, you're a member of our Sensha-Do long ago!" Sodoko retorted again. "You better come back to our tankery or else!"

"So you're trying to force me to join back to Ooarai now?" Miho asked coldly to Sodoko. "Don't try to make this like what I did to Momo."

"Huh?" everyone asked in surprise and confusion except the student councils and her own group, Miho knew Momo didn't tell them. "What do you mean?" Sodoko asked.

"You can ask Momo yourself here," Miho replied as she looked over to the agitated Momo Kawashima before everyone followed up to look at her.

"Kawashima-san, what happened?" Cutlass asked in worry as the sailor-girls did the same at Momo.

"Umm… I… I tried…" Momo paused agitatedly, before she was able to continue after staring at Miho's cold eyes. "I tried to force Miho to get back to this school, I forced her to far until I had to insult her and try to punch her. But she able took me down by hitting me with her baton, and then slammed my head to a table, before she choked me very hard that I nearly lost breath… before she slammed my face one more time to table to make me fell unconscious."

Everyone including Miho's former Anglerfish team were all horrified of Miho's actions to Momo. Everyone in the room were looking back straight to Miho as they were still horrified and discomfort to notice that Miho still giving in her cold face. Yukari who respects heavily to Miho felt so afraid to Miho now. To hear Miho could such an action was nothing they could foreseen.

"Momo had set me off two days ago," Miho replied coldly. "Don't try to give me an edge, understand?"

"There's no way you can do that to them with me around, you know that?" Murakami asked who is the only strongest girl aside the game fanatics.

"If I did gone angry and I fight with you, Murakami. Then you should kill me."

Kill her.

It's the most unthinkable thing to them for someone to do. Murakami did had fights, but of course, she never kills anyone. For everyone else, hearing Miho said that by themselves had made them shock and amazed of her reply.

"Are you…?" Saori asked slowly.

"Yes, I mean it."

To hear Miho really meant it, it was terrifying. Even Maho who is a 141 soldier and Erika were both afraid to talk to her when she's like that.

"O-ok, I pulled my words," Sodoko replied at last in fear.

"Good…" Miho replied flatly, her eyes was still sharp as a knife.

Even though the atmosphere Miho had in the room was total discomfort, Miho had sighed to calm herself down, something that Maho and Erika was glad about.

After a few moments of sighing, she said to them. "I'm just… not in a good mood… so…"

"We understand," Yuzu replied with a nod, before continued by Anzu. "We know how that felt."

Miho didn't bother to answer back, but instead… she asked something to Yukari. "Yukari… I want to ask you something, if that's okay with you?"

"S-sure, Nishizumi-Dono," Yukari replied awkwardly, Maho and Erika felt a little awkward to hear that. "What do you want to ask?"

"You ever got beaten up by Mauko right?" Miho asked softly.

That question caught Yukari and anyone else off-guard, Yukari was flinched to hear that. "H-how did you-?"

"She asked straight to Mauko herself," Erika replied as she massage her own neck. "Mauko told her what truly happened and she was pretty scared of Miho that she has to go to the restroom."

"Scared?" Hana asked. "Did you mean that Miho-?"

"She threatened her by…" Maho then then looked over to Miho. "Dropping her off the ship into the sea."

Well, that was a lie. We knew what happened back in the early morning. But they were very convinced that Miho could do something like that. And to be honest, they know that was very unpleasant.

"I-I see…" Yukari replied awkwardly and discomfort. "But why you asked that?"

"Just to confirm if that's true," Miho replied with a nod. "Also, Mauko had asked me to tell you that she was sorry of what she did to you long ago. She hopes you can forgive her of what she did."

"Wait, why would she wants to apologize?" Oryou asked in confusion. "I mean, Kuromorimine students never apologized to us."

"Especially when we lose the Sensha-Do Match," Erwin added, which her buff history friends said aloud to her. "That's it!"

"Because I threatened them to do that," Miho replied with her arms crossed.

…

…

…

…

"Nani?" everyone including the student councils asked, they never expected that Miho could do that to Kuromorimine.

"Yeah," Maho added with a nod. "Miho had ordered every single student of Kuromorimine including the commanders to stop their hostilities to you."

"But why?" Hoshino asked in confusion.

"I had enough to see you and Kuromorimine fighting each other while I'm gone," Miho replied as she leans back against the sofa. "I hate it to see Kuromorimine just degrading you instead of helping you all to stand back to your feet."

"Just like the American Civil War?" Erwin asked doubtedly.

"Well… nearly that one," Miho replied a little high tone.

"Why would they want to listen to you even though you're not one of them?" Taeko asked in doubt as she winced her eyes in disbelieve.

"I'm still affiliated with them, remember?" Miho replied back flatly and calmly. "If I heard they had a fight with any of you, their arses are mine."

They felt a little awkward on what she just said. "That's not what I really meant," Miho added to sort out the confusion.

It took them a moment to understand what the hell she meant. "Oh, you mean- alright then," Azusa replied awkwardly, the rest understood what she meant and also reacted awkwardly to her.

"Look, I understand that you're not happy that I'm not joining back to either your school or any other school, alright?" Miho explained calmly with her both open palms faced to them. "But… I'm willing to help you dealing with everything in your school."

"Wait, you're telling me you're okay to help us on any troubles we have in our school?" Satoko asked with her head tilted.

"Yeah, except for doing tankery match," Miho added with a nod.

"Okay… I think we have an agreement," Anzu replied awkwardly as she lazily nodded back.

They all fell silent again. Nothing else they could say while everything was in silence. Ooarai's Sensha-Do teams including Anglerfish team didn't know what they want to say to Miho, because they were puzzled of Miho's emotion. Maho and Erika on the other hand felt glad that the Ooarais didn't set Miho off, and good to know Miho was happy to see her former Anglerfish team again.

Though, something struck Yukari's head as she was reminded of something. "Miho, there's something else I want to ask you…"

"What is it?" Miho asked softly, wondered what her friend is going to ask.

"You know, me along with Hana, Saori and Mako here ever saw you back in Yokohama city," Yukari replied, this had took everyone including Maho, Erika and Miho herself.

"Hang on, you were there?!" Erika asked in amazement.

"How come we didn't see you a month ago back in that city?" Maho asked as she was confused on how Yukari and her team saw them back in that city.

"Because you were looking at what was happening back there, about that burning apartment building in Yokohama," Yukari replied, Miho was caught off-guard by that.

"I heard that news," Akebi stated as she remembered about it. "But they don't know who's the girl that saved the people from the burning building, was that really you, Miho-san?"

"Y-yeah, it was me," Miho replied in a sad tone, but she was also in discomfort as she looks back to Yukari. "You… saw what I was doing back there?"

"Yeah, I saw what you did," Yukari replied with a nod. "We all saw you what you did back there."

"You saved people out of the building, despite you were risking your life in that building that was about to collapse," Mako stated emotionlessly as ever.

"But… when we saw you try to keep an injured girl to stay alive but she had died…" Saori explained slowly as she tries not to make it sound uncomfortable. "We heard you were shouting at your own family and Erika…"

"What I'm asking was, what do you mean by many people died under your watch?" Yukari asked, this mentally triggered Miho a little inside her heart but she was able to hold it.

Miho was left in silent, until she replied calmly as she looked away. "That's out of question."

Yukari and the rest were all flinched of her reply. "Miho, are you alright?"

"I'm fine…" Miho replied lowly.

"Why you're angry when Yukari ask that?" Anzu asked lazily but also worriedly.

"I don't want to talk about it," Miho replied coldly with a shook.

"Can you talk to us about that?" Piyotan asked curiously.

"No, I'm not talking about it," Miho replied coldly again as she tries not to make an eye contact.

They were just curious, Murakami then tried to asked her. "Just what do you mean many people died under your-?"

"I SAID FUCKING ENOUGH!" Miho quickly retorts her aloud, her rage was already boiling up as she gives them her angry dead eyes.

Everyone was startled and were all taken back by her raging reaction. Everyone quickly leans back from Miho and they all fell silent like their mouths just shut like that. Yukari and her Anglerfish team were all in shock that her reaction was like that. The Rabbit Team, the Leopon Team and the Anteater Team were all startled and terrified by her reaction. While the Student Councils, the Moral Committees, the Volleyball Team, the history buffs, and the Shark team were all surprised and concerned of her reaction. Maho and Erika were both afraid if they unintentionally set Miho off.

Miho looked over to everyone with her stern eyes, until she looked over to her former Anglerfish team. Once Miho looked at the terrified faces of Yukari, Saori, Hana and Mako, Miho then calms down slowly to that. Miho then closed her eyes as she looks away from her former team. Before she opens up her eyes and walked away from the teams, Erika and Maho. Miho then headed for the door and left the room, still in anger as she was actually heading for the nearby restroom. Once they watched Miho left, Maho and Erika and also the rest of Ooarai's students slowly looked back to each other in heavy worries.

"I'm glad she didn't go more angry than that," Maho commented in relieve.

"Is she… always like this?" Azusa asked worriedly, she actually likes Miho from a year ago.

"Only on sensitive things," Erika replied with a frowned. "She's been like this after we kicked her out from our school and… after she got that incident at that bridge."

Hearing that made Hana felt uncomfortable. "Is she more violent than this, aside from beating up Momo?"

"Yeah, she ever left 5 Bonple girls with broken bones plus one with her face bruised hard flawlessly," Maho replied with a frown.

They all were horrified of what Miho had ever done, they never did heard any news from Bonples even though they were actually neutral to Bonple school. But Murakami felt so impressed that Miho could do something like that.

"Is she going to be alright?" Erwin asked as she was worried of Miho's mental problems.

"Hopefully," Maho replied with a doubtful shrug. "She's… totally changed."

"How's your friends and family doing when she's around?" Momo asked curiously.

"Well… it's quiet comfortable to have her around but…" Maho paused as she thoughts for a moment. "She's usually a hard girl to talk with. But she was also caring, brave and very determined on what she is doing, even if she had to risked her life like what happened back to Yokohama. Though, she's not someone you would want to mess with because she had gone through a rough life. And my mother even afraid a little of her and pretty worried about how is Miho doing."

"Wait, what do you mean your mother worried about how is Miho doing?" Noriko asked as they confused on the last sentence she said.

"I… rather not say about it," Maho replied worriedly with a shook. "I don't want Miho got more angry if she founds out about this…"

"I see, don't worry we won't force you on that," Yukari replied with an understanding nod.

If Maho and Erika were both so worried about Miho, then something had happened. The problem was Yukari or even anyone else don't know what experiences Maho and Erika had with Miho around. They had able to understand that the reason why they won't talk about it was because they somehow looked afraid about Miho instead of being hostile to Ooarai. They wished they could talk to Miho about what's going on until now.

If only Miho was too open for those kind of things.


	25. Chapter 24 - TEOMEIMF

(Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 OST-39 the Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend, 4:10)

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

.

Tracking..

Located, Sgt. Gary 'Roach' Sanderson

Status: K.I.A

.

Tracking..

Located, Captain 'Soap' Mctavish

Located, 1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

U.S vehicle disposal yard 437

.

Soap: Roach? Ghost? Come in, Ghost. Do you copy? Does anyone Copy?!

Miho: What happened, Soap?

Price: Sorry to say this Miho. Roach and Ghost, they're dead. Shepherd's cleaning house. I'm working my way back to you two.

Tracking...

Located, Captain Price

Soap: Shepherd betrayed us all.

Miho: Can't believe the general pulled the fast one on us.

Price: We all fell for it. Have to trust someone to be betrayed. I never did.

Price: Nikolai, do you have our location?

Hercules C-130 inbound

Nikolai: Da. Inbound, price. But I am not the only one.

Profile: Shepherd, Makarov

Nikolai: You got Shepherd's men on one side, Makarov's on the other.

Price: We'll have to take them all out then.

Miho: That's suicide! We don't have the equipment to take out both sides!

Nikolai: Or we could just let them take each other out. Either way, I'll see you guys on the other side, my friends.

* * *

Miho found herself behind cover of one of the planes in the boneyard. Captain Soap was on the other side, under fire as well.

"Miho, Soap! Shepherd's trying to wipe us out and Makarov at the same time! Head to tally point Bravo to the west! Trust no one!" Price shouted as he was approaching the area.

.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

Day 6 (August 15th 2016) - 16:05:01

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

160 miles SW of Kandahar, Afghanistan

US Vehicle Disposal Yard 437

.

"We're pinned down, price. It is going to take time to get there!" Miho replied as she shot 3 of Makarov's men in front of her. She saw an opening and made a run for it by jumping out the plane and run towards it. Unfortunately, more of Makarov's men appeared out of thin air.

"Bloody wankers!" Miho shouted as she shot another of the terrorists down. This was getting nowhere. No choice, she took a grenade and threw it, killing the rest of them. "Soap, how are you doing there?!"

"I'm getting shot from both sides!" Soap radioed back as she heard in the radio he was killing the enemies in front of him, and a sound of a rocket echoed in the radio. "Shite! The terrorists just sent me an RPG!"

"Hang tight, mate!" Miho replied as she shoots two bastards on her left with her silenced ACR. "I'm heading east towards you!"

"Roger that!" Soap replied as she quickly run and slide on the ground as she killed 4 SC soldiers on her right before reaching a debris for cover.

Miho quickly run out from cover and headed to her left, there she found Soap was taking cover at a metal sheet of a plane. Miho quickly slide and crouched and stopped right next to him and quickly returned fire. She quickly aims to her right and shot 3 SC soldiers before reloading it by swing her mag rifle to her right before putting in a fresh one and cocked it. Soap quickly ducked his head down and threw a grenade back at them. The grenade blew and killed 5 Russian terrorist that were right in front of them and were distracted by the SC soldiers.

Miho had quickly leans her body to her left to avoid the incoming RPG coming to them. She turned her head forward and saw the wanker who shot the RPG to them. Miho quickly pulled out one of her knife and threw it to him from the range of 50 meters. The knife hit him in his head and he fell just in time as he was about to pull a trigger to his RPG. The dead Russian's finger accidentally pulled the trigger and rocket flew out and blew around 5 SC soldiers that just showed up to Miho's right.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" Soap asked aloud as he reloads his Suppressed MP5K.

"Killing Makarov's men," Miho responded as she shot 3 terrorists accurately. "You?"

"I had to hide in the grass for the moment thanks to my Ghillie Suit," Soap replied with his sarcastic tone.

"At least no cows trying to eat y'er suit," Miho responded as she ducked down to cover.

"Tell me about it," Soap replied, he then peeked out and shot another 2 terrorists popping out on their left. "We need to keep moving!"

"Roger, go! I'll cover you!" Miho replied as she shoots back at the hostiles ahead of them.

"Affirmative! Go!" Soap responded, he then quickly ran out from cover and move forward followed up by Miho who was coming up to him from behind as she run & guns.

Miho accurately shot 4 SC soldiers coming up from their right before she vaults a cover and headed for the wall-less plane tube on their right. They quickly dug in and she returned fire to her left while Soap returned fire on their right. The plane tube was so wall-less that RPGs could go through the scrapped plane. As they diverts their attention to their south, it was a bloody clusterfuck. Aside from the road they saw there that they need to pass, there were a lot SUVs armed with minigun just drive by from the right of the road and a BTR parked right at the left end of the road. And an SC armed Little Bird just flew by above their heads.

"Bloody hell, I wish I was in a festival instead!" Soap exclaimed as he was deadpanned for a moment before he had a melee fight with an enemy that just entered the plane tube, conveniently Soap just stabbed a terrorist who was holding an RPG.

"I agree with ya', mate!" Miho replied as she turned to him, but then surprised to see an RPG was on the ground with the dead Russian on the ground. "That was convenient."

They both then ducked from the incoming gunfire, before Soap looked back at Miho. "Use the RPG to blow that damn BTR!"

"The SUVs are leaving right?" Miho asked as they both looked back at the road on their south, to their luck the SUVs drive off-road to the south of the road instead to Miho and soap on the north. "Good!"

Miho quickly took the RPG and quickly marched to the end of tube and peeked out to the left, aiming the RPG to the BTR. "Sod off, ya' bastard."

*PWUUUUSSSH-BUUUUAAAAAAARRRRR*

One shot of the RPG was enough to blow the BTR up, sending other 3 terrorists flew in the air by the blast. The BTR was destroyed, as the turret of the BTR just popped off from the roof of the BTR just like that. An enemy light armor is not going to halt their progress anymore.

Miho then dropped the RPG she was holding and looked back at Soap. "That damn thing is history!"

"Roger that, let's move up!" Soap responded with a nod before they both ran out from the tube and crossed the road while under fire from both enemy factions.

If passing the road under fire wasn't enough, meeting the enemies again after crossing were the more annoying part. They found the SC soldiers were taking cover at the armed-minigun SUV that was parked right in front of them which was parked near the plane tube behind it on the right. Both her and Soap quickly shot them down before the SC soldiers noticed them as they were distracted by Makarov's men, 4 were dead including the gunner of the SUV's minigun by shooting him from behind. They both then quickly took a route to the right to avoid open areas. The keep marched down the tube and passed a jeep that was parked inside there as they ducked from the incoming bullets that are going through the windows of the tube on their left.

"This just like Brazil but it's a three-way fight!" Soap commented aloud.

"Oh don't remind me about that, mate!" Miho replied in annoyance.

After they reach the end of the tube they then turned left moving next to another wall-less plane tube. Before they could move on, they quickly confronted by two Russian terrorist that just popped up in front of them with their AK and P90 raised. Miho and Soap able to shoot them down quickly but Miho got a couple of shots to her chest from the P90 shooter.

"You're okay?!" Soap asked as they quickly took cover behind a red container ahead of them on their right.

"I'm still alright, scheisse!" Miho responded with a groan as they both reload their weapons.

"Head for the rally point! Go! Go! Go!" they heard Price in the radio, they need to hurry up.

"Hang tight, Price. We're on our way," Miho replied quickly as they quickly walked out from cover to their and quickly marched and gun toward the enemy ahead of them.

"Nikolai! This is Price! Be advised, the LZ it hot, I repeat, the LZ is hot!" Price shouted over the comms as Miho killed two SC soldiers covering behind the seats in the open.

"Ok, Captain Price, I am on the way! Try to get the situation under control before I get there, ok?" Nikolai responded, to Miho his sense of humour was still on yet.

"Right, whatever you say, Nikolai! Just get here sharpish!" Price yelled in the radio, annoyed by Nikolai's sense of humor as Miho and Soap quickly passed a broken plane by the nose and took cover at the plane tube ahead of them.

"Soap. Miho. let Makarov and Shepherd's men kill each other off as much as you can," Price radioed as Miho and Soap get out from the tube through the door on their left and quickly turned right after killing one SC soldier in front of them.

"We can use their comms to listen in on their radio traffic. I'm going to try to contact Makarov." Price told everyone in the comms.

Miho heard it. Was he serious?

"Are you serious, Price?" Miho shouted in worry as she approached the rally point and about to pass a nose of a plane.

"We have only one shot at Shepherd. An enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Miho sighed. She knew he was right. "Go ahead." She replied as she moved closer to the point.

Price connected to their comms.

"Makarov, this is Price. Shepherd's a war hero now. He's got your operations playbook and he's got a blank check," Price said in the radio as Miho and Soap kept running forward and passed the covers and dirt road under heavy fire from both sides.

"Give me what you got on Shepherd, and I'll take care of the rest. I know you can hear me on this channel, Makarov," Price added again as Miho took cover at the bulldozer while Soap was at the container.

You and I both know you won't last a week," Price lastly said as Miho and Soap run & gunnin' into the open, heading for the tube leading to the hill of the plane wreckage.

Makarov replied simply: "And neither will you."

To hear Makarov's voice was enough to get her hatred to him back.

"Makarov...you ever hear the old saying...the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" Price asked, Miho grinned grimly to this.

"Price, one day you're going to find that cuts both ways," Makarov replied flatly.

"Shepherd is using Site Hotel Bravo. You know where it is. I'll see you in hell."

Miho knew that they we're making a deal with the devil. She agreed anyhow, wanting Shepherd dead for betraying the 141, who trusted him.

"Looking forward to it. Give my regards to Zakhaev if you get there first,"

The team gets closer to the runway by going through the tube to the top. Once Miho and Soap reached the top, they both can see the layout of the runway ahead. The rally point was still 100+ meters ahead. With the finest life has to offer: armored SUVs, BTRs, Littlebirds. Nothing less than ordinary.

Miho was getting tired of this. Price and Soap was not the only one.

"Where's Nikolai, Price?" Soap demanded as he approached from another place. Miho and Soap was pinned down after they jumped down the tube and took cover at the barrels and thick metal sheets.

"You two! Don't get pinned down out there! Keep heading west for the runway area! Nikolai, where the hell are you?" Price barked in the radio as Miho and Soap dispatched the Russians shooting from above a plane on their left and the SC soldiers ahead.

"Sand storms around Kandahar, Captain Price. I have to fly around them. I am not getting paid enough to crash my plane." Nikolai responded angrily.

Miho and Soap quickly marched forward and were about to cross the road. They both quickly took care of the SC soldiers that were taking cover behind the SUVs, killing 6 of them. Before they moved up, they saw Nikolai flew his plane near the airfield. The amount of AA made it look like a suicide job, but he knew he had to save his friends. Deploying flares, the plane flew over the dangerous place. And damn Nikolai have accidentally deployed the flares in the air and make it to shape like an angel was right up there.

"Price, I am approaching the boneyard. I see you do not have situation under control. Very unsafe to land. It looks like when I was in Afghanistan with the Soviets!" Nikolai radioed in his sarcastic tone in the finest.

"Nikolai! Just shut up and land the bloody plane! We're on our way!" Price shouted, looking for transport as Miho and Soap only quickly marched forward and shot a lot of the bastards ahead.

"Вот дерьмо! Нет, мне явно недоплачивают за эту работу! Одни ракеты сколько стоят! Твою мать! Пизда!" Nikolai cursed as he flew down to the runway.

"Soap! Hurry! We've gotta get to Nikolai's plane! Keep moving west!" Price radioed in as they nearly reached the top of the hill.

"Hang on, Price! We're nearly there!" Soap radioed back quickly.

"Soap! Miho! I'm going to get some transport! Make your way west towards the runway!" Price radioed as they quickly ran up the hill and headed for the container in front of them.

Miho just ran at the SC soldier who was about to shoot her and quickly grabbed him by his rifle. She then yanked his rifle that he was still holding onto by turning to behind her to her left to make him fell to the ground. Miho yanked out his rifle from his hands after he fell and shot him a lot. Before she quickly diverts her attention in front of her and quickly shoot three Russians with 5 bullets each before throwing the SC's Scar-L rifle away. They both then quickly went out from cover to their right and marched forward into the open whilst gunning at them on their left hard.

Miho and Soap quickly took cover at a plane that was cut into two and shoots back from there for a moment. They then walked through the path in between the cut of the plane and they quickly ran and jumped forward to cover. Another enemy BTR had showed up on their left again. Seeing no RPG was around them, they had to make a run for it. They quickly run passed a half-intact plane and passed right next to the BTR into the runway. It was a good thing that the turret of that BTR was not looking at them.

"Soap! I've found some transport! Keep moving west! I'll meet you en route!" Price shouted as he got a Jeep with Rook while Miho and Soap are running at the road downhill.

"Captain Price, I am taking off in one minute! You better hurry if you want a ride out of here!" Nikolai shouted as he landed and slowed the plane.

As they both approached the road they quickly saw Rook along with Price was in the jeep as Rook quickly made 360 degrees turn on the road. Price quickly returned from the back of the jeep while Rook quickly got out the jeep and crouched and then returned fire at the enemies on his front. Miho was glad they got here just in time.

Miho and Soap quickly approached the jeeps. "You two! We are leaving! Get in the jeep!" Price shouted as Miho and Soap rushed in.

"The bastards are all over us, Price!" Miho shouted as she took a seat next to Price on the back.

"I know! Just hold on!" He responded as Rook took the driver seat while Soap sat next to him.

"Take out the gunner!" Price shouted, pointing his finger to in front of them while they're in the jeep.

Rook quickly put his foot on the reverse pedal as an armed SUV in front of them was running and firing at the team. Then the armed-SUV was followed up by a white truck which is also the enemy's ally. As Miho, Price and Soap returned fire at the enemy vehicles which killed the enemy minigunner, Rook quickly turned the jeep around quickly by doing a 180 degrees turn. Miho, Soap and Price had to hold onto the seats as Rook do that.

"Bloody hell!" Miho shouted as she holds onto her seat.

"Hang on!" Rook shouted as he able to stabilize the car and hit the gas.

Rook drove the jeep forward and quickly turned right following the dirt path as the enemy vehicles behind them followed suit. The enemy SUV was right next to them as Miho shoots them back by their windows. The SUV managed to get ahead of the jeep they're in and made a sharp left turn in front of the jeep to stop them. Unfortunately for the hostile SUV, it was unable to block the team's path and Rook hit the jeep to the side of the SUV. Which had forced the SUV to driving forward onto the team's left and crashed into a disposed jet fighter.

"Hang on!" Price shouted.

"That was a close one!" Soap shouted as well as they shoot back to behind them.

Aside from a couple of white trucks full of SC soldiers chasing them, Miho just saw a Little Bird on the air behind is about to fire at them. "Incoming enemy bird! It's sending its missiles to us!"

"Shit!" Rook quickly dodged the incoming missiles from behind them by quickly drive the jeep into a zig-zag maneuver.

The missiles flew over their head, and one missile just shot to the ground right next to the dodging jeep. "Shite!" Miho swore loudly and in annoyance.

"Just like Kazakhstan!" Soap shouted in annoyance as well as the enemy Little Bird quickly flew out from the area.

"Don't remind me!" Miho responded in annoyance as they returned fire.

Rook quickly turned the jeep to right off-road as one of the enemy truck was able to gaining in to them. "Behind us!" Price shouted, alerting about the closer enemy truck.

The enemy truck quickly got ahead of the team's jeep, while the other enemy jeep behind was obliterated by incoming Russian's RPGs. The enemies in the truck in front of them were shooting back at them, before Miho could score a kill Rook quickly hit the jeep to the truck by its right side and made the hostile truck flipped to the team's left. The enemy truck eventually crashed underneath a big passenger plane. As Rook drives the jeep underneath the wings of planes they passed, two enemy trucks showed up on their right at the other side of the plane after they got off the road.

"Right side! Right side!" Price alerts as they shifted their fire to their right.

"Sod off, wankers!" Miho shouted in annoyance and panic as she able to score two kills on one truck behind the front one before Rook hit the jeep to the truck.

After the jeep and the truck hits each other, the team and the SC soldiers shoot each other as Rook and the enemy's driver still driving their vehicles. Miho, Soap and Price managed to kill the last two enemies on the back of that truck before Rook quickly turned the jeep sharp left as the truck did the same on opposite direction to avoid crashing to a container. Though after Rook turned left, a couple of RPGs launched at them from behind. One RPG barely hit them right next to where Miho was sitting. Miho slanted back from the blast but able to recover quickly.

"You okay?!" Price shouted worriedly to Miho.

"Bloody hell! I had enough of those damn rockets!" Miho responded back as groaned from the blast.

"Hold on!" Price warned as they hold onto their seats.

Rook drives the jeep into a small opening and quickly turned the steer to right to avoid a wing of a jet fell onto them. Though the jeep quickly hits onto an enemy's truck that just popped out right next to them and the team quickly shoot at it. Soap managed to took out the driver as the enemy truck quickly stopped in its truck. Rook kept driving the jeep forward and crookedly turned left to a small path in between disposed tanks and helis. Two enemy trucks were already in front of them as one of the trucks quickly stopped right in front of the jeep.

"Look out!" Soap alerts aloud as he shoots forward.

"I see it!" Rook responded, he quickly steered right and then left before driving forward once more.

As they saw Nikolai's plane in front of them was about to take off onto their left, Rook drives forward as they shoot the last enemy truck ahead. The truck tried to stop by turning 180 degrees to the left near the slanted runway, only to be flipped upside down. The jeep went up the slanted runway and made a small jump across the runway before Rook steered quickly to the left and stopped at the right edge of the runway.

"Nikolai! Drop the bloody ramp! We're coming in!" Price barked in his radio as Rook quickly stepped on the gas and drives forward toward Nikolai's plane.

As the jeep heading towards the plane from behind and the ramp of the plane slowly opened, enemy vehicles quickly popped up ahead of them on their left and right. SUV and white truck alike. All SC soldiers were all chasing them down to the ground.

"Enemy vehicles! 12 O'clock!" Price shouted as they quickly returned fire forward. "Hold on!"

Rook keep stepping on the gas as he tried to drive the jeep pass the enemy vehicles. The white truck quickly got ahead of them afar as the SUV quickly hits the jeep from their left. Before the team could take out the SUV, the SC soldiers managed to shot the team's driver.

Unfortunately, Soap's driver was shot in the head.

"Soap! Rook is down! Take the wheel!" Price shouted as the dead Rook still has his feet on the gas.

"Fine!" Soap responded as he took the wheel. Miho hoped Soap will be alright.

"Nikolai! Drop the ramp now!" Price shouted in the radio as they're getting closer to the plane.

"The ramp is already open!" Nikolai shouted back in the radio, the ramp of his plane is already opened fully.

"Soooaaap!" Miho shouted in worry as he steered the wheel left and right harshly with Miho and Price hold onto their seats.

"Almost there!" Soap responded back, half-calm and half-panic.

"SOOOAAAAP!" Price shouted, he knew they will make it.

"ALMOST THERE!" Soap shouted back, still steering the jeep left and right.

Soap tries to stabilize the jeep as the enemy vehicles behind them are shooting back at them. They were nearly there into the plane. Soap quickly stabilized the jeep when they are at the ramp. And the jeep quickly went inside the plane and stopped right behind Nikolai's pilot seat. After they're in, Nikolai pulled the plane up off the runway as the ramp on the back is closing. They managed to get out alive.

Miho breathed in relief along with the rest of the team as they still sitting in the jeep. Nikolai was still staring forward on flying the plane first. Miho puts her ACR down next to her as she, Soap and Price calmed down. But then she tensed up to remember about Rook.

"Soap! Is Rook okay?" Miho asked to him, Soap quickly inspects the driver next to him.

He sighed with a frown after he inspects Rook. "He didn't make it. His head was shot."

Miho only stared at him for a moment, before she slowly looked away with her eyes closed. "Damn…"

"I'm sorry, Miho…" Price said to her sadly.

Miho then looked at him, paused as she breathes out. "We'll give him a proper burial."

"We will," Soap replied with a nod. "After we get out from here."

"You alright, comrades?" Nikolai asked as he looked back to them.

"Yeah… we're fine…" Soap replied reluctantly. "Just get us out of here."

"Da, we're nearly out," Nikolai replied with a nod, before looking back forward on flying his plane.

"That was a close one, Price. I hope your deal with Makarov's worth it." Miho told Price.

Even Price hates Makarov, it was also useful to do this deal. "I hope so. I made a deal with the devil, so it better be worth it."

"If you are going after Shepherd, I won't be able to help. I can however get you as close as possible to the base of his." Nikolai said over the intercom.

They paused, Soap then glanced back at Miho and Price. "He'll pay for this."

"I want to be the one to kill him, Price. I gave him my loyalty, and what he gave us, the 141? Betrayal." Miho responded to Soap's words, she was already enraged by this.

Soap still kept his calm as he looked over to the girl.

"Easy girl. We will kill him together. We all want his head."

...

Author's note:

Good morning, afternoon or evening in accordance of your timezones.

Alright, readers. It's me. I've been able to write this note because... well... I bloody remembered to make this right now.

So what do you think about the story until now? Leave a review and give a thumbs up if you liked this story.

I might have some complications regarding my internship for my school. so.. I'll try my best to post my next chapters.

That's all, ladies and gentlemen. Godspeed, everyone. And we will get much more freedom!


	26. Chapter 25 - Help In Ooarai

Nishizumi Residence. 17:00 PM.

Miho was sitting down at the shoji window wall on the second floor, watching the view of the gardens of the Residence. Miho was also smoking as always as she watches the view. Now with the snow has gone a few days ago, frankly the gardens looks beautiful. Though, of course the garden wasn't as beautiful as the gardens that were covered in snow. But of course, it reminds her of a park in London, specifically the Jubilee park near the Thames River.

Miho was trying to get a stress relieve when she does these kind of things. But if she wants to admit about how's a trip to Ooarai, been good so far except for the sensitive stuffs. Yes, they were curious about it but Miho just can't stand to say it. Just hearing them asking that just made her guilt came back to her mind. She just… hates it and it made her taking a lot of pressure.

Just… like what happened back in London.

Miho quickly shook her head angrily as she tries to let that thought away. Just… remembering how many people she has seen died back there just made her guilt grows bigger. That along with the war haunts her until now. But she kept doing her job as always, making sure the jobs and the troubles she had are all done. But sometimes it can make her felt so over-pressure that she thinks she just couldn't take it more. Especially the loss of her good friend.

And the fact that she didn't get her revenge like she wanted, damn bastard…

She just… wants to end it all, end all the guilt and the troubles she had in her mind. But she just can't…. Doing her penance by shooting herself with a 6 by 1 chance of killing herself won't even work either. But despite that, there are people who still needs her and she can't forgot about that. She was then able to calm down as she was reminded what Price ever said to her when she felt so discomfort.

 _"You're a stronger girl than you think, Miho. Nothing could stop you from doing everything right. You will be alright. I promise you."_

Maybe it's just simple words, but it was enough to calm her down. Miho just sighed as she breathes out a fog of smoke from her cigar. She then looked down from the window, to see Maho was playing with her Akita-ken breed dog for now. She only smiled to see that as she was remembered of a child playing with his dog in the park of London.

Then she heard footsteps from behind her as looked out the window. Miho turned her head around weakly and saw her mother, Shiho, was walking up to her. Shiho was also bringing two cups of green tea and Senbeis on the serving board she used. Shiho was expressing nothing but concern to her daughter as she stopped a bit far right in front of her. But then Miho only smiled to her and Shiho then walked over to her and sat down on the floor next to her. Shiho then gives one Senbei, a Japanese rice cracker to Miho before taking one for herself.

Shiho only smiled to see Miho was doing fine for now. She did stood up for a moment to see what is she looking at and found Maho down at the gardens playing with her dog. She then sat back down and looked back to Miho. Miho was of course enjoyed a little on eating her Senbei. Shiho then soflty hugged her from her side right side by her shoulders with one arm. It's been a long time to not hugged with Miho until now.

Shiho then rubbed her shoulder left shoulder as she hugged her and Miho eating her Senbei, while asking. "So, how's your trip to Ooarai?"

"Better than I expected," Miho replied after she ate a bite of it. "Anzu sure gave me a big surprise."

"What kind of surprise?" Shiho asked as she was done hugging her.

"Anzu told all of Ooarai's Sensha-Do team to wait in her office until I came in," Miho replied flatly to her mother.

"Oh? Did you mean you just met your former Anglerfish team?" Shiho asked as she eats her Senbei.

"Yeah, I did," Miho replied with a nod. "I'm glad to meet them back."

"And they are glad as well to meet you again," Shiho added." I reckon they were so shock to see you still alive."

"Not for the Anglerfish Team," Miho replied, this caught her mother off-guard.

"Why they weren't?" Shiho asked in wonder.

"Because Yukari along with her team ever saw us in Yokohama before," Miho replied as she sips her tea.

Shiho was surprised as she leans her head back with her right brow raised. "You mean when we were at the burning building?"

"Yeah, that one," Miho replied again with a nod. "They were at the other side of the fire site when I was saving people there."

"I see…" Shiho paused as she was worried about something, before asking her again. "Did they… make you angry?"

"I'm sure they don't mean anything bad to me but…" Miho paused, then bites her cracker. "They have asked about what I mean when I shout those words to you."

"About how many people-?" Shiho asked, but then quickly cuts off by Miho.

"Yeah, that one," Miho replied quickly, hate to hear her own words back in Yokohama. "I… gone angry at that point, but I was able to calm down."

Shiho was glad to hear that. "I'm glad to hear that, Miho."

"Yeah, but… I only trust the Anglerfish Team than the rest of their Sensha-Do team," Miho responded softly.

Shiho was perplexed on what she said. "Why do you only trust your own former Sensha-Do Team? Don't you trust the other teams of Ooarai as well?"

"That's the problem," Miho replied unwillingly. "I have trust issues."

"Why would you have trust issues?" Shiho asked as she sips her tea.

Miho only glanced at her, sad at her memory. "Remember about our general who betrayed me and the Task Force?"

Shiho was a little taken back of what she asked. "But they're just students, Miho. They don't even know if you're a soldier."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "But something doesn't add up."

"What do you mean?" Shiho asked with a raised brow.

"There's something troubling the Student Councils," Miho responded as she bit her Senbei. "Especially on Anzu and Momo."

"Why them both?" Shiho asked as she wondered why the two became Miho's persons of interest.

"Anzu and Momo were so forceful back in the invitation party as they wanted me to must go back to Ooarai," Miho answered, switching from Senbei to go back smoking. "More forceful than they should be."

"You're talking about Momo want to beat you up back then?" Shiho asked, she heard about that from her eldest daughter.

"Yeah, well she is aggressive but…"Miho paused, then smoked. "Never as aggressive to hit me."

"Oh?" Shiho was surprised about this.

"Yeah, so I was wondering if you heard anything from Ooarai that made them worried," Miho added, switching from her cigar to her tea.

"Honestly, I've heard nothing new so far aside from how bad Ooarai is doing now," Shiho replied, felt a little disappointed to herself. "And the only thing I heard recently was about confusion on why Kuromorimine didn't have a fight with Ooarai."

"I see, even though that's a good news for me for now," Miho replied with a nod as she breathes out a small fog of smoke in front of her, Shiho fanned the smoke out in front of them. "But... I need to keep a sharp eye on those Student Councils, especially Anzu."

"You're putting Anzu as a main suspect of the troubles we don't know about?" Shiho asked, concerned of her daughter's decision.

"Yeah, there's something Anzu is hiding that had make every Ooarai students stay silent about," Miho replied as she finishes her Senbei. "But I should go with the flow first. I hate forcing them to tell me something that worried them a lot."

"It's wise, Miho," Shiho replied in agreement.

"Yeah, also I'll be helping Ooarai with their problem tomorrow," Miho replied with a nod. "They got a lot of trouble in their school."

"Sure, they really need you on that," Shiho replied. "Well… except for tankery."

"Except for tankery," Miho then shook her head in little annoyance.

"Please don't be mad," Shiho said as she was concerned if Miho suddenly got angry about that.

"Don't worry, I'm not," Miho replied as her hand waved at her. "I'm just annoyed."

"Yeah," Shiho added. "Also, you and your Task Force have been a big news across Japan."

"Really?" Miho asked as she felt a little disbelieve but also smirked a little.

"Yeah, especially that big news about stopping a huge robbery back there," Shiho replied as she pointed her finger to her. "I heard from Ami that the Japanese police department was very pleased of your service, even though they only know you were called as the 141."

"Yeah, but I found something surprising in that," Miho added, which caught her mother off-guard.

"And what's that?" Shiho asked.

"I found one of Ooarai's student, Caesar was held hostage in that robbery."

Shiho was startled to hear that, to hear one of Ooarai's student was a hostage in the robbery was something unimaginable.

"Is she alright?" Shiho asked, concerned of the student's condition.

"Don't worry she's alright," Miho replied. "Good thing Kay barely shot her."

"Wait, what do you mean?" Shiho asked as she horrified of what she said.

"Caesar was used by a robber as a human shield, but Kay able to shot the robber right in his head," Miho replied calmly. "Right next to Caesar's head."

"She… doesn't know that was you along with Maho and Kay right?" Shiho asked as she was worried about this.

"Don't worry, she doesn't know that was us," Miho replied confidently.

"Good then, we don't want to know what happened if anyone else found that out," Shiho then paused, lost in thoughts for a moment. "By the way, Miho…"

"Yeah?" Miho asked as she smoked.

"Do you ever planned about….?" Shiho then paused in doubt. "Telling them you're a soldier?"

Miho had ever a thought about it, but she never minded much about it. But when she heard her mother said that, it caught her off-guard. She only glanced at her mother, flat-faced. She then looked away from her, lost in thoughts.

"I ever thought about that actually," Miho replied as she straightened her back. "But I just don't mind about it."

"But with that I mentioned, do you have a plan to tell them if they…?" Shiho then trailed off, doesn't know what else she can say about it.

"I do but… I'll tell them when the time is right," Miho replied with a nod and an unsure tone.

"You sounded not so sure about this," Shiho stated after she noticed Miho's doubt.

"I just… don't want them to hate of who I am," Miho replied lowly, she hates to imagine if that's the result.

They stayed silent for a moment in discomfort, before Shiho continued. "I'm sure everything will going well."

Miho only chuckled before she glanced at her, cigar on her hand. "Thanks for saying that to me."

(Remove kebab loop)

"Huh?" Shiho was startled by the strange song she's hearing now. "What the-?"

Miho then pulled out her phone. "It's my phone, sorry about that."

"Oh…" Shiho then leans her head in to look at Miho's phone. "Who's calling you?"

Miho looked at her phone, her heart then became warm. "It's Anchovy."

"Really?" Shiho asked with a smile. "You two got along real fine?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Can I?"

"Sure, go ahead," Shiho replied with a nod and her hand waved at her.

"Alright, excuse me," Miho then stood up from the floor and answered the phone, before she left her mother to talk a little private at the other window.

Shiho only glanced at Miho who was already at the other window behind her. And she saw her smile as she was talking to Anchovy through the phone. Shiho smiled as well to Miho like that, to know she was doing great with Anchovy. And to know Miho fall in love with Anchovy, Shiho could only feel happy even though that was a girl she fell in love with.

Shiho then looks away from Miho, before she leans her back against the wall near the window besides her. She finished up her Senbei and took a sip of her tea. Shiho then glanced back at Miho again, but then a thought flashed in her mind. Something that made Shiho felt uncomfortable. If Miho fell in love with Anchovy but she had found out that Miho was a soldier…

Shiho could only hoped for Miho that everything will be fine.

* * *

Outside of Kuromorimine and Ooarai schoolships, restaurant in the city. 10:00 AM.

"How's all the students in our school doing?"

"They are quiet restless right now."

"Not forget to mentioned that Miho wanted all students to not fight with Ooarai while at the same time the students are being enemies with them."

"So you're telling me that Ooarai had a little fight with our students?"

"It's just taunting each other, gladly it didn't turn to a physical fight."

"How long Miho wants us to keep up like this?"

"Long enough for us to be neutral to each other."

Akaboshi, Geshiko, Ritaiko, Mauko and Sangou are now sitting at a five-seat table at a restaurant, which was put on the porch of the restaurant near the sidewalk. They were having a lunch there whilst having a good time outside their schoolship. Maho and Erika were busy with their troubles in Kuromorimine, so Akaboshi along with the rest of the commanders here were having a free time. They are having a chat as they enjoyed their lunch.

Though aside of that, they were actually pretty restless about Miho's request (or rather… Miho's orders). They had a small trouble to avoid any fight when they encountered the Ooarai's students, surprisingly except for Akaboshi. They got confronted by those students a few times before, but when they said because Miho told them not to fight them the Ooarai's students were all surprised to hear that. Thankfully right now, the only people who are neutral toward Ooarai right now are these commanders here. Though, despite the fact that some of Ooarai's students taunt at them a little.

Everyone except Akaboshi here felt a little pressure with this going on. They would have scold Miho when she ordered that after her failure in the match a year ago. But because Miho is right now a soldier, a commanding officer of her Task Force. They won't dare to scold her nor even make her angry, reminding themselves of the threat they got yesterday. Akaboshi however was so glad that Miho took this next step because she frankly had enough to see Ooarai got beaten down by Kuromorimine.

Though they also wondering how the hell she managed to smuggle a shotgun into their school.

"How did she able to smuggle a shotgun in that room yesterday?" Sangou asked, quickly made everyone in discomfort.

"Could we talk about that someplace else?" Mauko asked worriedly. "I don't like it when someone else hear us talk about this."

"We also don't want Miho get jailed for that, right?" Akaboshi added in consent.

"Oh, um, right…" Sangou replied awkwardly, she was right about it because they cared about Miho as well. "We'll talk later about this…"

"So… do you guys hear anything about Miho's visit to Ooarai?" Geshiko wondered.

"I heard from Erika that she along with Maho and Miho had a pleasant visit there," Ritaiko replied. "Though, Ooarai's Sensha-Do still have a little bit grudge to see Erika and Maho was with her."

"Wait, they met the whole Ooarai's Sensha-Do team?" Akaboshi asked in surprise.

"Yeah, and frankly made them shock to know Miho was alive," Ritaiko replied. "Though, except for the Anglerfish team."

"Huh?" everyone gasped as they glance at her. "Why the Anglerfish team weren't so shock to see her?" Mauko asked as she was confused about it.

It was a good thing Ritaiko talk to Erika about this. "Apparently, they ever saw Miho back in Yokohama city."

There was something familiar when she said that. "Why Yokohama?" Geshiko asked.

"That burning apartment building, remember?"

That lit their memories up. But it was also surprising to know that Yukari's team was right there in Yokohama city a month ago. Which means Yukari and her friends ever saw Miho rescued people out of the building, and the most probable reaction was that they were very shock to see that first. Damn, why did they even got there in the first place?

"Do you asked about why Yukari and her friends were in Yokohama?" Sangou asked as she raised her eyebrows.

"I had to ask Miho about that, since Erika didn't ask that to Yukari," Ritaiko replied, it made her upset about it. "Yukari and her friends were there because they were attending Ikebana Exhibition that was held in Yokohama."

"Eh? That's quiet a coincidence," Akaboshi commented, she didn't know if there was a flower Exhibition a month ago. "Does that mean the Exhibition was close with the burning building that time?"

"A little farther actually," Ritaiko replied with a shook. "About 6 blocks away from that burning site."

"That's quiet far," Geshiko commented as she leans back against her chair.

"More than that, I heard that Miho is going to visit Ooarai again," Ritaiko asked as they looked at her in interest.

"Why she wants to visit back there again?" Mauko asked.

"Seeing Ooarai has a lot trouble lately, Miho would gladly lend a hand for them," Ritaiko replied as she crossed her arms, she felt relieve about Miho not going after their arses.

"Well, that doesn't mean she's going after us right?" Geshiko asked, that comforted them a little more.

Akaboshi only giggled and smiled to hear that. "Well except someone had called her."

Their relieves suddenly turned to panic. "Akaboshi, please don't say that!" Sangou said aloud worriedly.

"Sorry," Akaboshi replied with a smile and an open palm.

They then turned their heads toward the TV that was hanged right next to the restaurant's entrance. There was a news showing up there, it was a news about the 141. They do heard about how the 141 stop the huge robbery, and frankly they were also surprised to see Caesar who is an Ooarai student came into the news yesterday. But for sure, Miho didn't have the time to hear the news, which is true. The news for today was a news about the 141 able to chase and took down a most wanted mob in Japan. And honestly the way the 141 doing is really crazy.

Basically, the news was showing the 4 members of the 141 having a shootout with the mobsters while in a car chase. 141 killed most of the mobsters who tried to stop them, resulting their cars crashed into various directions on the streets. What totally surprised them was that there was no civilian casualties from the resulting fight. And the 141 able to took down the mob leader's car by shooting its tire, slammed their van to it, and flip the car upside down and thrown to a jewelry shop and landed with its tires. No one got killed from that, which made the commanders who are watching it are baffled.

Then they saw the 4 members of the 141, one of them they could recognize as Ghost, ran out from the van and run straight to the car. Ghost quickly pulled out the mod leader through the front window harshly by his collar while the members only stood still at the car with their rifles aimed at their target. Instead of Ghost just arrest the bastard, Ghost angrily slammed his head many times to the hood of the car before arresting him. Something that made Akaboshi and the rest questioned about his sanity.

Then the video changed to a police officer, Nobuji Nazen who was involved on the big robbery in Tanabe, speaks in the TV. "Honestly these so-called '141' do a lot of favors for us. Ranging from criminals to high-wanted mobsters. And from how they all well prepared, I would say that they are some sort of mercenaries. Or the most possible thing, they are soldiers. They saved my life once and still I owe them for it, but until now we don't have any further information about who are they actually are or how are they operate, for sure their forces aren't build by the Japanese Government."

Well, Task Force 141 is really famous across Japan. Though, they were very happy to have them around. Who knows they could have need their help through Miho. They only continued back on eating their lunch after that.

As they eat, they chatted a little to each other about another topics. The topic was about knowing if there's any new trend in the town and what Ikebana looked like. As they chatted, something had caught Akaboshi's attention as she looked passed Geshiko and Ritaiko in front of her. She saw there's this one group across. To her surprise, she recognized what group is that.

Ooarai's Sensha-Do Shark Team was there, eating their lunch also at the other table across. But there was something absent from them. One, all of the Shark Team members were all in worry and upset. Second, the Shark Team is lacking one girl, which is their actual commander of their team. There are 5 members in Shark Team and the only girl that was absent from their was only a girl named Ogin. This made her wondered what's wrong with them.

"Akaboshi, who are you looking at?" Ritaiko asked as she had noticed Akaboshi's glance.

"The Shark Team over there," Akaboshi replied, everyone then turned their heads to look at the Shark Team across them.

They were surprised to see the Shark Team is here, but they also noticed how's Shark Team doing. "What are they upset about?" Mauko asked.

"I don't know," Sangou then looked over to Akaboshi. "Don't tell me you want to talk with them."

"I want to talk with them," Akaboshi replied as she stood up, but then got her arm held by Geshiko.

"Akaboshi, don't," Geshiko said to her quickly in worry.

"It's alright," Akaboshi replied warmly. "They know me as a friend."

"Wait, what?" Mauko asked in confusion as Geshiko let Akaboshi's arm go. "You're not an enemy to them?"

"Yeah," Akaboshi then looked over to the Shark Team again, before looking back to the commanders. "We should ask them what's wrong."

The commanders could only looked at each other in doubt, before looking back to Akaboshi. "Are sure about this?" Mauko asked in doubt.

"Yeah, Miho wants us to help Ooarai on something, right?" Akaboshi asked, everyone replied with a nod. "Alright, let's go then."

They looked at each other for a moment, before they all then stood up from their chairs. They then walked over to the Shark Team as calm as they can to not arouse any suspicions. They just walked over to them slowly with worries as they got closer to the Shark Team. Akaboshi have nothing to worry about since she's the only friendly student of Kuromorimine to Ooarai.

Flint, Murakami, Cutlass and Rum were still upset on what have happened to them. But when Rum saw that the Kuromorimine's commanders are walking over to them, she alerted her friends and they all turned their heads to them. They quickly get off their seats and quickly confronts them. They were angry to see them walking over to them.

"What do you want, Kuromorimine dogs?!" Flint shouted at them.

"Don't get any closer to us!" Murakami threatened with her fist patting on her open palm.

"You better step away from us!" Cutlass threatened aloud, she prepared her fork shaped like a trident as a weapon.

"Easy, everyone," Akaboshi said softly, everyone turned their heads at her. "Just calm down."

"Oh?" the Shark Team was surprised of Akaboshi's presence. "H-hello, Akaboshi." Rum greeted awkwardly.

"Akaboshi, why are they here with you?" Murakami asked as she kept her eyes sharp on the rest of Kuromorimine's commanders.

"Murakami, we-" Mauko said but then cut off by Flint.

"We're talking to Akaboshi, not to you!" Flint retorted as she points to Akaboshi, the commanders had a heart attack on that one.

"Flint, just let them talk alright?" Akaboshi said softly to them to their surprise. "They want to talk to you peacefully."

The Shark Team don't trust about that statement as they looked at the commanders aside from Akaboshi. "Peacefully? Really?" Cutlass asked, didn't believe it.

"Yeah, really," Geshiko replied with a nod, keeping distance between themselves to ensure a safe zone.

"No tricks?" Rum asked, still suspicious to them.

"No tricks," Ritaiko replied with a shook, still nervous on answering that.

The Shark Team only look at each other in suspicion. Before they looked back to Akaboshi, and then back to the commanders.

"Alright, we'll talk to you," Murakami said with her arms crossed. "No lies, don't make us angry. I warn you."

"Alright, alright, we get it," Sangou replied with a couple of nods. "We won't do that, I promise you."

The Shark Team then slowly sit back at their seats as the commanders and Akaboshi only stood near them. The Kuromorimine commanders had hoped that what Akaboshi doing will went well. They only stood by as they waited for the Shark Team to ask.

"What do you want from us?" Murakami asked as she was angry of their presence.

"We just want to ask," Sangou replied as friendly as she can. "Is there something bothering you?"

"There's nothing bothering us except you, alright?" Flint replied, a little aggressive.

"I saw you guys got upset before we came over to you," Akaboshi stated as she leans forward to see the Shark Team's faces.

"We just don't like to see your friends around that's all," Rum replied sourly as she gazed at the commanders.

"I don't think so," Mauko replied with a shook and calming voice. "You were upset and didn't notice us sitting across you over there."

"Look, just tell us," Ritaiko plead softly as she puts her hand on her chest. "We just want to know what's going on with you."

"We have no reason to be your enemies," Geshiko said to them. "Not after Miho warned us to not have a fight with Ooarai's students."

The Shark Team quickly glanced at them, all of them were surprised of what she said. "So, it's true after all," Murakami commented as she looked back at her friends.

"Yeah, we know Miho visits you before," Akaboshi added with a nod. "So… would you want to tell us what's going on?"

The Shark Team had to look at each other for a moment, before Flint looks at Akaboshi and the commanders and answers them. "Something happened to our tank commander, Ogin."

"something happened to Ogin?" Mauko asked as she was curious about it.

"Yeah, um, Ogin…" Rum paused, she was pretty upset. "She… she's been kidnapped…"

They were terrified to hear that, Akaboshi had reminded again of herself being kidnapped by those Pravdas. "She's been kidnapped?! When did that happened?" Akaboshi asked worriedly as her hands clamped to each other.

"About two weeks ago," Flint replied in sorrow. "I… was walking out one day with her at the evening. Though when we were at the sidewalk, we got attacked by… I think it was 5 kidnappers that time. I tried to fight back but… they beaten me up to the ground and they managed to kidnap Ogin. They warned that if I call the police, she'll be dead."

They fell silent in horrified, they hoped that Ogin would be alright. "What do they want from you?"

"They want us to collect around 10 Million Yen in 3 Months," Murakami replied in sorrow, she sighed. "We did ask our Student Councils of this but… they can't provide the cost we need because Ooarai is having financial problems this lately."

They stayed silent for a moment as the Kuromorimine commanders pitied them for what have happened, until Flint asked in a hopeful tone. "Do you can help us?"

That was the question they were expecting, they knew they can't help her. But, they are dealing with the bastards who could kill Ogin. Giving them the money they need might be possible but there will be a risk that the kidnappers lied on that and decided to kill Ogin after that. Giving them the money was not an option despite they have money in the school. They could help them investigate to where Ogin had been kidnapped, but they would risked getting watched by the kidnappers.

Akaboshi frowned about this. "I'm sorry, we can't help you. I wish we could."

"I know you can't help," Cutlass replied as they all frowned.

Their hope for Ogin will be lost. Because no one could help them to save Ogin from these kidnappers. The Shark Team do understand why Kuromorimine had to back out, because there's no way they can save Ogin from this. They all only looked down in sadness.

Until Mauko reminded of someone that could help Shark Team. "But there's someone we know who could help you."

Everyone including the Kuromorimine commanders all looked at her. "Wait, what?" Rum asked in surprise as the Kuromorimine commanders had reminded of whom Mauko meant while the Shark Team was surprise.

"Yeah, there's really someone who could help you to save Ogin," Akaboshi added with a smile.

The Shark Team stood off from their chairs and lean closer to them. "Who is it?" Murakami asked as she was so glad to have someone who could help them.

The Kuromorimine commanders paused for a moment in nervous, until Geshiko answered to them. "That person would be Miho Nishizumi."

The Shark Team left their eyes widen in shock, to hear Miho who had visit Ooarai could help them was very surprising to them. "Are you sure Miho can help us?" Flint asked in doubt.

"Yeah, she can, why?" Sangou replied with a nod.

"She looked pretty cold back in Ooarai," Cutlass replied as she points her thumb to behind her.

"That's because you looked her from the outside," Ritaiko added as she leans back, feeling rigid. "She's actually very care about people who is in danger, like back in Yokohama City."

"But this one is a kidnapping one," Rum replied worriedly. "Do you think she could handle that?"

"She ever handled something like that before," Geshiko replied confidently. "She succeeded before."

They were glad to hear that, but Murakami was worried about one thing. "Is she can be trusted?"

That did caught the Kuromorimine commanders off-guard, except for Akaboshi who knew Miho well even after her return. "She's very trustworthy. Though she's the only one who had… trust issues…"

"I see," Flint replied with a nod. "Are you sure she can help?"

"She will, she won't leave someone in danger."

* * *

Ooarai Girls Academy. 11:00 AM.

.

"Need any help, Hoshino?"

"Yeah, we're fixing our tanks here."

"We could use another hand if you want."

"Sure, why not?"

"And could we have a match with y-?"

"Don't said it. Don't fucking said it."

"Alright, alright. Chill out, Miho-san."

Miho is wearing her black long-sleeve shirt with grey pants. She was wearing a green military belt with a small bag attached on her right waist. Of course, there's an M9 Beretta Pistol hidden inside in which they didn't know or notice. Nothing more but utensils, lighter and cigars in her small bag. She's still wearing her grey boonie hat on her head.

Miho was with the Anglerfish Team and Anzu, along with the Automotive Club were all at the hangars of their tanks. Miho was currently helping Ooarai out every problems they have in their school. And if Miho was being honest, she kinda likes it to help them a lot and spends her time with her former Anglerfish Team. But still, as she was here she's going to make sure everything runs smooth in Ooarai. Starting to wonder if there's a school shooting in here… no, it's not like what you think.

Miho was also keeps her eyes on Anzu with suspicion. She still not trust her after that bridge incident in Ooarai. And knowing how did Anzu acted towards her back in Darjeeling's tea party, she was really hiding something else aside from what she knows about how's Ooarai doing for now. Not for Momo though, she has trusted Momo after her apology back then and she also asked what's going on with the school before heading to the hangars. Though, Momo wasn't even willing to answer but Miho was okay with that. She has to follow the flow first before she can get to know what's going on for now.

Miho is currently giving some stuffs that the mechanics need and also help them to fix certain parts of the tank engine if needed. Though she was also spending her time with the Anglerfish team, Anzu and the Automotive Club at the same time. Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako were pretty pleased to talk with Miho. Discussing about how's she doing for the past year and how's she doing back at her old home. Anzu on the other hand, was trying to make she didn't say anything wrong to piss her off. While one member of Automobile Club, Satoko gave her a drink of soda to calm her down.

Miho was sitting on a chair near the tank while the Anglerfish Team and Anzu stood by the tank as the Automobile Club is fixing Anglerfish's Panzer IV tank. The tank got busted recently after Ooarai had a practice match with St. Gloriana. As they fix, Miho was still talking with her old friends about what's new around the town and what's new with the tanks here. Miho grabbed her soda and took a drink of it.

As she was drinking, she heard Satoko called her. "Hey, Miho-san!"

"Yeah?" Miho replied as her head leans back to see her on the tank.

"Could you go with Hoshino to get us some hydraulic pipes and some engine parts from the storage, please?" Satoko asked as Hoshino dropped off from the tank.

"Sure," Miho then stood up from her chair as Anzu, Hana and Yukari did the same while Hoshino walked up to her. "Where's the storage?"

"It's just right over there," Hoshino said as she pointed at the storage on her left a little bit far away.

"We both just wait here," Saori said with her open palm.

"Alright," Miho then looked back at Hoshino. "Let's go then."

"Okay," Hoshino replied with a nod, before they started to walk to the storage room.

"By the way, why are you coming with us as well?" Miho asked to Anzu, Yukari and Hana.

"You know, we could help you as well on that," Yukari said to her with a smile.

"I don't really mind to get my hands dirty," Hana added to Miho.

"Ironic, you're into flowers, right?" Miho asked as she chuckled in her heart.

"Yes, I am," Hana replied with a nod. "Don't worry about my mother, she's okay about this."

"But it took some time to convince her though," Anzu added as she lazily puts her hands on her head.

"She doesn't like it at first?" Miho asked flatly to Hana.

"Well… yeah…" Hana replied with a frowned smile.

"I understand," Miho replied with a nod. "Everything needs a process first."

"That's something odd to hear from you, Miho-san," Hoshino added with a tilted head. "And that hat, is this your style?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod.

"Why that hat?" Hoshino asked again as she pointed at the hat she wears.

"First, because it's my favorite," Miho said as she lifted a finger. "Second, to see if they know who are they fucking with."

The last sentence was quiet harsh and it had made everyone with her yelped in surprise. "Do you have to say it like that?" Hana asked, feeling so discomfort of her words.

"It's actually 'appropriate' to me," Miho replied, Anzu felt so disagree about it.

"You could make someone angry, you know?" Anzu said to Miho as she leans forward to see her face.

"It's because they pissed me off first."

…

…

…

They only stayed silent for a few moments until they reached the storage room. Hoshino felt so awkward to hear that actually, reminding herself about what happened to Momo. Anzu only made a false smile as she was also speechless to Miho's reply. Yukari and Hana however, felt pretty discomfort and it sounds make sense to them since Miho had change. They just realized that Miho was pretty intelligent and wise that she actually knew what action she had to take, even if she had to include beating up someone to death.

"Right… here's the storage room," Yukari stated as she points at the door of the storage.

"Let me get this open," Hoshino said as she pulls out the key.

Miho had noticed how the door was installed with bolts with keyholes on the top and the bottom as Hoshino unlocked it. "Why there are bolts in this door?"

"We had a break in long ago," Yukari answered. "Some thief stole some parts from this storage. Good thing was they caught red-handed and have handed to the authorities."

"Right…" Miho replied as she trailed off. She was starting to imagine if that was a terrorist stealing mechanic parts.

Yukari then poked at Miho in which she looked at her. "What is it, mate?"

"So… what do you think about this school?" Yukari asked softly.

"Everything looks the same actually…" Miho paused, then smirked. "I like it."

"Really?" Anzu asked, but then Miho glances at her with a cold smile.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod.

*SCHTAK*

Everyone then looked back at Hoshino who was horrified as she was looking straight at the lock of the door knob. "Everything's alright?" Miho asked with her left brow raised.

Hoshino then turned around to them as she held something in her hand, the key was broken. "Damn, the key broke."

"So… we have to put down the whole door?" Hana asked in worried.

"Yeah, it's gonna took a lot of time," Hoshino then turned around towards where she puts the toolbox. "Let me get the toolbox."

Hoshino was about to walk to her toolbox, but she was interrupted by something.

*BRAK*

Hoshino quickly turned around, and she along with everyone was very shock to see that Miho just kicked the door open hard. Well, Miho actually kicked the whole door down to the ground. They all left their jaws open to see how strong Miho is.

"Wow…" Hoshino commented in amazement. "That was too fast…"

"Did you just-?" Anzu asked but then quickly halted in shock.

"Wow… Nishizumi-style is awesome," Yukari commented in awe, Miho didn't expect to hear that honestly.

"What a mess…" Hana commented as she was amazed to see Miho did that.

"What was that?" they heard Tsuchiya asked aloud from afar.

"Miho just kicked the door down!" Hoshino replied aloud, Miho was still standing at the door-less door

"What?!" the three mechanics and the two Anglerfish members back there asked aloud in frightened.

"The key's broken, so I had to do that," Miho replied aloud as she turned her head around.

"Oh…" they heard Satoko said back there. "Alright then!"

Everyone then looked back at Miho as Hoshino asked. "Do you really had to do that?"

"That's how I open any doors in London, mate," Miho replied flatly before she entered the storage, leaving anyone outside dumbfounded of what she said.

"W-wait, what?" Hana asked as she entered the storage followed up by Hoshino and Yukari.

Miho then began to look for the parts Satoko asked as Hoshino, Hana and Yukari did the same. Anzu however, had decided to be lazy and watch them doing finding them instead. Miho had not minded about it, but still she keeps an eye on Anzu as she's finding the parts. Honestly, the parts Satoko asked to find was plenty that even some of it Miho had a little trouble finding them.

Though, it took them about 2 minutes top to find all the parts the mechanics need. They put the parts they need in a box before Hoshino lifted it and carried it out the storage. They then returned back to the tank and Hoshino began to give the parts to the mechanics. Hoshino then climbed back to the tank and starts fixing the engine as Miho sat back to her chair and the rest stood back at the tank with Mako and saori. Miho did offered them that she will get them some chairs but they decline politely.

Miho then drink her soda again as Mako wondered about something. "I was wondering, why would you had enough of tankery?"

Miho sighed as she puts down her soda. "Really?"

"Well, yeah," Saori added as she leans her back onto the tank. "You didn't tell us why you really had enough of tankery."

"I'm not talking about it," Miho replied as she looked away from them.

"Oh come on, Miho," Yukari begged. "We want to know why."

"I'm not talking about it," Miho replied coldly as she crossed her arms while looking away.

"Come on, Miho," Anzu lazily added with a smile. "We can sort this out, y'know?"

"Alright, I'm not helping Ooarai," Miho said as she stood off the chair and walked away.

That got all of them up real quick.

"W-wait!" Everyone quickly said aloud, Miho stopped and turned around as Yukari talked to her. "Alright, we won't ask about that. Just don't go, please?"

Miho paused in cold, reconsidering of what she said. "Alright, I'm not going anywhere."

As everyone sighed in relief, Miho then return back to her chair and sat down. "Talk about that again, I'm going out of here, alright?"

"Ok, ok, just cool down, Miho-san," Hana replied with her both open palms.

Miho then leans her back against her chair, Anzu then asked. "You changed a lot."

"Many people told me that," Miho replied as she looked at her.

"Really?" Saori asked. "That's what many girls told you back in London?"

"Yeah but, it's not girls," Miho replied with a shook. "Many men."

"Men!?" everyone asked in surprise, including the mechanics. "Did those men found you attractive?" Saori asked in shock.

"W-what? I guess so," Miho replied as she was a little confused of Saori's reaction. "Why did you reacted like that?"

"Well…" Saori said as she trailed off, then continued by Hana. "I guess this is about boyfriend stuff isn't it?"

"Sure it is!" Saori replied with a smile and a quick nod, then looked over to Miho. "I wonder how those men found you attractive."

Miho may have been honest about that. But Miho actually meant the other 'kind' of attractiveness she got when she joined the 141. In which in this case she had to stay quiet about.

"Well… I don't really know actually," Miho replied as she leans her back against her chair.

"Eh?" everyone asked in confusion, continued by Mako. "It doesn't make sense that the men just suddenly found you attractive."

"I honestly don't know about that," Miho replied with a shrug. "I never do anything to get myself attractive to men."

"Never? Why though?" Anzu asked curiously, she was still eating her dried sweet potato.

"Everything will be hard if you don't find any boyfriend, y'know?" Saori stated.

"So you're saying I must get a boyfriend?" Miho asked,

"Is it really hard to find one in London?" Yukari asked as she wondered about it.

"It's not that I'm having a hard time to find a boyfriend," Miho replied as she tilted her head. "I just don't want one."

"Huh? But why?" Saori asked as she was worried of her answer. "You said they found you attractive."

"Yes, they do say that," Miho replied with a nod. "But I just don't want one, alright?"

"So you're saying that you don't want any commitment?" Anzu assumed as she finished her dried potatos.

"I'm not saying that I-" Miho said quickly cut off by Hana.

"Miho-san, that's very bad you know?" Hana asked as she was agreed to Anzu.

"Yeah, your future could be ruined if you stayed single," Mako added as she was still emotionless.

"Nishizumi-dono, you can't live on your own like that," Yukari added in worry.

"Come on, there should be someone you know who is your boyfriend back then," Anzu replied as she smiled.

"I do have friends who are actually men," Miho replied flatly as she was also annoyed of this. "But none of them are actually my boyfriend, just friends."

"Why don't you choose one of them as your friend?" Suzuki asked as she was overheard their conversation from the tank. "There's probably one who is much like your type."

"I… really don't want to say about this," Miho replied as she looked away in upset.

"Oh, come on, don't be scared," Hana said softly as she clamps her hands to each other, comforting Miho. "We could work something out."

"Nah, I just don't want you mates to worry about it," Miho replied as she waved her hand to them.

"Miho-san, please tell us," Yukari asked as she clamped her hands together as if she was begging to her. "We could help you about that."

"Yeah! You can count on us!" Saori added with a cheery smile.

"Except for the dating part," Mako added, which got Saori's attention.

"Hey! Don't say that!" Saori retorted to Mako, Mako only scoffed about it.

Miho stayed silent as she ponders of her decision, until Satoko was seen looked out from the back of the tank to see Miho. "Don't worry, just tell us. It's not like we're talking to you like you were a Kuromorimine student."

Miho paused as she looked at Satoko for a moment, before she looked straight forward not bothering at who she was looking at. Miho sure doesn't like how they will react about this but. Well, shit if that's what they want, alright then. Miho was starting to regret to telling them this.

Miho just sighed, and sincerely answered. "Alright, I'll tell you."

"So… what's the problem?" Anzu asked as she was curious of Miho's trouble.

Miho sighed, before replying. "The reason why I didn't want to have a boyfriend is not because that I'm having a hard time to find one nor I don't want to have a commitment."

"Huh?" everyone including the mechanics asked in surprise. "Then what's troubling you about it?" Hana asked as she was confused of Miho's answer.

"Want to know the answer?" Miho asked, everyone replied with a slow nod. "Alright… I don't want to have a boyfriend. It's because I'm not straight."

…

…

…

…

…

…

It's like what Miho had expected. Everyone stared at her frighteningly at an unbelievable level and left their mouths opened. Sweats came down their foreheads in shock. In Saori's case however, she dropped her jaw as wide as possible with her head leans forward towards Miho, with her eyes opened wide as if she just got shock therapy. The mechanics' case, they dropped their tools as they glanced to Miho. Miho can't believe she had to say that to them, despite the fact that they don't know that she fell in love with Anchovy.

"NANI!?" everyone asked aloud, Saori's was beyond shock.

"That's- that's impossible!" Saori commented in heavy denial and with shook. "You can't be!"

"Now that's just…" Hana said as she trailed off, she was speechless.

"Wow, that's crazy!" Anzu commented as she awes of what she said.

"You can't be serious, Miho-san," Yukari stated in disbelieve with wide eyes. "Really?"

"That's…" Mako halted as she was speechless.

"We… really didn't expect to hear that," Hoshino commented after they shook their heads to break their glances.

"So… yeah…" Miho just shrugged awkwardly. "That's why."

"You're into girls?" Saori asked, hoping that Miho was joking.

"Yeah, I'm into girls," Miho replied with a nod. "I know it's not normal but…"

"Don't worry, it's…" Anzu paused to remember what she was about to say. "It's quiet normal in Japan, though not for us."

"And to think that you would dare to admit you like girls is…" Hana paused, she then scratched her head. "It's quiet unimaginable."

"Really, mate?" Miho asked.

"Yeah, but…" Tsuchiya said aloud from the tank. "You're not the only one who's into girls y'know?"

"I saw that coming, mate," Miho replied with a small smirk.

Saori was looked so horrified to hear Miho admit that. "No way, and why are you guys are okay with this?"

"Well, it's normal in Japan," Anzu replied lazily.

"Actually you're right about that," Saori replied with a frown. "But that's not okay for me!"

"Because you're into boys, I get it," Miho added flatly with her both open palms raised in sincere. "You don't have to force yourself to help me on that trouble."

"Really, Miho-san?!" Saori asked in terrified. "I could help you-"

"That's enough, mate," Miho quickly replied to silence her, she then sighed. "Don't force yourself. I can deal that trouble myself. I'll be fine, Saori."

Saori paused a moment in thoughts, she replied after she was convinced of what Miho said. "Alright… if you say so."

Miho only shook her head on that, but then Anzu who was curious on something asked her. "May I ask you something, Miho?"

"What is it?" Miho asked back.

"From what I heard from your sister is that you have some sort of… trust issues," Anzu stated with a frown and curious smile. "Is that true?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Why are you asking that?"

"What makes you have trust issues?" Anzu asked, Miho didn't like this question a little.

Miho looked away from her with a sigh. "I don't want to talk about it."

"But, come on, Miho," Yukari added, she along with everyone were also curious about it. "We just want to know why?"

"No, mate," Miho replied again coldly. "I'm not talking about it."

"Why you only trusted Yukari and the Anglerfish team here instead of everyone in the school?" Anzu asked, everyone except Miho had deadpanned to her question. "Well… I just asked Maho about that, y'know?"

If they were curious enough on that, then let it be. Miho had decided to answer that one after a moment of silence. At least this one won't make her mad. "One day, I trusted one of my friends I know back in London. A man, of course."

"And then?" Hana asked.

"And then he betrayed me," Miho replied, they dropped their jaws to hear that. "I don't really remember why he did that to me but… he betrayed me."

"But… how did he betray you!?" Satoko asked as she was curious of the reason. "Did he humiliate you or something?"

Miho paused as she looked at her, before replying. "Actually… he tried to kill me."

Everyone then quickly leaned their heads back in shock. Why would a friend of Miho's would try to betray by killing her? It is horrifying to hear. Saori was very terrified to know that a man could do such thing like that. Especially when he did that to Miho.

"But.. how did you manage to get away without getting killed?" Mako asked as she was disbelieve how Miho able to get away from that.

"Another friend of mine arrived just in time to stop him from killing me," Miho replied as she ponders her fingers on her thighs. "He threw a knife straight to the bastard's eye."

A friend of her threw a knife into the killer's eye. That's something they don't want to have in their minds. Might have nightmares from hearing that.

"So from that time, I would be careful to pick friends who can be trusted."

Now they understand why Miho didn't trust everyone in Ooarai except for the Anglerfish team. Anzu knew she shouldn't have force her to join up Sensha-Do a year ago. Because of that, Miho didn't trust her, the other student councils (unknown to Anzu, Momo was exceptional) and the rest of the students in Ooarai. Though, they all glad to see Miho was still alright this far.

They stayed silent without anything else to say because they don't have any topics now. But Miho had chatted with them a little about anything else that's out of importance. Hoshino, Tsuchiya, Satoko and Suzuki continued fixing on the tank. Anzu was already eating up another bag of dried potatoes. If Miho recalled correctly, Yuzu and Momo said that Anzu eats her breakfast to dinner always the dried potatoes. Miho wouldn't mind, but somehow had felt that Anzu will be having obesity.

Tsuchiya then get inside the tank through the hatch. Satoko had asked her to turn the tank on to see if the tank engines still having any problem. Darjeeling and her Glorianas sure give a rough one to Anglerfish's tank. Hoshino and Suzuki had scoffed because the engines that Anglerfish team have was troubling, but of course still not obsolete. The Automobile Club wouldn't exclaimed more of this, since they were the expert mechanics Ooarai has got.

Miho, the Anglerfish team and Anzu then changed their attention to the Automobile Club next to them to see how're they progressing. They watched in silence as Tsuchiya turned on the tank to see if it's okay. But, all Tsuchiya got from turning on the engine tank was *BRRTRTRT-DYUH*. When Tsuchiya turned on the tank again, it didn't make any sound. This had frustrated the Automobile Club at their finest because when they inspect the tank engine again, there was no such problem at all in the engine.

This had Satoko grinned angrily of this stupid engine. She quickly checked back into the engines again and keep a keen eye on anything that was off. To her annoyance, she didn't find any. Satoko then looked up to her mechanic-mates and she also got a shook as a reply from them.

Satoko then turned her head to Miho below on the ground. "Miho, can you help us?"

"Yeah, what's the problem?" Miho asked as she leans her head forward to her.

"The tank won't go on," Satoko replied, then looked back at the engine. "The engines are all fixed but it's still bugging somehow. Can you help us?"

"Sure," Miho then grabbed her head and give it to Yukari. "Hold it, would you?"

"Hai!" Yukari replied with a nod as she took her hat and hold it.

Miho then climbed up the back of the tank and looked into the engines, taking note that Tsuchiya was still inside the tank for on/off testing. "So these are the engines?"

"Yeah," Suzuki replied with a nod. "This big thing here is the main engine."

"See if you found there's something we missed on the engine," Hoshino asked as she begins to inspect the engine.

"I'll just wait here until you give a word," Tsuchiya shouted from inside.

"Okay, what do we have here…?" Miho asked herself lowly as she inspects the engine.

They inspect the engine for a full minute. Satoko was disappointed to see there's no kind problem on the engine is found. Miho on the other hand, was somehow giving only a cold look as she kept a sharp eye on inspecting the engine. Something that Satoko felt so uncomfortable about.

Still nothing so far they found, Satoko then looked back at Miho. "So… did you found anything?"

Miho paused, before she looked at her with a flat face. "I think I found it."

"Really?" Hoshino asked as they were surprised of her reply.

"Yeah, really," Miho then looked back at the middle part of the engine. "I just need a wrench for this."

"I have one," Suzuki said, she then tossed her wrench to Miho. "Here you go."

"Thanks," Miho replied with a nod before getting the problem on the engine is done.

Satoko and the rest of the mechanics were happy to hear that. And let Miho to fix the engine as they inspect other parts of the engine.

*DANG*

But everyone didn't expect to hear and see Miho suddenly hit the engine with the wrench like that.

*DANG*

*DANG*

*DANG*

"What the hell?!" – Satoko

"Miho, what are you doing?!" – Suzuki

"Are you crazy!?" – Hoshino

"What is that!?" – Tsuchiya

"Miho!" – Saori

"Miho, stop it!" – Hana

"What the…?" – Mako

"Wow!" – Anzu

"Nishizumi-dono!" – Yukari

Miho just keep banging the damn engine as she ignored everyone's shouting at her. Another colorful day for Miho of course. She kinds of hit the damn engine for about 12 times before she stopped and dropped the wrench. She then stood up and looked at Tsuchiya who was looking out through the hatch.

"Alright, turn the tank on," Miho said casually to her.

"No way!" Tsuchiya exclaimed back in denial. "You might have broke the engine, Miho!"

"It's fine, just turn on the engine," Miho replied calmly.

"No, we have to check the engine again because you did that, Miho," Suzuki said in disagreement as she points at her with a wrench.

"Did you just sabotage our tank?" Yukari asked in worry.

"No, I didn't," Miho replied quickly, then quickly looked at Tsuchiya. "Just turn on the damn tank."

"We can't just do that!" Tsuchiya replied in upset, continued by Satoko. "You could have broke the engine, we should-"

"I assure you I know what I'm doing," Miho quickly cuts her off, before looking back to Tsuchiya and replied in retort. "So you want to turn on the damn tank or not?!"

They all were taken back of Miho's retort, Tsuchiya quickly came back inside the hatch. "Alright, alright. I'll turn on the tank."

"Good," Miho replied as Tsuchiya is about to sit on the driver chair, Miho then sat down on the edge of the tank calmly.

Satoko, Suzuki and Hoshino approached her from behind as the Anglerfish team and Anzu only watched them in front of them. "Miho, I'm not sure to let you back to help us fixing these tanks again," Satoko said in concern as she was worried of Miho's skill.

"Trust me, the tank will go on," Miho replied as she doesn't bother to look behind her.

"Are sure about that?" Hoshino asked in disbelieve.

*BBRRRRRMMM*

The Panzer IV tank was somehow went on right after Hoshino asked that.

"I can't believe it, that worked!" Tsuchiya shouted from inside, leaving everyone outside dumbfounded in amazement.

"Were you saying?" Miho asked as she turned her head to Hoshino behind her.

Everyone was staring blankly forward, Hana looked up to Miho. "How is that possible?"

Tsuchiya then turned off the tank and got out the hatch as Miho and the mechanics dropped down the tank. "From where did you learn that?" Suzuki asked in disbelieve.

"That's how we fixed engines in my trip to Russia."

That must be the oddest thing to hear from Miho herself. They should asked Klara for confirmation if it's true. But imagining Klara who is a Russian does that to fix the engines and worked. The Automobile Club will be 100% facepalmed in confusion.

"So that's how it happens back in your vacation to Russia?" Mako asked flatly with her brows raised. "There are broken cars and you just hit them hard until they go on."

"Yeah, somehow all of the cars were all 100% working and in good condition."

Right… they left their mouths open a little and their eyes to hear that.

"Well… you can't speak Russian, right?" Satoko asked with a small smile, wanting that to be a joke.

Miho had turned her head to her, somewhat in cold. "Извини, что ты там сказал?"

…

…

…

"Oh…" Satoko gasped as everyone fell silent and also surprised, Anzu however didn't surprise for that. "Never mind…"

Miho only shook her head and then looked at the front side of the hangar. She only looked there for a moment before turning her head back to Satoko and the mechanics. Her face stayed cold for the moment. But then changed with a small smile.

"You worked pretty hard," Miho stated to them, she then patted Satoko's shoulder. "Why don't we get some drink for now?"

Everyone quickly smiled and their hearts had cheered up for that. "Sounds good, Miho-san. Let's get some drinks."

"Alright, let's go," Miho replied with her head tilted to the front side of the hangar.

They then walked toward the door of the hangars and headed for the canteen in the school. It was a 5 minute walk to the canteen since they chatted to each other happily along the way. Miho was actually in good mood for now. It was a nice thing to see from Miho aside from her cold and (From Anzu's prespective) brutal attitude.

Once they reached the canteen, they bought some drinks and sat down at the nearby tables around. They then chatted each other and shares their stories to Miho about what's up in Ooarai. Yukari had even share her story about how's their match doing with St. Glorianas. Miho was glad to know that Yukari had taken command of the Anglerfish's tank. But Miho had sadly pitied her and the Anglerfish team for Ooarai's condition, in her heart.

Miho was still listening to Yukari who is telling her story to her, until she heard a shout. "Miho!"

Everyone was surprised to hear that including Miho. "Miho!"

They looked to their right and stood up from the chairs. They saw the full 4 members of Shark team were running to them. Miho noticed that the Shark team was worried, panicked and afraid. She was surprised in her heart to see them like that while everyone else was confused on why they were such in a hurry. Miho felt that they need all the help they can get.

The Shark Team had quickly ran from the hallway on their right as fast as they can. They quickly stopped right in front of Miho, the mechanics, Anglerfish team and Anzu. They then bent down their upper body as their hands rested on their knees and took some air. Murakami then stood up slowly as she was exhausted a little from all that running. Then lifted her index finger to Miho to sign her to wait a moment as she takes some breath.

After Murakami took some air, she said quickly to her. "Miho, Miho! I-I need your help! I-"

"Easy there, mate," Miho said softly to her as she gestured an open palm to her. "Calm down."

Murakami then controls her breathing slowly, until she was relaxed. "There you go…" Miho added as she gently holds her shoulder.

Murakami's friends followed suit after that as the mechanics, Anglerfish team and Anzu approached them. "Now, tell me. Why were you calling me?"

"Miho, I need your help," Murakami quickly as calm as she can.

"Why would you need my help?" Miho asked back as she narrowed her brows in concern.

"Miho, it's about our tank commander," Flint quickly replied as she steps closer to Miho and Murakami. "Her name is Ogin, and she's in trouble."

"Wait, she's also a member of your team?" Miho asked, she didn't know about this.

Everyone including the groups Miho is with nodded in reply. "Yes, she's our tank commander. We didn't tell you about it because we didn't trust you," Cutlass replied as she calmed down.

"Forgive us, Miho-san," Hana said as everyone looked at her. "We all didn't tell you about it since we just want that to be kept a secret so you won't be bothered about it. Murakami wanted us not to tell you about it so…"

"I understand," Miho acknowledge with a soft nod to Hana, before looking back to Murakami. "I'm still a stranger to you except for the rest."

"Good to hear that from you, Miho," Rum added with a smile as the rest was glad of her reaction.

"Now tell me," Miho said. "Her name was Ogin was it?"

"Yeah," Murakami replied with a nod.

"What kind of trouble she had?" Miho asked calmly and softly, what Yukari had expected of her.

"Ogin… she's been kidnapped," Murakami replied, Miho froze in anger to hear that. They were expecting to see Miho was shocked, not angry.

Miho sighed by her nose to calm herself. "How did it happened?"

Flint then stood next to Murakami to explain. "Two weeks ago, I was walking out with her at the evening around the city. When we were at a sidewalk, we got attacked by 5 kidnappers that time. I tried to fight back but…they beaten me up to the ground and they managed to kidnap Ogin. They warned that if I call the police, she'll be dead."

Despite Miho doesn't know well about them, they were already friends of hers. It seems the kidnappers had make things much more personal.

"Do you know who would kidnapped her?" Miho asked coldly, they were taken back by Miho's sudden change of tone.

"They… they called themselves the Rogue Foxes," Murakami then pulled out a small patch of symbol comprised of a head of the raging dog but all colored in Chrome, she then give it to Miho. "They said that and left this to Flint after they kidnapped Ogin."

"Do you know who are they?" Miho asked again sternly as she inspects the patch.

"No, we don't, we never heard of them," Cutlass replied with a shook as she approached them. "If we were to guess they could be robbers or mobsters."

Miho then put in the patch in the pocket of her shirt and asked them. "What did they want from you?"

"They wanted us to collect 10 million yens in 3 months," Flint replied in upset. "We couldn't get that much money because it's impossible for us to do that and due to our school had recently began to have financial problems with no clear reason. Anzu and the student councils still looking into it on why it gone like that. We can't even collect the money that much on our own."

Flint looked at Murakami to continue the explanation. "We had to confess that to your friends and commanders from Kuromorimine and said that you can help us. You can be trusted. Please… help us, Miho…"

Miho had felt everything they said is already putting her on the edge. The Shark team has lost a friend who was kidnapped, which is actually their tank commander. They are Miho's friends now. Miho won't leave anyone who is in danger, even if it's just a single soul. Miho won't dare to let one soul to die again.

Miho then patted her shoulder with a soft flat smile. "Don't worry I'll help you."

"You-you'll help us?" Flint asked in disbelieve but also in glad. "We'll give you what you want for helping us."

"I don't need any price," Miho replied quickly in calming tone.

"What? why?" Hana asked as she along with everyone else surprised of her reply.

"You all are my friends, mate," Miho replied to her. "I'll help you for free."

Miho then paused, before continuing. "What really matters right now, is that they just made things much personal."

Miho then turned around to Murakami and held her shoulder. "I will find her and I will make sure she make it back safe."

Miho then lets go of her shoulder as Murakami stares at her in full hope. "You will?" Murakami asked in a high tone.

"I will," Miho replied with a nod. "Those bastards are going to pay for what they did."

Miho then paused as everyone was taken back by her reply, then she continued. "I'll talk with Ami and my mother about this to help me out. I'll call you if I get anything new about the kidnappers."

"Miho, are you sure you can do this?" Yukari asked in concern. "You could be in danger by those kidnappers as well."

"Don't worry about that," Miho replied as she turned around to her. "Most important of all…"

"We take care of our friends."

Miho then turned around to Murakami and gave her a drink. "You should take a break for a moment. I'll deal with this trouble soon."

"Alright," Murakami replied as she took a drink from Miho. "Let's… sit down for a moment."

"Come on, we got seats here," Satoko said aloud as she points at the empty seats near them.

They all then sat down at the only available seats at the table there. Murakami had been massaged by Anzu to calm her down. While the rest of the Shark team could only glad that Miho will help them as they chatted with her for a moment. The Anglerfish team and the mechanics do what they can to calm them down. Miho however only stayed in her posture and prayed that their friend is still well, safe and sound.

Though, after Miho silent for a moment as her friends talked, she had a feeling to do something. "It feels like I want to sing…"

Everyone looked at her in surprise, though Yukari was the one who was happy to hear that. "What? Nishizumi-dono, you can sing if you want."

"We like to hear what you're singing there," Saori added, then continued by Mako. "It would be pleasant."

"I think I shouldn't be singing that one for you," Miho replied with a shook and a tone of concern.

"Why though?" Tsuchiya asked with her head tilted.

"Well… the song I'll be singing might be uncomfortable to you," Miho replied slowly in concern.

"We don't mind it," Flint replied with a smile. "You're a good singer after all."

"You sure about it?" Miho asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Flint replied with a nod, everyone nodded to her as well.

Miho paused to her reply. "Alright…"

Miho then stayed silent again, as everyone was waiting for her to sing.

Before that, Miho explained what is the song she'll be singing. "I know this song from someone, but I won't tell to you who's song is that. This song is about the Second World War. But now, I need a guitar to sing the song."

"Here, take mine," Hoshino said to her as she gives her guitar that she coincidentally brought from home.

"Alright, thanks," Miho replied with a nod as she took the guitar from her.

Miho then inspects the guitar by plucking a few strings with her fingers on her seat.

*TING* *TANG* *TUNG*

After a few check on the guitar, she prepped herself for singing the song to them as they wait.

And then they heard her sings.

(Dirty Paws – Of Monsters And Men, acoustic version is better in youtube) [Imagine Miho plays the guitar but with a higher tone]

First, they saw how Miho plays the guitar for the intro. Honestly, she's playing pretty good than Hoshino herself. Miho didn't even made a mistake on plucking the stings in the right rhythm. It was for a moment she plays the intro. She then began to sing as she plays the guitar.

"Jumping up and down the floor…"

"My head… is an animal.."

"And once there was an animal.."

"He had a son, that mowed the.. lawn"

"The son was an okay guy"

"They had a pet… dragonfly.."

"The dragonfly it ran away"

"But it came back with a story to say…"

They had admit, she was singing it and playing it real good. Flint was pretty impressed and astonished by her song for the moment. After the guitar hook, she continued to sing.

"Her dirty paws and furry coat.."

"She ran down the forest slope.."

"The forest of talking trees.."

"They used to sing about the birds and the bees…"

"The bees had declared a war.."

"The sky wasn't big.. enough for them all"

"The birds, they got help from below"

"From dirty paws and the creatures of snow"

"La la la..."

"La la la.. la…"

"La la la…"

"La la la.. la…"

Miho then plays the guitar hook again. It was unbelievably beautiful to hear. Hoshino, Yukari, Saori and Flint even watched how Miho plays the guitar. Hoshino had to train more on that. But then after a moment of the hook, she continues to sing again.

"So for a while things were cold.."

"They were scared down in their holes.."

"The forest that once was green.."

"Was colored black by those killing machines.."

"But she and her furry friends.."

"Took down the queen bee and her men.."

"And that's how the story goes.."

"The story of the beast with those four dirty paws.."

"La la la…"

"La la la… la.."

"La la la…"

"La la la… la.."

Miho then plays the last part of the song in her guitar. Also…

"Oooh.. oooh.. ooh oh oooh…"

"Oooh.. oooh.. ooh oh oooh…"

*TANG* *TRANG* *TENG*

…

…


	27. Chapter 26 - Just Like Old Times

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

.

MOST WANTED

[John Price] [John "Soap" Mactavish] [Miho Nishizumi]

.

Miho: We are going against Shepherd with a couple of men against Shepherd's men, who numbers in the thousands…

MacTavish: Correct Miho. We've got one good UMP. They've got a thousand. We don't even know if Makarov's intel is any good. Price... Price?

.

Searching for Shepherd's hideout, Hotel Bravo

.

Price: The healthy human mind doesn't wake up in the morning thinking this is its last day on Earth.

.

Inventory loading:

02 Cheytac Intervention Bolt-Action Anti-Material Rifle

.

Price: But I think that's a luxury. Not a curse.

.

03 Pair night-vision Goggles

.

Price: To know you're close to the end is a kind of freedom.

.

02 Suppressed Vector with ACOG Sight

.

Price: Good time to take... inventory.

.

01 M1911 Colt .45

.

Price: Outgunned. Outnumbered. Out of our minds. On a suicide mission.

.

04 Flashbangs

.

Price: But the sand and rocks here, stained with thousands of years of warfare...

.

04 Frag Grenades

.

Price: They will remember us. For this.

.

03 Combat Knife

.

Price: Because out of our vast array of nightmares, this is the one we choose for ourselves.

.

01 Suppressed M82 Barrett

.

Price: We go forward like a breath exhaled from the Earth.

.

01 M4A1 SOPMOD

.

Price: With vigor in our hearts and one goal in sight:

.

01 Suppressed G18

.

Price: We. Will. Kill him.

Miho: Get some sleep guys, We leave at day break.

…

…

…

Tracking… Located

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan

Day 7 – 17:31:25

* * *

*WHIIIIRRRR*

"I'll wait for you at the exfil point. Three hours."

"Don't bother. This was a one-way flight, mate."

"Then good luck my friend. Слава Богу."

*WWHHIIIIIIIRRRR…*

.

"Just Like Old Times"

Day 7 (August 16th 2016) - 17:32:36

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan

.

After Nikolai had dusted his Little Bird off the desert floor. The three 141s were hiding underneath their net camos with their snipers out. After Nikolai has left the area, Price quickly waved out his open palm towards the two behind him while watching forward. He along with the two specialists then got out of the desert camos, hiding in the desert storm and followed Price. They only marched forward through the harsh sandstorm, Miho glad she brings her googles aside from her black beanie around.

"Lads, I'm picking up a thermal spike up ahead. The cave must be somewhere over the edge." Price said as he led the two toward the ledge.

They followed Price to the ledge. And then they three stopped right at the edge of the ledge. To their relieve, that's when they saw the members of Shadow Company patrolling the area down below.

"Hold up. Enemy patrol. Hold your fire. Looks like Makarov's intel was solid. This is it."

Miho and Soap immediately crouched, hiding behind bushes available at the ledge. From what they saw ahead, there were a couple of Humvees parked on the road below. And right next to the road was a very steep cliff. Across the road however was another road cliff which is used by the civilians.

"I guess Makarov was telling the truth, Price. First time I am trusting a mass murderer in my life." Miho said as she looked through the scope, aiming at a couple of SC soldiers out of 6 soldiers and two dogs.

The Shadow Company troops began to split up to their left of the road, giving the trio some time to plan what to do next.

"Good, they're splitting up. Let them separate. This decryption code better be worth the price we paid..." Price said as he watched the troops of 2 soldiers and a dog moved away from the main group. He immediately tapped into their communication devices, trying to find out what as much as he can.

.

 _SC HQ: Go ahead, Alpha._

 _(Alpha): Riverbed all clear, over._

 _SC HQ: Bravo?_

 _(Bravo): Sandstorm. Not much to see right now, over._

 _SC HQ: Zulu?_

 _(Zulu): Uh, we're starting our patrol east along the canyon. North-side access road, over._

 _._

Having heard enough, he shut it down.

"Good thing that it has its use. We paid a lot for this decryption code, so we better use it to the fullest." Miho muttered.

With enough intel, He began to aim at the soldiers at the right, the ones who were near the Humvee.

"Focus on the group on the right, directly beneath us. Let's take them out first. I'll take the two on the left. On my mark."

Miho quickly scoped at the two soldiers on the right as she had guessed that Soap aimed for the dog.

Well, Soap hates dogs anyway.

"Three... Two... One... Mark."

*CTAK* *CTAK* *CTAK*

At that moment, Miho, Soap, and Price began to fire at the soldiers. Immediately, they killed all of the soldiers and the dog. Price's and Miho's bullet killed two soldiers each.

"Just like old times." Price said as he, Miho, and Soap stopped seeing through the scope.

"Well, we got them all right?" Miho asked awkwardly, trying to lighten up the mood.

"Yeah, we did. Nice shot on the dog, Soap." Price praised Soap for getting rid of the dog that actually responded first.

"We're going to get rid of the remaining party. Lock and load." Price said quickly, then group immediately slid down the hill.

After sliding down the hill, Price knew that the other group will find the bodies if they don't take care of them. "Quickly, let's move up and take the others."

Miho and Soap marched forward into a humvee ahead as their snipers still aiming toward the last group ahead of them. Price on the other hand moving and crouched a little bit farther from a big rock next to the Humvee and peeked through its left side.

"All right, we've got to take out the other group before they come back. Move." Price ordered Soap and Miho to move into position.

Miho and Soap quickly took cover behind the Humvee by its left and right side. They both then looked through the scopes and aimed at the hostiles ahead. Miho was aiming for the bastard on the right.

"I'm in position - Take the shot." As soon as he said that, Miho and Soap fired.

*CTAK* *CTAK* *CTAK*

The two soldiers and the dog died upon the shots.

"Finally. So what's next?" Miho asked as she looked away from the scope.

"We don't have much time before they find the bodies. Let's keep moving," Price said back in the radio.

"Copy that, Price." Soap replied as the two followed him.

The three approached a place where they can hook up cables, on the cliff on the right side of the road. Miho just remembered that time they were in Kazakhstan, with Soap and Roach. If she was here only to sit her arse on the cliff… Well, she'll be out of her mind.

"Something up?" Soap asked Miho, who was just thinking about that time back then.

"No. It's nothing." She replied as she got out the cable equipment.

"Okay…" Soap replied as they found the railing right in front of the entrance to the caves.

"Here we go - hook up here." Price ordered the two to hook up the cables to rappel down.

When they were finished, the communicator intercepted another transmission.

SC HQ tried to contact the men who died.

 _SC HQ: Disciple Four, Oxide. Do you copy, over?_

"Go." Price said as everyone rappelled down. They moved fast, as they braked on the cliff to make sure they didn't fall into the river in front of the cave.

SC HQ didn't get a response.

 _SC HQ: Hey, I'm not getting anything from Disciple Four, north-ridge road. Could be a bad transmitter._

As the three went lower and lower, they saw three Shadow Company soldiers guarding the entrance.

"Got three tangos down below," Soap said in the radio as they braked on the cliff thrice before reaching the soldiers below.

"Got it." Miho replied as she got her knife out. She was right over the soldier. Preparing to strike, she had her knife ready.

Price and Soap then prepped their knives. The three lowered themselves slowly and silently, getting as close as possible.

When they reach them approximately 3 feet above the soldiers' heads, Price gave the call. "Do it."

Being within stabbing distance, Miho, Price, and Soap got their knives and stabbed the men quickly. Miho quickly stabbed the soldier she killed on the chest from behind him.

'mmff!' the soldiers tried to make a sound.

However, the three soldiers covered their mouths, making sure they didn't make a sound until they died. It took them only a few seconds to make them to die. The SC soldiers who tried to fight back the soldiers had to be died from the stab. The soldier Miho killed has left his eyes open, looking up. Miho then slowly put the soldier on the ground as Soap and Price did the same.

They then switched their snipers to their other suppressed automatic weapons. Miho and Soap switched to Kriss Vector W/ ACOG Sight while Price switched to his M4A1 SOPMOD. They cocked their guns first, before Price looking over the two. Once acknowledge everyone is ready, Price gave the call.

"Let's go." The three entered the cave. As the trio entered the cave, Soap started a conversation.

"So, Price. What are we going to do once we deal with Shepherd?" Asked Soap as the three entered the cave.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We still have to deal with Makarov, even if I made a deal with him. He isn't getting away, just bought himself time from us." Price replied.

"Good. I want Shepherd dead for what he did to Ghost, Roach, and all of us. Makarov can wait." Miho replied as the went deeper into the cave.

She still had a grudge against Makarov and his people, but Shepherd was a man who she trusted, and he betrayed them. She wanted him dead.

"Tango up ahead. Do not engage." Price said as Miho and Soap saw the man near the CCTV monitor, they all quickly crouched down and slowly approached him.

Once they approached the SC soldier from behind and got through the entrance of the cave, they heard something. Some footsteps were heard ahead of them pass the SC soldier on CCTV duty. It was coming from the corridor ahead on their left beside the SC soldier. Price had noticed there were lights showing up on the other side of the cave.

"Patrol coming our way – go left, quickly!" Everyone immediately followed Price to the right.

Once they hide in the shadows at the left dead end of the tunnel, the men of Shadow Company appeared from the corridor ahead. Looked like they were suspecting something was wrong.

"Let them pass," he told the two of them, as two more soldiers appeared.

"Why not take them out?" Miho whispered interrogatively, as around four plus soldiers showing up from the corridor. One of the soldiers gestured the soldiers to move toward the entrance the 141s got through.

"That will draw attention to us. Just killing that guy and those bastards will have all of them crawling all over us." Price replied. She nodded in understanding.

Some of Shepherd's men were starting to investigate why some of their men went dark.

.

 _Butcher Seven: Butcher Seven, Oxide. We've lost contact with Disciple Five._

 _Oxide: Probably just the sandstorm that's rollin' in or a bad transmitter. Send a team to check it out, over._

 _Butcher Seven: Roger that, Oxide. I'll send Vinson and Lambert. Butcher Seven out._

 _._

Once all the SC soldiers were out of sight, there's only the soldier on CCTV duty left.

Price then looked over to the two. "Take out the guard having a smoke, or wait for him to move along."

Miho was impatient and deciding to kill him. She sneaked up near the guard from behind and stabbed him in the back of his chest with his mouth shut. killing him silently and Miho slowly put him down to the ground.

"That was fine. Let's go you two." He told the two as the kept moving.

While they moved, there were two soldiers talking to each other up ahead in an open and wide area of the cave. The area was fortunately walled off with small makeshift walls around to which it made corridors around the cave. Once they took cover at a small wall ahead and thankfully hidden in darkness, Miho looked around the corridors on their left and right as Price did the same.

"Easy now... Two tangos in this corridor. Hold your fire and stay to the left." Price told Miho and Soap, before she and Soap followed him to the left corridor in a crouch.

The three soldiers continued to go deeper into the tunnels, they found an entrance at the end of this corridor which lead them a stairwell in a distance. Before they walked there however, there were two soldiers who happened to came down from the stairs with their taclights on. They were probably looking for them.

 _Oxide: Disciple Five, Oxide. Give me a sitrep, over._

"Miho. Soap, we've got two tangos with taclights coming down the stairs under that red light, dead ahead," Price warned the two. "Soap, I'll take the one on the right."

Soap then aimed his Vector to the soldier on the left, Price then gave the call "On my mark."

"Three... Two... One... Mark."

*CTAR* *CTAR*

Miho watched as Soap and Price shot the two men in the head, killing them both instantly as they dropped dead.

"Clear. Go."

They then walked toward the stairwell and stepped over the dead bodies of the two SC soldiers. They then began to walk upstairs. While the group moved, they heard SC HQ order soldiers to investigate the dead soldier. They eventually sneaking up on an SC soldier from behind as the soldier hears his radio.

 _Oxide: Disciple Six, we've lost all contact with Disciple Five. Check it out, over._

Price then pulled out his knife as he sneaked up on the soldier. "Top of the staircase - he's mine."

Miho didn't get to shoot one soldier herself, so pulling out her M82, she shot him immediately. Surprising Price as he was about to stab him. The soldier died and he fell with a dud.

"Never mind, then." Was Price's amused reply, he holstered back his knife before they entered the steam room.

The steam room had two corridors upon entering, one was an open area and one was a small corridor. Nevertheless, both path leads to the same path forward. Miho, Soap and Price took the path to the left and found some tempting weapons stacked nearby. Though, Soap was the only one who changed weapon, swapping his sniper with the ACR Suppressed W/ Heartbeat sensor. As they looked around, they heard the hostiles in radio talking.

 _Disciple Six: Roger that, Oxide. We're on the catwalk, heading to the steam room. Standby._

The lights inside immediately shut off. This was a sign that the hostiles was already at the door of steam room exit ahead of them in a distance. Miho then release her goggles and put on her Night Vision Goggles. Soap and Price did the same as they all cocked their weapons. The only light that was on in the steam room was only the red emergency lights one.

"They're going into radio silence. As soon as they go into it, open fire on them immediately," Price said in the radio, Miho nodded to him as they took their respective covers behind the pillars or nearby crates and pipes.

 _Oxide: Disciple Six, go dark, breach and clear._

"Here we go… get ready," Price radioed as Miho ready to pull the trigger on her Vector.

 _Disciple Six: Door charge planted, ready to breach!_

The guy in charge held his breath as he prepared to pull the trigger.

 _SC soldier: Hit it._

 _Disciple Six: Breaching, breaching!_

Disciple Six said as he pulled the trigger and blew a hole into the steam room.

*DUAAAR*

After that, the SC soldiers quickly stormed the room and began to sweep the area.

 _SC soldier: Foxtrot Element, sweep left. Charlie Element, scan around the area._

Price knew it was the right moment.

"Go loud! Open fire!" Miho, Soap, and Price immediately opened fire to the hostiles from their covers. The SC soldiers were all taken by surprise.

 _SC soldier: They're here! Open fire!_

Miho then moved forward from her cover and returned fire to them on the right side of the steam room. Soap and Price did the same from the left side. Miho then throw out frag 'nades to them and bombing them up. 5 SC soldiers blown away from those frags while other 6 soldiers killed by their gunfire.

 _SC soldier: Stay frosty, hunt them down!_

The panicking men shouted as they tried to find and kill the three of them. Despite the SC soldiers have Red Dot Sight to find the 141s, they just got mowed down. The last 7 SC soldiers were already dead at the blown up entrance to the steam room. Despite the heavy fight, none of them fortunately got shot, even if the SC soldiers shot at where they were.

"Night Vision goggles. Useful in cases like this." Price mentioned as they removed the NVGs.

"Well, we needed it to deal with these guys…" Miho said as she trailed off, loading another magazine in upset.

Price then looked over to her with pity and condolence to know what she meant. "I'm sorry about what happened to Ghost and Roach, Miho."

Miho only shook her head and looked straight to him. "It isn't your fault, Price. It's Shepherd's, and his personal guards. Shepherd did this, so he will pay for that."

"So Miho. Did you like Ghost?" Soap asked as he sniggered.

Miho is not blushing, which surprised the two men. "Ghost and Roach were comrades who were like family."

"I see. Anyway, we should start moving." Soap said.

Price was waiting for the two, deciding to tell them instead.

"Move." Price ordered as everyone kept going forward.

SC HQ/Oxide knew now that something was really wrong, their men being flatlined.

 _SC HQ: Disciple Nine, your rear guard just flatlined!_

 _Disciple Six didn't believe it, just checking that nothing was wrong._

 _Disciple Six: Not possible. We just cleared that area. Nobody's -_

 _Shepherd: It's Price. Backup priority items and burn the rest. Fireteams just delay 'em until we're ready to pull out._

' _Now he knew we're here,'_ Miho thought in her heart, her anger came back to hear his voice.

The crew exited the caves, only to end up in an open area of a cliff. They turned left upon exiting and began walking on the dirt path of the cliff that was attached to the catwalk, the height their looking at right now is more than 50 feet. Before walking further though, they reached what in front of them was a wall, a part of the cliff along with the piles of weapons and riot shields at the crate. Price quickly took cover on the wall next to the pile and peeked out, that's when the shot flew in front of him.

*CTAR*

"Damn bollocks…" Price swore lowly in annoyance.

"We're exposed here, Price! I doubt we can go any far without protection!" Miho said.

Price saw some riot shields on the ground. He got an idea. "Miho, grab a riot shield. Like you said, we'll need cover out here."

"How about those shooters?" Miho asked further.

"Soap and I will take care of any Shooters. Just lead the way!" Price shouted. Miho nodded as she grabbed a riot shield and started to move in the catwalk, discarding her M82.

While going through the catwalk, helicopters composed of 3 Little Birds and 2 Chinooks flew by the canyon.

"I am worried that one of the helicopters will start coming after us." Miho told Soap and Price in concern.

"Ignore them. They won't come for us. They most likely didn't even see us." Price replied as Miho continued to advance.

Price and Soap quickly prone down on the catwalk as Miho began to march forward through the catwalk. The SC soldiers on the other side of the catwalk ahead were returning fire but they seemed to more focus on killing Miho. Avatar One who was the pilot of a jet fighter that just flew by saw Miho, Price and Soap approach their location. They were confused by the newcomers.

 _Avatar One: Oxide, Avatar One. We have unauthorized personnel on the catwalk. I repeat, we have unauthorized personnel on the catwalk- you gettin' this?_

"Take point with the riot shield. We'll take care of any resistance." Price told Miho as she moved through the catwalk while being shot at by Shepherd's men.

The shield ensured that she didn't get hit by the bullets. She walked to her front left as her shield was blocking the attack coming from her front right. The three SC soldiers were shooting at her not with just assault rifles, one of them use the machine gun on Miho. Miho fucking hate that so much.

*CTAK*

One SC got shot in the head, good thing he shot the machine gunner first.

"Got one." Soap said as his shot, he cocked the sniper again.

*CTAK*

"He's down." Price took one down right beside Soap.

*CTAK*

"Got him, that's all of them," Soap said as he and Price got off the ground and headed to the other side of the catwalk as Miho almost reached there first.

Disciple Nine was being informed about Price and his friends as Miho continued to go through the catwalk.

 _Disciple Nine: Oxide, Disciple Nine, we've got hostile contact approximately 50 meters from the nest, over._

 _SC HQ: Terminate with extreme prejudice. All personnel - be advised, we have three enemy foot-mobiles on the catwalk heading to the crow's nest._

Miho, Price, and Soap continued through the catwalk. They finally made it to another cave entrance, which was called the 'nest' by one of Shepherd's men.

"We're clear. Move in." Price said as Miho dropped the shield and picked up a gun that one of Shepherd's men had.

"That was a nightmare. That bastard better be here or else…" Miho was pissed off. Being shot at while holding a shield and having to move right into enemy fire, she suffered a few injuries. Fortunately, it didn't force her to abort the mission.

"Shepherd will be here. He's not getting away from us this time, that sneaky little traitor." Soap told Miho, walking by her side.

Miho nodded to him. "We paid a big price for this chance to get rid of this traitor. Better make sure we get him."

"We won't fail, Miho, alright? Just focus on the mission and he'll be dead in no time." Price replied in a comforting tone.

The group reloaded their ammo and rushed into the tunnels. Suddenly, the communicator came to life. It was from Oxide.

 _Oxide: Butcher One-Five, rendezvous at the nest and prepare to escort Gold Eagle to the LZ._

Price knew what that meant. Gold Eagle was Shepherd, and he secured the transport. He isn't getting away.

"Gold Eagle must be Shepherd! We're running out of time, let's go!" Price shouted as Miho and Soap ran into the tunnels.

"Right with you, Price!" Miho shouted as they run.

The three exited the tunnels into an open area of the cliff's tunnels. This was where the whole place was crawling with Shepherd's men. There were a couple of Black Hawk flew by and hovers above the Crow's nest. The SC soldiers then were being dropped from a chopper hovering on top of the place. To make things worse was what the enemies were using.

"They're using shields! Use frags! Flank them!" Price warned aloud as they quickly took cover at the nearby crates and opened fire.

Soap went upstairs to the right ensure no soldiers were flanking them from there. Miho got out her grenades as Price gives covering fire for her. She tossed them toward the men with shields. The grenades went behind them, blowing all 6 hostiles with shields as one of the soldiers had flew down off the cliff. At least he learned how to fly.

Miho and Price then quickly marched forward before turning left toward an entrance of another tunnel. From there, they saw Soap was already killing the last 2 soldiers ahead of him. Suddenly, Miho saw Soap getting shot from behind him by one of SC soldier who was hiding behind the crates. She took care of him by throwing out one of her throwing knives to the soldier's face, killing him instantly.

"Are you okay, Soap?" Miho asked as she lifted Soap a little from that shot.

"I'm fine. Just keep moving!" was his response.

 _Butcher Two: Butcher Two roping into sector Papa Quebec!_

The trio then entered deeper into the tunnels after the entrance of the Crow's nest has been cleared out. The ceiling of the tunnel was open, with Shepherd's men entering through by the hole on the ceiling. After the SC soldiers got through the hole and landed however, they all quickly mowed down by Miho and her team. Everyone got killed instantly by that. They quickly ran forward into cover at the small wall and the barrels on across the right side of the wall.

The worse thing was that, the SC soldiers who were attacking from across where they took cover were deploying smokescreens.

"Bloody Hell! Now we have to deal with these bastards in the smoke?!" Miho shouted. She knew how hard it is to kill soldiers in the smoke without thermal scopes, it was a good thing she discarded the shield and took a SCAR-H W/Thermal Scope at the small wall.

"No kidding! They're using thermal through the smoke!" Price shouted back as he returned fire from the wall. "They're digging in, Shepherd must be close! We have to break through!"

"Easier said than done!" Soap said aloud as he returned fire into the smoke screen, manage to kill 3 SC soldiers including the one using the shield.

"I'll draw their fire through the smoke! Watch for flanking routes!" Price shouted to Miho and returned fire.

"Thanks for the advice!" Miho sarcastically replied as she ran to their right side, end of that corridor. She found a flanking route of an another corridor there, so she used her Vector for this moment and opened fire to the soldiers, killing 4 of them in the process.

"Don't get cocky, Miho! We have to keep moving, so watch your back!" Soap told Miho, who was dealing with the assailants.

It was quiet a very long fire fight. But the three of them took down all of the Shadow Company soldiers. It was a pain in the ass to kill them all through the smoke. But thanks to the thermal-scoped weapons scattered around, they made it through well. However, Miho had took around 4 shots to her body but she was still alright.

"They're gone. Let's keep moving," Price said as the trio continued moving, with the radio transmitting orders again.

 _Butcher Five-Actual: Oxide, Butcher Five-Actual. I've got a severed det cord - we're gonna need ten mikes to get the trunk rigged and the EBC primed, over._

 _Oxide: Negative, Gold Eagle wants those charges hot in less than three mikes. Get it done, out._

The three approached the door which led to Shepherd's bunker. Suddenly, the door which was open, closed. A locking sound was heard.

"They've sealed the control room. Get a frame charge on the door!" Price shouted.

"Got it!" Miho shouted as she got her frame charge out. Attaching it on the door, she set it off in a safe area.

*DUAR*

"Breaching!" Miho shouted as the charge blew. Everything was in slow motion, with men just realizing that something happened. Soap and Miho prepared their guns, shooting at the 6 men, with Soap taking out the left, and Miho taking out the right. Price was the last to enter and didn't have to waste a single bullet on the soldiers.

When everything came back to normal, they found the room full of explosive charges rigged all over the room. The table, the gas tanks, and the ammo shells that littered the room.

"Holy shit…" Miho swore as she was shocked to see this.

"Bloody hell…" Soap said with a gasp. "That's a lot of ordinance."

" _All units be advised this is Gold Eagle. The site has been compromised. I am executing directive one-one-six bravo. If you're still inside, your service will be honored. Shepherd out."_

Miho realized that Shepherd intended to trap them in here. He had a lot of explosives lining the room.

"Damn it!" Soap cursed as he saw what was happening. Price saw a computer nearby, which would most likely help them get out of the area. It is apparent that the entire cave was lined with explosives, so getting out was a priority. Going to the terminal, he began to gain access and open the door controls. However, he needed someone helping him.

"Miho! Override the door controls. Hurry!" Price asked Miho. She nodded as she approached the other terminal and began to finish the override, letting the door open. Everyone ran out the door that just opened.

"Run! Keep moving! This place is gonna blow!" Price shouted as the three ran away from the detonating bunker into the exit of the tunnel.

*BBBUUUUUUAAARRRR*

Suddenly, an explosion threw Miho and Soap into the air, with Miho losing consciousness.

When Miho opened her eyes, she saw Soap and Price shooting back at the men in front of them. Miho was consciously lying on the ground as she watched the two men returned fire to the soldiers from their cover of a small wall. Soap then turned his head to Miho and noticed she woke up. He then quickly runs up to her.

"Are you okay, Miho?" Asked Soap, who stopped shooting to tend to her, to make sure she is fine.

"I'm fine, Soap. Help me up." She said as Soap helped her up.

The radio came back on, with Shepherd's orders being broadcasted.

 _Shepherd: Excalibur, this is Gold Eagle. Fire mission - target package Romeo - danger close._

 _Shadow Company HQ: That's within a hundred meters of your position, sir!_

 _Shepherd: That's not a suggestion! Send it!_

Price quickly reacted by falling back from the cover and head back to the collapsed tunnel behind them to take cover. "Soap! Miho! Incoming! Get down! Get down!"

They both followed what Price said and took cover at the collapsed tunnel, that's when hell rained from the sky.

*DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *DUARR* *BUAARR*

A barrage of explosives ran near where they were. They were safe from the blast area thanks to Price's warning. The unfortunate ones however, were Shepherd's own men. When the barrage was done, they looked over to the compound ahead. It was a goddamn nightmare, SC soldiers that were bombarded there were either dead or dying with the compound was burning a lot and destroyed.

"Since when does Shepherd care about danger close..." Price scoffed after watching the devastating sight of the totaled compound in front of them. "Let's go! Stay close and follow me! To the west, you two. Go!"

"This shows how much Shepherd cares about the 141! None!" Miho replied.

At that moment, more of Shadow Company arrived, to cover Shepherd's escape.

While Shepherd's men were mostly unfit for fighting, more of his men were arriving into the area by the helicopter. When Miho saw a hovering Black Hawk ahead was about to roped down soldiers, she quickly took any nearby AT4 in the compound and shoot it straight to the chopper. The chopper was shot on the front and it was engulfed in flame as it spins uncontrollably and fell to the ground with a big boom. Killing all SC soldiers inside that chopper.

"Just how many men does Shepherd have under his payroll?" Soap complained after Miho shot down the chopper.

While Miho took care a Little Bird filled soldiers with another AT4, Price heard Shepherd conversing with his subordinate after the barrage.

 _Oxide: Sir, sandstorm activity is picking up here. It's too risky for flight ops._

 _Shepherd: Understood. Head for the tunnel. We'll take the Zodiacs._

 _Oxide: Yes, sir!_

Once Miho killed the soldiers in the choppers with the AT4s, they quickly marched forward and approached Sheperd's escape route. But when they reach the end side of the compound ahead, they immediately greeted with resistance. They quickly took cover at the crates and a big rock and quickly returned fire. Miho peeked out from the rock which she used as her cover and quickly opened fire at a red barrel that was near the 5 SC soldiers ahead.

*DUUUARR*

"AAAAAGGGHH!"

Those 5 soldiers were blown away by the exploding barrel. Price and Soap did the same to the last 4 soldiers ahead by shooting the barrels. After they got blown away they quickly headed for the tunnel ahead of them. They were quick to catch up with the traitorous bastard.

"Head for the tunnel! He's getting away!" Price shouted as the three ran into the tunnel.

"Shepherd mentioned Zodiacs… there must be a river access nearby – let's go!"


	28. Chapter 27 - Endgame

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

Satellite in orbit monitoring

Echelon Noise

Reduction Commencing

.

 _Price: This is for the record. History is written by the victor._

 _._

Identifying and Removing Interference Wavelengths.

.

 _Price: History is filled with liars._

 _._

Removing Background Ambient Noise

.

 _Price: If he lives and we die, his truth becomes written - and ours is lost._

 _._

Isolating Patterns for Subject Identification and Analysis

.

 _Price: Shepherd will be a hero. 'Cause all you need to change the world is one good lie and a river of blood._

 _._

NSA Echelon Ident 7AB98638

Subject Confirmed: Price

Nationality: UK

Former British SAS Captain

Former Specialist Task Force 141

.

 _Price: He's about to complete the greatest trick a liar ever played on history._

 _._

High Value Target

Treason

Global Terror

Violent Acts Against the Government

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 _Price: His truth will be the truth. But only if he lives, and we die._

* * *

(CoD: Modern Warfare 2 Soundtrack - Boat Ride)

.

Endgame

Site Hotel Bravo, Afghanistan

Day 7 (16th August 2016)– 18:10:25

Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

.

"They're just around the corner, come on! You two, get on the boat!" Price shouted as Miho and Soap followed after him. Right there was one zodiac not in use, in which Miho and Soap got on board immediately.

"Shepherd is right in front of us. We can't lose him!" Price shouted as everyone got on board.

"I'll steer the boat." Miho told the two after the men prone at the front of the boat and Miho sat at the steering on the back.

"Just keep up with Shepherd!" Price said aloud as he cocks his gun.

Miho started the boat engine, as Price and Soap got into position. She drove the boat as fast as she could, making sure she can catch up with Shepherd. The boat sped through the cave, where Shepherd's men were waiting for the three of them with their guns drawn near the docks.

"Focus on driving the boat. Soap and I will keep them suppressed." Price shouted as Soap and Price opened fire on the Shadow Company men who were trying to kill them.

As the boat exited the cave, a soldier with an RPG shot it at the boat. Miho narrowly missed the projectile approaching them. Soap saw oil barrels near the man with the RPG, and shot it. This made the barrels explode which eliminating the threat of further missiles.

"Miho! Watch out for missiles! Looks like Shepherd is going all out against us!" Soap shouted.

"I agree! Nothing worse than being shot at with anti-tank missiles headed your way!" She replied aloud.

"Well said!" Soap added aloud in agreement as he shoots back.

The boat was approaching a crossing with two ravines to split them. Miho took the left, where the boat entered a cave. More of Shepherd's men were waiting for them, shooting at them with their assault rifles.

Miho was tempted to shoot at the men herself. As she was about to draw her gun, Soap shouted:

"Leave the gunning to us Miho! Don't worry about the shooting!" Soap shouted. Miho nodded with a frowned grin.

While driving through the ravine, Price saw Shepherd, but he was almost away from them.

"He's getting away!" Price shouted.

"I know! I'm trying to catch up!" Miho retorted as she continued to avoid obstacles and men carrying RPGs.

Soap killed most of them, but the occasional missile almost hit them, with Miho avoiding the missiles by ducking her head. There was a bridge hanging right above them ahead which contains the RPG troopers. Though, Soap and Price managed to deal with them and got through the bridge. They exited the cave, just to see a technical appear out of nowhere and start shooting at them from their left.

"Nine-0-clock!" Miho shouted as Soap shot at the gunner. At least the gunner was dead.

Passing by the technical, Miho quickly turned the boat to right following the river and Sheperd. The small cliffs nearby on their right and the hanging bridge ahead of them had more of Shepherd's men pointing their weapons at the three. The bastards tried to take the team out, only to have the SC soldiers on the bridge all killed and fell down to the river.

"Why are there so many of them?" Soap complained as Price shot at the men in the shore.

"We can't worry about that now. They want our heads on a stick, that is all we can worry about," was Price's response.

Miho made a turning to the left following the river. There was a shore ahead of them around 10 meters. Speeding through the narrow gorge, three technicals appeared after the turning at the shores along with the infantry of SC soldiers. Though, they noticed that there were red barrels of oil littered everywhere. These Shadow Company either loved to stash barrels of oil everywhere, or they were just careless. Shadow Company did have a lot of vehicles that used oil, so it made sense however.

"Soap, take down the shooters!" Price shouted as he shoots ahead of them, killing 5 SC soldiers by blowing up the barrels.

"I could use some help!" Soap complained as Price helped Soap shoot the barrels nearby, blowing them all up, except for the technicals that have lost their gunners.

"Tangos down." Soap shouted as he focused on Price's side.

Miho turned the boat to right, speeding through the narrower gorge to chase down Sheperd. They quickly shot down the hostiles shooting from an empty space of the ground floor of the cliff on their right by blowing up the barrels in there. The bridge ahead hanging above them also had several men with assault rifles shooting at them. Miho quickly noticed this when they were a few feet away from them

"Guys! The bridges!" Miho shouted as the two men took down the three men carrying assault rifles.

After killing the SC soldiers and the hostiles fell into the river, Price turned his head to Miho. "Thanks."

There was a cave approaching in front of them.

"Through that cave!" Price shouted as Miho steered the boat into the narrow cave.

The cave got narrower and narrower as they went inside. Fortunately, the end became bigger, as it was open water after they exited the cave. It was a wide open river ahead, and the current obstacle they saw were only the pillars of rocks in the river. They spotted Sheperd's boat along with his two SC patrol boats accompany him to the extraction. But then they saw an MH-6 Little Bird flew into the area to support Shepherd. This was bad news. The guns would shred them to bits.

"A bird here?" Miho complained as it flew away from them, to where Shepherd was.

"Those guns will turn us into ground meat! Stay clear of open areas!" Price shouted as Miho immediately swerved the boat left toward the giant rock formations nearby. Other Zodiac boats arrived to assist Shepherd's escape.

"What should we do about these guys?" Miho asked as she kept steering the boat.

"Keep the boat steady. We'll fire on the others." Price replied as Miho drove. While going down, there was a problem. A Little Bird was heading their way, its guns starting to warm up.

"Miho! Get past that Little Bird before its guns spin up!" Price shouted as he engaged the bird. She knew what happens if she doesn't, and it isn't pretty.

"I don't want to know what happens if those guns are spinning and we are shot by it." Miho replied as she continued to pilot the craft. Even if they passed the Little Bird, It spun around from its position and began to chase after them.

"We gotta lose'em! Shake em off!" Price shouted. The Little Bird following them behind.

"I'll try and shoot it down. Keep the boat steady." Soap told Miho as he aimed his gun at the heli behind the group. It was fast, so Soap was having a hard time aiming.

"Keep the boat steady!" Soap shouted. Miho did as Soap asked, and Soap was able to shoot the helicopter down behind them. It fell to the river with a loud *SPLASH*.

"Shepherd's men are everywhere! Just how many people are working for him?" Miho complained in annoyance.

"A lot I suppose! We're being chased by an army at this point!" Price replied as he shot down an enemy speedboat on their left, killing them and flipping that boat.

During the drive in the open water, there was a bridge ahead. Waiting for them with RPGs, was another Shadow Company Soldier.

"RPGs! On the bridge!" Price shouted as Miho had to swerve and avoid another missile whilst ducking her head down. Curse these nutjobs.

"Damn these Arses!" Miho was pissed off by the constant stream of Shepherd fanatics following them and trying to kill them. She didn't expect to stir up a hornet's nest.

Driving the boat, Miho had one job: avoid RPG shots, swerve between torrents of minigun shots coming at them, and worst of all, avoid getting shot by Shepherd fanatics.

"I got it!" Miho shouted as she avoided the missile, saving them. Unfortunately, more of Shepherd's men magically appeared out of nowhere from behind them.

"They won't stop coming after us!" Soap complained.

"Obviously! Focus on Shepherd," Price shouted with a nod before returning fire on the oncoming hostiles that got ahead of them.

The three was chasing Shepherd, with no problems after the helicopter was shot down. Soap and Price was constantly firing at Shepherd's boat, but due to the fact that they were too far away, they couldn't hit Shepherd and the craft driver.

It was hard, with more of those small boats keep following them. Even worse, another Little Bird with miniguns were facing them.

"Just how many of these damn wankers does Shepherd have?" Miho shouted.

"I don't know! But I think around fifty if I am correct!" Soap replied.

* * *

1 hour ago

"Shepherd will likely have enough military hardware to make your life miserable." Nikolai told the three people in his helicopter. They were currently flying to Hotel Bravo.

"Like how much military?" Miho asked.

"The National Guard." Was the response

"We're fucked." Miho replied.

"Don't worry, Miho. We can do this." Price replied.

"Yup. We will succeed, and we will make it. None of us will die." Soap reassured Miho.

* * *

Present

The Little Bird was spinning its guns, ready to kill Soap, Miho, and Price.

"Steer clear of that chopper! Go! Go!" Price shouted as Miho swerved to avoid the torrent of minigun bullets.

"Cyka Blyat!" Miho cursed.

Just as they dodged the bullets of the helicopter, an RPG trooper was on the bridge nearby. Miho just missed another missile. Soap shot that guy full of holes.

"Just when will they give up?" Soap asked.

"Probably never! Damn cultists!" Miho swore in retort and annoyance.

As they avoided that trooper, Miho spotted yet another Little Bird, and another one after that. She was getting tired of it.

"Miho, dodge that helicopter!" Price shouted as he fired at the trooper that shot at them.

"I know!" She complained as she passed under the bridge.

As soon as the passed the bridge, two more of Shepherd's followers and the second Little Bird started to open fire on them.

"You fags!" She cursed as she got out her G18 and shot at the second Little Bird. It was mostly unharmed, but one of the bullets struck the cockpit and killed the pilot, making it crash behind them.

The third one was waiting for them in the left side of the open river. It started to shoot its payload of rockets, trying to take them out.

"Rockets? Damn!" Soap complained as it unloaded its rockets and used its miniguns.

"Those miniguns aren't going to stop, shake em!" Price warned as Miho steers the boat right quickly.

As the group's boat approached the rapid ahead, Price saw what was going to happen. Another Little Bird was right in front of them, spinning its minigun.

"Left, left!" He shouted as Miho turned the boat left.

"Damn rapids up ahead! It's going to get rough, so hang on lads!" Price shouted as he made sure not to fly away, Soap did the same. Miho just hang on the boat tighter with one hand.

The rapids were very dangerous, but with Shepherd using that route, they had no choice but to use it.

"Curse that man Shepherd!" Miho complained as the boat bounced a constantly in the rapids. It threatened to throw them off, but luckily, they hang on.

"We can't let him get away!" Soap shouted as the boat continued to bounce.

"I know! That is why I am using the boat on full power!" Miho shouted.

The boat almost hit a rock twice. What could have resulted in death, they narrowly avoided it.

"Watch out for rocks, Miho!" Price shouted.

"I know! Let me concentrate on driving this junk to Shepherd!" Miho retorted.

While they were still in the rapids, more of those fanatics appeared.

"Bloody fanatics devoted to Shepherd! He's some kind of messiah, isn't he?" Soap asked.

"Probably! There is no reason why almost thousands of men would sacrifice their lives to create blockades all over the river just to try and stop us!" Miho shouted as Soap shoots the boats coming up behind them.

"They're down!" Soap shouted as he shot the boats that followed them.

"Watch out for RPG!" Miho shouted. Price saw who it was and killed that guy.

"Thanks for the alert, Miho."

As the group kept moving, another of the infamous black helicopters arrived.

"Just give up already, bloody cultists!" Miho told no one.

"They can't hear you, because they won't listen. Just kill them all." Was a reply from Price.

Avoiding another torrent of gunfire, Miho had enough. She decided to vent off by shooting at the RPG trooper nearby where the helicopter was, filling him with holes.

"These guys don't give up, don't they?" Soap complained, the situation not improving. The only good thing was about being able to listen in on Shepherd's communications, as the next one was crucial.

" _Avatar One, gimme a sitrep, over!"_

" _I have Warhorse 5-1 standing by. Pave Low's downriver sir."_

" _Copy that! Warhorse 5-1, be advised, we're comin' in hot!"_

" _Roger - dropping the hatch – keep it above thirty knots and watch the vertical clearance."_

Sadly, when the group arrived where the Pave Low was, it was closing its hatch and taking off from the water. Price knew that they only had one chance.

(Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 OST-43 Zodiac Chase & Waterfall Endgame, 2:05)

"Miho! Hold it steady!" Price told Miho as he aimed his gun at the chopper.

Price has a few seconds to shoot the chopper before the waterfall consumes them. Price aimed the helicopter right in the rotors. He took a few moments to adjust his aiming. He only got one shot at this. He then pulls the trigger.

*DAR* *DAR* *DAR*

The rotor of the helicopter quickly exploded and engulfed in flame. The Pave Low then spun around in the air uncontrollably and fell down to the ground below the waterfall right next to it. Miho grinned that Price did it. But then Price had noticed the rapids they're in, and they were at the edge of the waterfall.

"Back up! Back up!" Price shouted as he waved his hands quickly to Miho.

"I know! I'm trying!" Miho replied, putting the boat on reverse gear. Due to their position in the water as it was downhill, it was futile, as the boat began to move forward.

"Too late! Brace for impact!" Miho shouted as she grabbed hard onto the boat. Soap and Price did as well.

Seeing how the boat was falling into the water, Miho saw everyone falling into the river. Miho, Price and Soap had entered into the river below hard by their front bodies. Due to the hard impact, she blacked out as she slowly sunk into the waters.

* * *

*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*

"Where am I?" Miho asked. She was in a sitting position, leaning against a rock. Hearing punching from a distance, she was worried that something happened to Price and Soap.

"That must be Soap." Miho said as she got up and slowly walked. The fall from the waterfall made her have pain all over her body, but she had to go. While she moved, she saw two dead bodies, possibly the pavelow pilots.

Arriving near a large complex, she saw it. Soap is lying on the ground, Price getting punched repeatedly.

"Shepherd!" Miho shouted as she ran to Shepherd, intending to kill him.

* * *

10 minutes earlier

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Soap woke up. Miho was right beside him, unconscious. The fall from the waterfall made both of them unconscious, but Soap knew that Shepherd will get away if he doesn't do anything. He helped Miho lean on a rock, as she was unconscious. They lost all of their weapons, so without any firearms, the only thing that he had was his knife. Looks like Miho lost hers.

Deciding to move, he started to walk through the desert. There was a Shadow Company soldier crawling away, trying to escape. He killed the man. Moving on, he found a soldier lying down near the crash site, with a gun in his hand. He was pulling the trigger, trying to kill him. Unfortunately, there was no bullets inside. Soap used the knife in his hand to kill the soldier, then move on.

When he finally saw Shepherd, he ran. Shepherd was fast, running away. Later, he found Shepherd leaning against a car. Soap was too tired to move onto Shepherd.

"You know what they say about revenge...you better be ready to dig two graves... Go ahead and end it. It won't change anything. Hmph. I knew you couldn't do it... You're a good warrior... but you could never take that extra step... to do what was absolutely necessary." Shepherd said to Soap, who was breathing heavily. He was so tired, the pain from moving after a fall from such a high area into a body of water.

"What are you waiting for, MacTavish?" Shepherd asked a tired Soap.

"….."

"Why... why do you really need to ask? …We've been at war... a long time. … We fight for a coalition tired... of mounting losses; direct threats demanded that decisive action."

Shepherd told Soap, who was just standing there. Soap was regaining his strength.

"I'm a patriot, MacTavish, I only did what needed to be done, nothing more. Killing me won't change that." Shepherd continued, telling Soap who was ready to pounce on Shepherd.

"We lost our will to fight that day, forgive me, you understand? The American will to fight has become weak."

Soap had enough. He got his knife high and was about to strike Shepherd when suddenly, Shepherd grabbed his arm and slammed his head on the car. Shepherd took his own knife and stabbed Soap right in the chest. Soap has fallen to the ground and then blacked out.

When Soap regained consciousness, he saw Shepherd loading his magnum.

"Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye. And the world just fuckin' watched."

"Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots."

Shepherd cocked his gun and then aimed his revolver to Soap's face.

"I know you understand."

*DOR*

As Shepherd pulled the trigger, Price suddenly appeared out of nowhere and rammed into Shepherd. The two began a melee fight, with Price kicking Shepherd's gun away. Soap saw the chance and moved his body for the gun while Price was keeping Shepherd busy.

"Oh no you don't" Shepherd said as he kicked the gun away and stomped on Soap's head. Soap blacked out once again.

Soap regained consciousness to see Price fighting Shepherd. Shepherd was losing at first, but then immediately, Price was losing. While Price was being beaten, he saw Miho appear the same way Price did and ram into Shepherd. Sadly, Shepherd grabbed Miho and punched her, knocking her to the ground. He began punching Miho, who was being punched repeatedly, non-stop.

' _I have to do something.'_ Soap thought as he grabbed the handle of the knife. He began to pull, the pain of the knife making him almost faint. He knew that he must not though, to stop Shepherd from killing Miho.

The pain was almost killing him, but he kept going. Using both of his hands, he began to pull, his vision becoming red. He was successful, the knife out of his body. As he had the knife in his hand, he aimed it at Shepherd's head, and threw it with all his might. The knife flew, and Shepherd looked up. It entered Shepherd's eye, killing him.

' _It's all over.'_ Soap thought as he began to slowly lose consciousness. He saw Price and Miho waking up, who saw Soap bleeding from the knife wound.

"Soap! Soap!" Price croaked as he moved to Soap. Miho followed suit, seeing Soap on the ground.

"Miho. Help me bandage Soap." Price told Miho.

"Do you have any bandages on you?" Miho asked.

"I have some here." Price said as he opened one of his pockets, a waterproof bag with bandages in it.

"We better apply it on Soap fast." Miho said as she began to use her medical training from the SAS to use.

"You will be alright, Soap! Don't die on us!" Miho shouted as she began bandaging Soap.

"Come on Soap! You'll make it!" Price encouraged as Miho just finished applying the bandage. The two then picked Soap up. The sound of a Little Black Hawk approaching.

Nikolai got out of the Chopper. He sighed, knowing that Miho, Price, and Soap will be needing him. He can't let those three idiots die. They are comrades in arms, they will fight together, and survive together. He won't let them die, regardless of what Price said. With Shepherd dead, what Price said would still be the same, a one way-trip in a sense.

"I thought I told you this was a one-way trip!" Price said as he and Miho carried Soap on their shoulders.

"Looks like it still is...they'll be looking for us you know..." Nikolai said as he approached them to help move Soap.

"Thanks for coming, Nikolai. We wouldn't be able to save Soap without you." Miho told Nikolai. Suddenly, Soap stumbled.

"Nikolai, we gotta get Soap outta here..." Price said as Nikolai grabbed Soap from Miho. Miho herself was tired from being kicked by Shepherd, about to faint herself.

"Da - I know a place." Nikolai said as the four got into the helicopter.

* * *

4 Hours later, above Northern India

Everyone was in the Black Hawk that Nikolai was piloting. Earlier, Nikolai had to bring them to an airfield to fly to India. Thanks to Shepherd's death by the hands of Miho, Soap, and Price, Task Force 141 was disavowed. There was now a manhunt for the remaining members, so everyone had to abandon their publicly known bases.

With safe houses all over the world, some members decided to regroup in India, where they will be going. Yuri, a former Ultranationalist and Loyalist who joined up with Task Force 141 had a friend, a Loyalist Doctor, who was stationed in India. He agreed to treat Soap, should they bring Soap to him.

"We're almost near the safe house. I had my contacts in a hidden airfield in Northern India to let us land, and they have fuel for this chopper to be ready for use." Nikolai told the group that was in the plane. Soap was lying on a stretcher, with Miho and Price looking over him. He was asleep.

"I hope your contacts won't sell us out, Nikolai. We're on the shit-list of many, which is a terrible thing. I suppose the doctor is waiting for us in the safe house?" Price asked.

"Da. The doctor will be ready to treat Soap as soon as we arrive in the house. He was informed of our situation."

"Just ensure that we arrive quickly. Soap is in critical condition." Price replied.

"So, Nikolai. Why did you come to pick us up, and how did you know where we were?" Miho asked.

"I was using the satellite to track your movement. I couldn't fly there with all the anti-air in the area, and you already got the codes for the satellite that we bought, so I connected to Shepherd's surveillance system. A crashed Pave Low on fire is obviously something that you don't see every day, so I followed the damn crash site and found you guys a little distance away from there." Nikolai replied.

"So that is how you found us. Thanks for the save again."

"No worries. You don't owe me anything either. Just stay alive. That is all I ask." Nikolai replied.

"We're not going down that easily, Nikolai." Price replied.

"That is exactly what you told me earlier, and see how I had to bail you out of that mess. You know, I am right.

The rest of the flight was flown in silence, the Black Hawk's engines being the only sound, except for the occasional sound of Soap waking up and startling Miho and Price

…

" _Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fuckin' watched. Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots… I know you understand."_

Lieutenant General John Shepherd - August 16th, 2016, KIA


	29. Chapter 28 - Investigation

Nanajuu Yon Angurāfisshu Cafe, Ooarai Schoolship. 09.00 AM

.

"It's a nice place, honestly."

"Never though you'll bring us here."

"I know, mother."

"This is nice. There's a new place for us to visit again."

"Good to hear that then, Erika."

"So… we're waiting for Ami?"

"Yes, mother. She'll come soon enough."

.

Miho is with her sister, her mother and Erika in one of the known best restaurant in town. This cafe was the one she recognized when she was walking out with her former Anglerfish team after school. And also this was her favorite café in town. Shiho felt pretty tempting for her daughter to invite them here. Maho and Erika however, glad Miho invite them here to have a good snack.

Miho was wearing her dark grey T-shirt and blue jeans. Plain olive drab bandana was tied around her neck, not covering her face. She was wearing her black tactical fingerless gloves in case of hand injuries. And also wearing a black hoodie jacket with 4 pouches on the front due to the cloudy weather (or she really wanted to wear it today). Her M9 Berretta Pistol was hidden underneath the jacket.

Shiho was now wearing her long sleeve blue shirt and olive drab trousers. Something that Maho and Miho glad to see aside from her usual everyday-formal outfit. Maho and Erika on the other hand were both wearing their Kuromorimine school uniforms.

They were waiting for Ami for the moment. Not only because they want to meet and have a good lunch. They also wanted to talk with Ami regarding the kidnapping of an Ooarai's student, Ogin. Maho and Erika had heard about this from Akaboshi and the commanders back in the school. And to hear Ogin has been kidnapped two weeks ago… it was pretty scary for them to hear. For Shiho, as a mother, to hear someone had been kidnapped like that, it sends chills into her mind.

After the snacks and drinks were serve to them, including Ami's favorite snacks. Ami had showed up in the café and looked around to see if Miho and her company were here. Ami had found that Miho and her group were sitting at a round table near the counter of the café. Ami greeted them and sat there as the group did the same. Ami was already wearing her official JGSDF uniform now.

Ami was surprised to know that Miho had picked Ami's favorite snack, the Dorayaki. Odd though, Ami never told Miho of her favorite snack. But if Ami had to guess... Miho must've asked Ghost about it. Ami was felt embarrassed if Miho found out she likes Ghost.

"How is your day, Ami?" Miho asked in a calming tone.

"Been great, how's yours?" Ami asked back.

"We're doing fine for now," Shiho replied with a small smile.

"And where's your hat, Miho?" Ami asked as she took a bite of her snack. "I thought you always wear that around."

"I will wear it if I feel I want to," Miho replied with a confident shrug.

"Oh… I see," Ami replied as she leans back against her chair. "And Maho, how are the students doing now? I heard Kuromorimine's restriction of not having a fight with Ooarai's is still in effect."

"Quiet… resentful actually," Maho replied in upset as she scratched her head. "Knowing Miho was the one who declared this restriction."

"Though, I can't argue with that about it," Shiho then looked over to Miho. "Miho knew what is she doing right now after all."

Ami only chuckled as Miho only looked at her with her right brow raised. "At least you found a way to make a truce between Kuromorimine and Ooarai."

"You bet," Miho replied with a pointed finger. "So what do you think about the truce?"

"It's very great actually," Ami replied with a smile. "No more cases of Kuromorimine's fight against Ooarai. The last year was the worst one."

"Worst?" Miho asked curiously and cold.

"Ooarai had thrown bricks to our school before because of your fake death and our hatred to them," Erika explained to her in concern.

But then Miho's imaginable side spoke out. "Why aren't they throwing Molotovs I wonder?"

They all were a little terrified of what she said. "You're not serious, right?" Maho asked in concern.

"Maybe yes, maybe not."

They weren't so sure if Miho was being sarcastic or Miho was going insane.

Ami then took another bite of her Dorayaki, attempted to change the subject of the topic. "By the way, it's nice of you to buy me Dorayaki. It's my favorite. But how did you know about that?"

"I asked Ghost about it," Miho replied with a tilted head. "And I gotta say, you're really beautiful and charming to him."

Everyone except Miho looked at Ami with their smirks. Ami on the other hand quickly rolled her eyes to behind her as she blushed in embarrassment. Ami was also surprised that Miho knew Ami likes Ghost, despite his intend to keep some things secret to her. Ami didn't come over here to hear that.

Ami then looked back at Miho in upset. "Miho…"

"I know, Ami," Miho replied with a nod before she leans against her chair. "I didn't invite you here to hear that."

"But I suppose you knew anything about Ogin's kidnappers," Shiho added with a flat tone as her hands were already piled on top of each other on the table.

"Rogue Foxes," Ami answered with her eyes closed, she then sips her drink. "It's the most wanted criminal syndicate across Japan. Frankly, we are having a hard time to deal with them."

"By hard, you mean they left no trace?" Miho asked with her brows raised.

"Yeah, something like that," Ami replied with a nod. "Able to kidnap a lot of people for blackmailing people to give them money and shut everyone else who knows about this. Also involved in mafia activity as well. They do their job pretty well that almost all Japanese Police Departments cannot able to interfere with these criminal activities."

Shiho, Maho and Erika were pretty concerned of the threat they're facing with. Miho however, only gave a cold look as if that wouldn't be a problem for her. A kind of look that made everyone including Ami to be confused with. Why would Miho wasn't concern of this threat?

"So… you didn't get any lead about this?" Miho asked in an unamused tone.

"Actually, we only have one lead about this," Ami replied with her index finger raised.

Ami then pulled out a picture and putted it on the table. The picture was a face of a short hair skinny Japanese man. His age would be in his 25s and his hair was shaped into spiky one. Green eyes, round face and pale skin. Nothing out of the ordinary of him except for his characteristic as a punk in formal uniform.

"Keteru Jotokani," Ami said his name. "He is involved in thievery and mob activity. Despite this, he manage to avoid getting himself arrested because the cops couldn't find any evidence to put him in jail. He should be your first lead."

"Why him?" Maho asked as Miho took the picture and looked closer to it, Erika then continued. "Why is he our first lead?"

"He was also involved with the Rogue Foxes, though indirectly," Ami replied, she was rubbing her own hands. "He was a messenger and a courier that time."

"So that's why…" Shiho added with an understanding nod, before looking to her younger daughter. "Are you sure about this, Miho?"

"Don't worry, I can handle it," Miho replied with a sure nod. "Do you know where he could be?"

"He always be in the city of this port," Ami replied, but then changed to an unsure tone. "Though, we don't know where he's always hanging out. The last time we check, he was at one of the bars before going off to someplace else to hangout."

"I see, I'll handle that one from here," Miho replied, she then puts the picture inside one of her jacket pockets. "Thanks for the information."

"Your welcome, Miho-san," Ami replied with a nod. "Now… how about we have a good conversation here as we eat our snacks here?"

"Sounds great for me," Erika added with a nod of agreement.

They then enjoyed their snacks that were served on the table, but then Shiho asked. "How's your day back in the JGSDF office, Ami-sama?"

"I'm very glad that I didn't get to do some heavy stuff back there," Ami stated happily as she bites her Dorayaki. "The 141s do a lot of good job out there. And they're very trusted."

"Despite the craziness they made back there?" Erika asked, in which she achieved Miho's emotionless stare. "What?"

"Well yeah, despite that," Ami added as she points at her. "But hey, they all not that bad. But I'm pretty worried about that Russian-chemic maniac."

"You mean Bazarov?" Miho asked.

"Yeah, him," Ami replied with a nod and a pointed finger to her. "Mentioned about making some type of acid compound that can be used on tank shells."

"Heh, crazy bastard," Miho said as she shook. "Don't tell me he blew up his own workshop yesterday."

"Eh? How did you know?" Ami asked in surprise, what Miho said was the exact thing that happened back in TF 141 HQ.

"Whenever he does that, he usually blows stuff up," Miho replied as Maho glanced at Miho. "Though, it's normal for us."

"Normal? Aren't you worried everyone got harmed by that?" Erika asked in disbelieve of what she said.

"The only person who got harmed by that is only Bazarov," Miho replied, but then paused in remembrance. "Except for that one time."

Everyone stare straight to her, they were in heavy concern. "That one time?" Shiho asked as if she misheard.

"I rather not talk about it," Miho replied as her hand waved to her mother. "Besides, we don't want the whole JGSDF base worried about him, aren't we?"

Everyone was pretty discomfort of what she said, Ami had hoped that Miho had written some rules for him. "Yeah… you're right," Ami added with a nod and a false smile.

They then continued to finish up their snacks, until Erika wanted to know something. "Hey, Miho."

"Yeah, mate?" Miho asked as she looked at Erika.

"I was wondering… umm, are you okay if I ask you on something?" Erika asked, pretty doubt on saying something to Miho.

"What is it?" Miho asked back to her.

Erika paused in doubt, before replying. "Do you ever thought about… the 62nd National Tournament we failed last year?"

Ami and Shiho had wondered why she asked that. However, Maho was quiet surprise to hear Erika said that. While Miho, was still looking forward and lowly sighed as if she was sick talking about this. Miho only stayed cold on that, knowing this subject had been mentioned when she got back home a month ago. Miho then turned her head to Erika, still giving her cold look.

"Funny… I was waiting for someone to ask me that," Miho coldly said as she stares straight to her eyes. "But I was expecting to hear that not from you."

Erika had felt discomfort just from what she was saying and what her stares were looked like. "Why did you want to ask that to me?" Miho asked coldly and calmly.

"I just… want to know if you still remembered about it…" Erika replied nervously due to Miho's cold tone, hoped a little if she didn't forget that. "And also want to know if you're… doing fine after that."

Miho stared at her coldly for a moment, before replying. "I still remembered about it, you load of bollocks."

Everyone was taken back of what she said, Miho then continued. "And if you ask how do I feel about it right now, I just want to put a knife in your eye if you were my enemy."

Erika was pretty scared of the threat she gave was true, everyone else only stay put to stay calm as Miho continued with an angry tone. "You should be grateful that I got through a lot of ordeal to get back home here. But… you didn't, even if you wondered how I survived. Remembering back again, you hate me more before that Tournament. Just because I was 'too soft' to you. And after I came back you just scared of me and wanted me to be soft again. Not like a coward, but like an arsehole. You're just an ungrateful arrogant bastard who hates me, especially when I was with my sister. If I had changed that time, I should have killed you."

Miho harshly stood off her chair and immediately headed for the exit of the café, leaving her mother, her sister, Erika and Ami at the table. They all were watching Miho left in upset and also wondering where she had gone now. Erika can't believe to hear what Miho said to her by herself. What Miho said about Erika herself was true, Erika had never said anything that she was glad Miho was alive back then. her words tore her heart more than a knife.

Everyone then slowly looked back at each other, before looking back at Erika. Erika was right now, nervous and doubt on what she's going to do right now. If Miho had let Erika talk, she would have tried to apologize to her. But she didn't, Miho just shut her off and left her like that. Now, it wasn't Erika who is hostile to Miho but it was Miho who is hostile to Erika.

She only stayed silent as she looked down and thought. _"I hope she forgives me one day."_

* * *

St. Gloriana Schoolship, a few blocks away from the bookstore. 11.00 AM.

.

"Where's the book store, Darjeeling-sama?"

"Just a few blocks from here, Ms. Jajka."

"We'll be there soon enough."

"Uszka, Jajka. Care to have some tea?"

"No, no thanks. We're good."

.

Jajka and Uzska were both walking with Darjeeling and Pekoe on the streets of the Gloriana's schoolship. They were doing their good visit to Glorianas and wanted to meet Darjeeling again. Darjeeling was of course Jajka's good friend after her Tankathlon match with St. Gloriana's light armored forces. They were right now traveling down the streets to go to the bookstore.

Aside from the nice visit they're having right now, they still have some discomfort. Par examplar, Uzska's broken fingers. Darjeeling and Pekoe were both terrified to her broken fingers by themselves after hearing what Miho ever did back in the tea party. Thankfully however, Uzska's fingers were on healing and she still can commands her tank as usual. Uzska's fingers bandage a little to make sure it heals properly.

Note for themselves however. If they meet Miho, don't set her off.

Aside from that, the weather was lovely as the sun warmly shines the city of the schoolship. The roads next to them were nearly empty however due to the absence of cars driving down those roads, let it be one or two cars sometimes pass those roads. Though, the sidewalk was also feels empty too, except for occasional group of five or four people passed them by. They also noticed the grocery they passed by, the owner was happily sorting his goods outside the store. Darjeeling had commented that she feels like in London.

They four were all heading for the bookstore now. They have heard there are new novels are in sell in the store. Jajka and Uzska were also interested of this, knowing they like to read novels. They have enough money to get some books for themselves. But most of all, they are glad that Miho wasn't here.

"It's a charming day, isn't it?" Darjeeling asked with a smile to Jajka.

"Yes, sure is, Darjeeling-sama," Jajka replied with a nod. "But why do you bother bringing your tea around?"

The 'tea' she meant was inside a thermos bottle, not in a cup if you asked. "Well, I love tea, my dear. Even love it more when I bringing it along."

"By the way though, how's your fingers, Uzska?" Pekoe asked in concern.

"A little bit stiff, I think," Uzska replied as she looked at her broken left fingers. "But it's healing properly."

"How did Miho broke your fingers anyway?" Darjeeling asked curiously as she looked at her broken fingers. "I only heard from Pepperoni that Miho broke your girls' bones and… fingers. One of them was bleeding on her face."

Uzska and Jajka uncomfortably looked back at her, before Jaka replied. "Well… she splits her fingers like this."

Jajka gestured how Miho did that back in the day on her own fingers. "And just quickly… bent them like this," Jajka then bents her fingers like how Miho bent Uzska's fingers until broken.

Darjeeling and Pekoe were both horrified of how Miho could broke Uzska's fingers. "Goodness sake, just like that?!" Darjeeling asked in disbelieve.

"Yeah, just like that," Jajka replied with a frown nod.

"Oh gosh, how a girl like her could do that?" Pekoe asked in disbelieve as she leans her head forward a little to look at the Bonples.

"I don't know, but…" Jajka paused with a shook. "She was… terrifying…"

"Terrifying?" Pekoe asked as she and Darjeeling raised their eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Her aura was something I never felt before," Jajka replied slowly in doubt. "Her aura was more powerful than myself."

"More powerful than you?" Darjeeling asked confusedly. "Can you explain it much clearer for me?"

"Her aura was like… I don't know, like if she's seen a lot of wars…" Jajka explained slowly as she thought of the fitting words for it. "She was pretty sharp when I said I'll get my revenge on Miho. She had me knifepointed first after I said that, but for some reason… she just gave it to me like she didn't care. But then she quickly made knifepointed at her right at her neck and asked me to kill her…"

They all had to stopped walking for a moment, Darjeeling and Pekoe froze at those words. Miho had asked that to Nonna if she wanted to, but she can't. Jajka and Uzska had wondered why they were froze like that. But then they continued to walk again slowly after that.

"At least, she didn't come to your tea party days ago, right?" Uzska asked to them, to her surprise she received their deadpanned glares.

"Actually… she did come…" Pekoe said agitatedly, Uzska and Jajka glared at them in disbelieve.

"Wait… why did she come to your tea party?" Uzska asked as she was surprised.

"Anchovy had invited her," Darjeeling replied slowly, Jajka and Uzska have reminded themselves to not harass her again.

"Did she had a fight there?" Jajka asked calmly in concern.

"She did, but…" Darjeeling paused for a moment. "It was Momo who started the fight. You were right about her though. She had beaten Momo up brutally to the point where she tried to choke her to death."

"WHAT!?" Uzska and Jajka asked aloud in unison, then continued by Jajka. "Did she…?"

"Don't worry, she didn't kill her. But yeah, it all started when the Ooarais and the Pravdas were giving her an edge by insulting her," Darjeeling replied with a shrug. "I guess they have learned to not set her off. I didn't know she could do worse than what I thought."

"I see…" Uzska said lowly to herself.

"I hoped you've stopped harassing everyone after that," Darjeeling said to them, which made them surprise. "Anchovy told me about what happened to her before my tea party."

"Well… I guess so," Jajka replied doubtedly with a shrug, then saw something ahead. "There's the bookstore."

"Oh dear, I thought it would be a little farther," Pekoe commented as they reached the bookstore.

They all then then entered the bookstore and began to look for the books they wanted. The bookstore was a little crowded for sure, aside for some Gloriana students were also there to buy some books. The interior of the bookstore however was pretty delightful, the walls of the front building were installed with only glasses of windows. The floors and the rest of the walls were made from high-quality wood, the ceiling however was made from cement and colored in fresh light blue. There were two kinds of shelves in the bookstore, the classic wooden one and the four-side shelves.

They were began looking at the far side of the bookstore, in the romance section. They loved romance novels, except for Uzska who prefers drama one. But Uzska would give a try reading one. They continued to looked around, but they were surprised when they looked to their right. There were three men on their right, also looking for novels. But they are quite rare people to see.

2 of the 3 men have their skins colored in black like the African-American people. One black man had a strong-medium build body, thin black hair on his head, and was wearing a light blue plain T-shirt and black jeans. The other black man was looked rather a little skinny and his face looked like one of the real African people. He was fully bald, he may looked little skinny but he has good body build, and was wearing a zipped up olive-colored jacket and grey pants.

The last man however was normal for them because he was white. But also he had some little difference. He has short black hair and his thin mustache and thin beard on his chin. His face was square (or so Jajka thought) and he was looked like a British. He was wearing his brown long-sleeve buttoned shirt and blue jeans. He has a messenger bag on his left side of his waist.

Though, aside the odd people they saw. They just continued to look for the new books that had been released today. Though, they didn't manage to find anything until they had to search near those three odd men. Jajka helped Darjeeling to find the book she wanted to read, until they hear that.

"Waa maxay buuggan?" the African man asked as he looked at the book he was holding.

Everyone was deadpanned to hear that odd language. What the hell he was talking? Jajka and Darjeeling turned their heads to the men while Uzska and Pekoe turned at them, full body.

"Can you just speak English?" the other black man asked in concern. "The people in this bookstore could have been suspicious about you."

"Let him be, mate," the British man said with a small smile and in a calming tone. "Who knows people around here are curious about our friend here."

"Besides, we're not here to be discriminating you know?" the African man added, much to the surprise of the listening girls.

The black man in blue plain T-shirt just chuckled and looked at the African man. "Discriminating? Really? We three just buying books here and you-?"

"Excuse me," Darjeeling said aloud to the men, in which they turned attention to Darjeeling and the girls. Jajka was of course curious about them.

"I'm not being rude but… if I'm not wrong," Darjeeling said, she then points to the African man by guessing. "is your name is Garhaaye?"

The men only gave their shocking stares while Jajka and the rest was surprised that Darjeeling knew one of the men's name. "Wait, how did you know my name?" Garhaaye asked with his head tilted and his right brow raised.

"Well… we both heard and saw Miho was talking with you through the phone at our tea party," Pekoe replied softly, but also nervous. Jajka and Uzska of course were both quiet disbelieve to hear that. "She said it was Garhaaye who called her and you both talked in… Somalia.. I guess..?"

The men were more surprised to know that these girls ever met Miho before, the British man replied to them. "It's Somali, young lady. And yes, Miho is Garhaaye's friend."

Darjeeling and Pekoe smiled to know they were right, Jajka and Uzska however were both uncomfortable of this. "Are you Miho Nishizumi's friends as well?" the black man in blue plain T-shirt asked curiously.

"Well yeah, we're Miho's friends," Darjeeling replied with a nod, but then frowned. "Well, except for these girls from Bonple School here…"

"Yeah, we're actually acquaintances," Jajka replied to them uncomfortably as they looked away a little with Jajka scratching her own head.

The men were looked so surprised when they heard the Darjeeling said that. "Hang on, Bonples? Are you Jajka and Uzska?" the British man asked with his finger pointed.

"Huh?! How did you know?" Uzska asked in surprise as Jajka was taken back of his question.

"We all heard that you started a fight with her," the African man replied. "You were harassing an Anzio student badly than it should be."

"And then you set Miho off just by taunting her and made her watched you harassing that student," the other black man added, unamused. "And now you learned to not set her off."

They all silent for a moment as the girls of Bonples embarrassed of themselves, but then the British man added. "At least you and Miho are both cool now."

The girls were all surprised of that. "Wait, she did say that to you?" Jajka asked with her eyebrows raised, she didn't remember or heard Miho ever said that to her.

"Well, that's what she said to us," the Canadian-African black man replied with a shrug. "So… we're cool now."

"Okay… we didn't introduce ourselves properly. My name is Darjeeling," she said as she shook hands with the British man, and then everyone followed suit to each other. "And this my friend here, Orange Pekoe. Well, I don't think I need to introduce these two friends of mine for you…"

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," the British man replied with a nod and smile. "My name is Royce, I came from Birmingham, UK. And you know my friend here, which is Garhaaye. He is a true Somalian, a quiet harsh place from where he come from if I'll tell you."

"I see," Pekoe replied with a nod of understanding.

"Then my last mate here, his name is Chemo," Royce added as he holds Chemo, the Canadian-American black man by his shoulder. "A best friend of mine from Canada."

"Wow, you all come from far places to get here," Jajka added with her arms crossed. "But why bother to come all the way here?"

"Let's just say we wanted to make our own new life here," Chemo replied. "Life in London was good for us, but we felt like wanted a new change."

"So, how did you all first met Miho?" Darjeeling asked curiously.

"We first met when she washed up in London," Royce replied as his left hand was inside his pocket, carefully choosing his words. "We were the first to found Miho washed up in the rivers of London and got her to the hospital. Aside from our disbelieve to know she was from here, from Japan, she had decided to live in London for quiet a long time. We three also live there along with Miho, until she had decided to tell us that she's going back to Japan. Yeah, it might be nice to live in London but… it was a bit hard living there than we thought, so we came to Japan with her to settle up a new life here. Hopefully we could succeed."

Jajka and Uzska can't believe about how they first met Miho. But what did catch their suspicion was the statement that she gets washed up in London a year ago. Though, they sounded pretty not bullshitting about it.

"How did she get washed up all the way to London?" Jajka asked in disbelieve and wonder. "She may have died from drowning that time but that sounds just impossible.

"I have wondered and asked her the same thing, but Miho didn't know how she survived," Pekoe replied to the Bonples before they looked back at the men. "Do you know how she got washed up there?"

"We don't even know either," Chemo replied with a shrug. "The only thing we hear about were only rumors of any possibility she got washed up there. Some say animals had brought her there, some say that fishermen saw her body and transport her all the way there and left her in the river, and some even said that she was teleported."

All of that was of course a lie. But from the serious and calming tone they made when they are stating that, they were pretty convinced of what they said.

"I understand," Jajka replied with a nod, then she continued to searched for the new book she wanted. "So… you were looking for a book?"

"Ah yes, we're looking for a novel ourselves here," Royce replied quickly as he turned towards the bookshelves. "But now we're trying to find a romance novel for Garhaaye, trying to find a book that is suitable for him."

"Oh, well I'm looking for one as well," Darjeeling said as they all then looked back at the bookshelves to search. "Did you see a novel called 'The Blooming Of Night'?"

"Oh?" Chemo then pulled out a book from the shelves he was searching and showed it to them. "You mean this one?"

"Yes! That one!" Darjeeling then politely takes the book from him. "Thank you for that. Now let's see if we can find one for you gentlemen."

"Sounds great," Royce added in consent.

The girls then spend their time with the men looking for the books they wanted. After that, to the girls' surprise the men have invited them to have a lunch at a nearby restaurant. Normally they would decline the men's invitation, but knowing they were actually Miho's friends they accept it. They have spend their time with the men, chatting happily. They were surprised to know these men are much more nicer people than the Japanese people.

Jajka and Uska were more relieved that Miho hadn't tell the men to give them a lesson. Jajka and Uzska had asked the men about how's Miho looked like from her personality. To their surprise, Miho was said to be very intelligent, more intelligent than the tank commanders and she was wise to know what to do and what not to do. When they asked about Miho's dark side, the men felt a bit uncomfortable about it but they talk despite that. Miho had held a heavy grudge for what happened to her, and she had learned to fight a lot and very determined to know which is right and wrong.

If Jajka and Uzska had met her again, they better choose their words carefully.

* * *

All-Stars University. 12:00 AM

.

"Kon'nichiwa, watashi no aisuru Arisu. How are you doing along with the commanders?"

"I'm doing fine along with the commanders here, mother. How about you?"

"Same as you, my dear Alice. Do you mind if I talk with you girls for a moment?"

"Sure, Shimada-sama. Come sit with us."

.

Chiyo Shimada was right now in the cafeteria of the University. She had come over there because she wants to have a lunch and also want to be with her dearest daughter. She is so attached to her daughter that she treats Alice like if she was a 7 years old girl (She's 14 years old). Chiyo had never felt that Alice was annoyed by how cared she was and how she was treating her, even though it's all the good things that Chiyo did.

Chiyo sat down next to her daughter along with Rumi who sat aside Alice. Megumi and Azumi were both sitting across them at the table. They were having a good break after they were training two hours ago. They were doing their training well, until that they deserved a good break after that. They are really professional tank commanders, Alice is the expert.

But something tells Chiyo that Miho was more an expert than Alice. Veteran, at least.

Chiyo hugged her daughter by her shoulders and said to her. "You have trained very well, Alice."

"Arigato, Okaa-sama," Alice replied with a bow. "We always stay professional, like you said, Okaa-sama."

"And of course, it was very fun," Rumi added in consent.

"But it would be more challenging for us if you join us to do a tankery match," Megumi added to Chiyo.

"Oh, believe me. You don't want me to fight you in the tankery match," Chiyo replied calmly with a smile. "You can't even find me when I'm shooting your tanks down."

Despite the nice image she showed, it was true that every commanders in the university had fear her. In some cases they can felt eerie to be around her when she was being nice like that.

A different kind of 'nice'.

"Umm… right…" Azumi added nervously as the rest did except Alice. "But surely we're going to be alright when we have a match with other professionals."

"Yeah, we're like ninjas here," Rumi added in consent. "They won't know what we're doing and where we're going to beat them."

"I know," Chiyo replied with a nod. "But I wonder what will happen if you had a match with Miho Nishizumi."

They all including Alice were all deadpanned of what she said. "Pardon me, who?" Megumi asked again as if she misheard.

"Miho Nishizumi," Alice replied flatly. "You all heard news about her, right?"

Everyone then nodded in acknowledgement. "We still can't believe she came back alive after a year of her supposed death," Azumi said to them, she then drinks her bottle of water.

"But we were taken back that time was to see her in the TV when she was saving people in that burning apartment in Yokohama," Megumi added with her both open hands raised in front of her. "And to hear her shouted like that to her own family…"

"Wait, what do you mean she shouts to her own family?" Alice asked confusedly. "I did hear the news but I didn't watch the news."

"Alice… it's better if you grow a bit older to hear that," Chiyo replied to her as she softly held her hand.

"Okaa-sama, I'm already grown up," Alice replied in annoyance as she glances at her. "I'm okay to hear what she said."

"Alice, the words she said was more than harsh that time," Chiyo replied as she rubbed her hair. "Just please, Alice… I don't want you to dislike Miho."

Alice, who had remembered that Miho had changed like what she heard back in her first meeting back in Nishizumi Residence, sighed sincerely and replied. "Alright, Okaa-sama. If that's what you say."

Megumi, Rumi and Azumi were surprised to hear Chiyo said that to Alice. "Wait, you both ever meet her after her disappearance?" Azumi asked.

"About a month ago, when Alice along with me have a visit to the Nishizumis at the night," Chiyo replied after a pause of nodding. "She came over after everyone is present in the Nishizumi house.

"Eih?" the commanders gasped in surprise. "Did she come alone that time?"

"Ermm… yes, she did come alone," Chiyo replied, her tone has a hidden nervous.

Which was noticed by Megumi. "Are you hiding something, Chiyo-sama?"

"N-no, I'm not hiding anything," Chiyo replied with a shook, her tone was sounded a bit worried.

"I think you're lying, Chiyo-sama," Megumi replied back, Rumi and Azumi then began to stare at her in little suspicion and wonder.

Before Chiyo was able to reply, Alice answered. "She's actually thinking if Miho could join the Exhibition Match or not."

…

…

…

That was a lie, it was clear for Alice and Chiyo that Miho didn't want to get involved with tankery match. But the commanders took that one as a fact of why Chiyo sounded worried or nervous.

"You… want to invite Miho Nishizumi to do a match?" Rumi asked to Chiyo, stares at her blankly. "I mean… she's been gone for a year and came back. She didn't do any tankery for a year, right?"

Chiyo nodded as reply, Rumi continued. "She could do some training with her mother again if she wants to do that."

"I don't think she needs one," Chiyo replied with a shook. "I heard from Shiho-sama that Miho did a tankery match with the Kuromorimine teams before and won. But not after her sister had begged her to do a tankery match."

"Wait, she did won?" Azumi asked. "But what did you mean by her sister 'begged' to Miho to do a match?"

"Well…" Chiyo trailed off as everyone including her daughter stared at her in full attention. "Miho didn't want to go back to do tankery match because she had enough of it after what happened back in the 62nd National Tournament and that incident in Ooarai. Shiho said that when Maho asked Miho to do a tankery match, Miho just went angry and chased her around with a knife."

It was a lie about what weapon Miho chose, but of course it sent shivers down the spine of the commanders including Alice.

"But… she agreed to do the match at the end?" Megumi asked worriedly.

"Reluctantly," Chiyo replied flatly, she then scratched her head. "From what I heard, Miho able took down a Maus tank with only one shot from 1 km with no difficulty."

…

…

…

"I'm sorry, what?!" Azumi asked in shock, the rest did the same including Alice. "That's impossible! Maus is a hard tank to take down!"

"It seems that Miho had make it look possible," Chiyo added with a shrug. "Neither myself or Shiho-sama knew how did she do that."

"Well… it's good to hear that aside from the news about Miho had a fight with some students who started the trouble," Rumi added in relieve.

"You mean that time Miho broke those Bonple students' bones because they were harassing Duce Anchovy?" Megumi asked and Rumi replied with a nod, they all were a little terrified about that because they heard that news before. "I'm wondering how did she able to do something like that."

"Miho had lived in London for a year," Alice added to answer her. "She had to learn how to fight there because her life in London was a little rough. But… she's a hard girl from what I saw."

"Oh… I see," Azumi replied lowly in awkward, everyone reacted the same. "Well, it's good to know more about Miho Nishizumi from both of you."

"You bet, Azumi," Chiyo replied with a pointed finger. "I hope Miho is doing alright now."

They all chuckled briefly before Rumi asked her. "By the way, any news about the upcoming Exhibition Match?"

"It's still in debate for now, but…" Chiyo paused. "It will probably began this week or the next week."

"I see," Megumi nodded in understanding. "You know? It's been a while to see an Exhibition Match between 3 schools vs 3 schools."

"I know," Alice added with a nod. "So… how many tanks are allowed in this match?"

"It should be 35 tanks the last time I heard," Chiyo replied as she remembers with her finger under her chin. "Guess they still aren't satisfied to see 30 tanks in the field."

"Are the school teams are still the same?" Azumi asked.

"Yeah, it's still the same," Alice replied. "But I'm not comfortable about that."

"Why are you not comfortable about it, Commander?" Rumi asked in wonder.

Alice felt shy to answer, but then replies. "Ooarai and Kuromorimine are on the same team."

…

…

…

Alice was right about that. They all fell silent after hearing that. It was quiet an intense situation to know that Ooarai is hostile with Kuromorimine. The commanders including Alice didn't know why that happens. But Chiyo knows it.

"There was a reason for this actually," Chiyo said to them, they then turned their heads to her. "It was Anzu's idea to do it."

"Wait, Anzu's idea?" Alice asked.

"Yeah," Chiyo replied with a nod. "She thought this might be a good way to have a truce with the Kuromorimine, or maybe able to start a friendship with them."

"Really? I doubt it will happen that way," Rumi added in doubt.

Chiyo only stared at her in confusion and in a moment of silence. "You didn't hear it, did you?"

Everyone were only confused as they stare back at her. "Huh? What do you mean?" Megumi asked as Azumi drinks her bottle of water.

Chiyo looked away for a moment with a sigh, before replying as she looked back. "Ooarai and Kuromorimine have made a truce to stop their hostilities with each other a couple days ago."

"Eh?" Rumi asked as the rest were surprised. Azumi gives her water to Megumi to drink as Rumi continued. "Did Anzu and Maho agreed to make the truce?"

"Actually…" Chiyo then paused for a moment, seemingly in discomfort. "It was Miho who made the truce."

"PFFFFT"

They were very surprised of what they just heard. So surprising that Azumi had choked on the drink and spits it out at Megumi on her face. Megumi had to clean off the water of her face for that in disgust while Rumi and Alice were both deadpanned on what Chiyo said. It was pretty unbelievable, even if that fact was going out publicly.

"Really, mother?" Alice asked as she was astonished to hear that. "How did she do it?"

"Well… she announced the truce to all students of Kuromorimine first before telling that to Ooarai," Chiyo replied as they all paid full attention to her. "Though, of course she had to add a threat. Something about whoever starts the fight, they're going to have a nice talk with Miho."

"Eh, a nice talk?" Azumi asked as they were confused of the threat.

"That's… not what I meant," Chiyo replied awkwardly. It took them for moments to understand, until Rumi understands what she meant.

"Oh… you mean… o-ok…"

* * *

Outside both schoolships, in the city of Osaka. 12.00 PM

.

"Kay? We didn't expect to meet you here."

"Along with Mika here."

"Ah, that's alright girls. We just want to do our visit here."

"And also I wanted to meet you as well. So… shall we take a walk?"

.

Miho along with Erika were both walking down the streets with Kay and Mika on the way. They four were happened to be met after they were visiting a museum of art in Osaka. Miho was really glad to meet Kay again, she had heard Kay had another mission yesterday. A mission involving something about information leak within the Japanese police departments. She was happy to hear from Viktor that Kay succeed that mission yesterday.

They four are now walking down the streets ahead of them. The weather was good, sun shining high and birds chirping throughout the air. The road next to them was not empty nor even crowded with cars. A lot of people are walking by the sidewalk they're in, but most of the people around them were looked in a hurry probably for jobs. Some elementary kids ran pass them, having fun with themselves. Miho had to hide her tactical gloves to not arouse suspicion about the gloves' origin.

Erika wanted to accompany Miho for a walk in the city actually. Miho had asked why she wanted to and Erika replied with just wanted to accompany her. Despite the unconvincing reason she gave, Miho let her accompany her. Kay and Mika on the other hand were both had a promise to meet in Osaka to spend their time together along with their own vice commanders, who were gone to someplace else than here.

Miho then looked over to Kay and Mika as they walked, Erika stays put as Miho asked. "So how's the day for both ya'?"

"It's very well for the both of us, Miho-san," Mika replied softly as she closed her eyes happily. "How's the day for you two?"

"It's great I suppose," Erika replied, to which Miho glared at her.

"What about back in the morning, mate?" Miho asked coldly.

Taken back of her cold attitude, Erika then replied. "Uhm… half-great."

"Uhm… did you guys just had a trouble back in the morning?" Kay asked.

Miho sighed, then looks back at Kay. "Nothing, it's just… I'm just upset to think about what happened to me before I disappeared."

"You mean when you were… humiliated by Kuromorimine?" Mika asked softly in discomfort.

"More than that actually, but yeah," Miho replied with a nod.

"Miho…" Erika called, Miho looked at her. "I know what you mean-"

"We're not talking about it, Erika," Miho coldly replied, their pace fortunately still the same.

"Miho, you should take it easy," Mika suggested as she held her shoulder. "Just try to relax for now."

"Huh… that reminds me," Miho added then paused as she blankly stares forward.

Miho then pulled out a lighter and a small box out of her pockets of her jacket. They were a bit taken back to see Miho wanted to smoke. After taking a cigar and put the box back in the pocket, she lights up the cigar and puts back her lighter. She then inhales her cigar and breathes out a fog of smoke.

"Stress relieve I suppose?" Mika asked.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod as she smokes.

"Isn't that a man's thing, Miho?" Kay asked. "I mean, fast foods and burning calories are normal for girls. But this… you're an 18 years old girl, y'know? And girls never do something like that."

"Well, I do," Miho replied coldly as she smokes.

"Don't anything else besides smoking could cheer you up?" Erika asked curiously.

"Did try horses first, but it didn't work," Miho replied, she then breathes out a small fog of smoke. "If horses didn't work, smoking will. If tea party didn't work, smoking will. If taking a walk didn't work-"

"Smoking will?" Kay added interrogatively.

"Yeah, smoking will," Miho replied with a nod, then continued to smoke.

"When did you even start smoking?" Erika asked with her left brow raised.

"After I got washed up in London," Miho replied. "At least I smoke one or two cigars a day."

"I see," Mika added with a nod. "By the way, the wind told me you have a visit to Ooarai recently."

"It's true," Miho replied, then tilted her head to her right whilst not bothering to look at Mika. "I visited Ooarai with Erika and my sister actually."

"That's a fast way to get Kuromorimine in trouble," Kay added as her eyes looking at her. "At least Kuromorimine has made a truce with Ooarai."

"That was actually Miho who made that truce," Erika replied, Kay and Mika were both taken back by it. "But yeah, the truce runs smooth as expected."

"It's good to know, Miho," Mika commented happily and softly. "But I have a feeling you had to do something… bad for that."

"Well, I gave them a threat if anyone from Kuromorimine starts a fight with Ooarai," Miho replied lazily and flatly.

"Woah, a threat?" Kay asked as she and Mika were both surprised of it. "What threat was that?"

"Well… the threat was if any students of Kuromorimine starts a fight with Ooarai.." Erika then paused, awkwardly looking over to Miho. "Our butts will be hers."

They stopped walking abruptly, as Kay and Mika just stare at them both blankly. The look Kay and Mika made were like they disgusted of the threat. The reason they were disgusted is not because the threat. They actually took the meaning of the threat in a wrong way.

"I actually meant like what I did to those Bonples," Miho replied with her arms crossed.

"Oh, I hope it didn't come to that," Mika commented in a bit worry.

"Don't worry, everyone in Kuromorimine is afraid of Miho," Erika replied as Miho breathes a fog of smoke. "Let's just hope for the best that this truce will work."

"I'll pray for you on that," Kay said whilst giving a cheery smile to them. "So, you're looking around the town, Miho?"

"Yeah, I'm wondering if there's something interest me around the town," Miho added as she held her cigar in her right hand. "So what's bring you two here, mates?"

"We have a scheduled meeting to spend our time in this city," Mika answered as she was checking on how is her kantele doing. "I might be playing a couple of songs here to entertain people."

"That would be nice to hear, Mika," Miho commented gladly. "Is there anything else besides that on why you're here?"

"We just happened to visit the museum back there," Kay added as her thumb points behind her. "Before we met you guys."

"Really? Didn't know you were there before," Erika commented as her brows raised in surprise.

"Guess we were on the other part of the museum before we met you back at the front of the museum," Mika added with a smile.

"So… where are your vice commanders now?" Miho asked as she smokes.

"They should be in a restaurant a few blocks ahead of us," Kay replied as she stretches her arms and rests them behind her head. "Aaaah, wanna go for lunch?"

"Sure, I was about to get hungry," Erika replied in agreement, then looks over to Miho. "You too, Miho?"

"Yeah, I need some food now," Miho replied in agreement and a nod. "Lead the way."

"Sure will, dude," Kay replied happily as she hugged her shoulders, Miho didn't mind to let her do that.

They just kept walking down the streets to reach the restaurant a few blocks away. But then they stopped at a small shop for a moment. Mika wanted to buy trinkets for herself and for her vice commanders. Kay and Erika on the other hand wanted to buy some writing tools for themselves. Erika had lost 4 pens when she had a meeting with the commanders back in her school. Kay on the other hand, had to buy 5 pens because she broke her previous pens by using it as a party tool.

Miho had to wonder what Kay meant by using her pens as a tool of a party.

Miho had checked the shop and looked around. She had picked to buy a few souvenirs from Osaka. Just some key chain and apparently a wristwatch. The wristwatch she bought had its straps colored in black while the case of the watch was in silver. She did have a watch once, but it was broken after Vicek borrowed it from her.

After buying the stuffs they wanted, they then headed straight for the restaurant ahead of them. It was a 10 minutes walk to the restaurant, and honestly it's one good place to visit. The exterior of the restaurant was colored light grey for the walls and the sign above the entrance was colored in red and the writings are colored in yellow. The windows were set in line on the front, revealing the tables that placed at the windows inside along with some people sitting there. They then entered the restaurant and looked around.

The ceiling was colored in white with the lamps hanging from the ceiling, the lamp that is caged in geometrical hexagon wire. The floor was made from natural black-grey ceramic, resembling the colors of polished grey agate. The interiors of the restaurant was set to classics American-Japanese restaurant, due to the olive wall of the interior has some hanging pictures of Japanese arts around and due to the seats and tables available inside were made from America. Some chairs were available at the counter if they want to eat there.

Most of the people inside the restaurant were Ooarai and Kuromorimine students. Miho had noticed they all have glared at each other in distrust. But when one of Ooarai's students inside noticed Miho was there, everyone from both Ooarai and Kuromorimine then looked at Miho and quickly recoiled silently in worry. Then the students from both schools slowly looked back at each other and chatted as friendly as they can. Mika and Kay noticed this. To see those students looked so afraid of Miho, it was pretty… unsettling.

It seems there were other students here, aside from Mika and Kay along with their own vice commanders. uniform consists into a white high-necked Victorian-style ruffle blouse with a pink ribbon tied around the neck, a navy blue pleated skirt, black socks and shoes. Those were the Maginot Girls' Academy. Miho knew them about them but didn't have a friend who is actually from Maginot. Erika, Kay and Mika had recognized one girl in there, one girl who was sitting at the near corner right end of the restaurant near the window with two other girls. Éclair, the overall commander of Maginot school. Her vice-commanders were not with her.

They saw there were the vice commanders, they were seating at the counter of the restaurant. But they have noticed the vice-commanders of Saunders and Jatkosota were having a little fight with the students of Maginot. Maginot Third grader students if Miho estimate from how the students react. Miho, Kay, Erika and Mika then walked over to the fighting students and vice commanders ahead. For the current situation, those students were having a verbal fight.

Miho and her group approached them as the vice-commanders and the Maginots halted their verbal fight. "What's going on here?" Miho asked.

"Oh, Miho, it's nothing," Alisa replied with a shook, though she was still glaring at Maginots in front of her.

"Oh, there's something actually," a Maginot student of 3 with them added. "We don't like these girls here annoy us."

"We didn't annoy you!" Aki replied quickly in anger. "You're the one who annoyed us!"

"Oi, you did try to insult Commander Éclair over there!" another student of Maginot replied.

"Hey, we didn't!" Naomi retorted. "We're just saying if you're looking for trouble don't bother us with your commander and go elsewhere but here!"

As the vice commanders were rambling against Maginot, she looked up to Kay and Mika who were giving off their irritating faces. "Hostiles?"

"Well…" Kay said lowly with a pause. "Kind of, including Mika's school."

Miho just shook her head for that as the vice commanders were verbally fighting with the Maginots. "How did it all started?"

"It's a long story actually… we have 2v2 team match with Maginot and Bonples before," Mika whispered to Miho. "The Maginots really love harassing us all they want, like the Bonples. But we were being enemies because we have accidentally mocked Eclair for wanted to be like a Nishizumi."

"Accidental mocking? Just that?" Miho whispered back interrogatively.

"Well, we also had a fight with the Maginots because they think we are insulting their school and they think they're better than us," Kay added lowly to the answer. "They just kept annoy us and wanted to look for trouble after that. We even apologized to them that we didn't mean it but they just kept bothering us anyway. They really like to bully people."

"Huh… that's worse," Miho commented plainly with her eyebrows raised, she was not amused. "Alright, I'll separate them."

Miho then looked back at the fighting girls, as their fight continues on. "Look, we didn't say that you're-" Aki said before she got cut off.

"I don't care, idiot!" a student of 3 retorted lazily. "You should get out from here before we make you do it!"

"Hey, that's enough!" Miho said aloud, stepping forward to the Maginots with her friends' right behind her. "Stop bothering my friends."

"And who's this? Could you help us to tell those bitches of yours to get out from here?" the first Maginot of three asked with a spoiled tone.

"I'm not helping you since you're the one who makes the trouble first," Miho replied coldly with her eyes winced.

"Oh, please, you don't pleases us," the second Maginot replied in spoiled disappointment, then continued by the third. "And what happened to your eye? I bet Mika and Kay doing stupid on you again."

"What did you said?" Naomi and Mikko quickly asked.

"You deaf bitch! You heard what we said!" the third Maginot replied in retort, everyone except Miho was flinched by that.

"Woah, can we-" Erika tried to stop the fight only to get cut off by the Maginots.

"Shut up, moron!" the two Maginot retorted quickly. "You want a fight with us?!"

"I would suggest you to watch your mouth there," Miho replied coldly, the three Maginots only glared at her with evil grins and chuckles.

"Oh, why is that?" the first Maginot replied in a spoiled tone.

"Because your trouble is already my trouble," Miho replied coldly, she only stares them like a statue.

"Oh, you're telling us that only you going to beat us down?" the second Maginot asked in disbelieve and a grin.

"Yes, I am," Miho replied coldly with a confident nod, her friends were all taken back by that.

"What an idiot," the third Maginot commented with a laugh. "Why not invite all your friends there to have a fight with us?"

"As I said before, your trouble is my trouble," Miho replied coldly, didn't care of what the reactions the Maginots gave in which caught Éclair's attention who's upset of the Saunders and Jatkosota presence from the corner of the restaurant. "So don't try to give me an edge."

"Miho… are you su-?" Kay asked worriedly but then cuts off by the third Maginot.

"Oh, really?" the third Maginot asked with an evil grin. "What are you gonna do? Slap us?"

"No, much more damage than that," Miho replied coldly with her head tilted.

"Miho, are you sure about what are you doing?" Naomi asked worriedly of her decision.

"Yeah, idiot. Why don't you listen to that girl there?" the first Maginot asked. "You got no chance against us."

Miho only glanced at the Maginots coldly. It was odd for her friend to see her reaction was just that. "Don't make me angry, believe me."

"Oh, really bitch?" the third Maginot asked in disbelieve. "You're a stupid girl, you know that?"

Miho only leans in to them as her friends and everyone in the restaurant watched what she's doing, both Ooarai and Kuromorimine except the other Maginots who weren't paying attention of what is going on now. She was about to get angry. Though, there's only silent amongst them with the three Maginots only stood idly with their grins.

"Call me by that word, one more time," Miho coldly dared to them, everyone was taken aback by what she said except the Maginots who were surprised of her demand.

The three Maginots looked at each other first, before the third Maginot decides to call her by that bad word. The third student only looked at Miho and said it out. "You bi-"

*BAK*

Everyone was caught-off guard to see that Miho just hits the third Maginot student's face with her hardened fist. Éclair has got up to see that as the Maginot student Miho punched got her head thrown away to the back from the hit. Miho then quickly grabbed the student's head and slammed her down next to her left into the counter.

*DUAK*

The Maginot she slammed then abruptly fell to the ground with bleeding on her nose and small bruise on her right cheek, still conscious but suffered agony on her face as she was holding her own face on the floor. All students of Kuromorimine and Ooarai along with her friends and the civilians inside are taken aback of what they saw and nearly all of them almost stood up and dropped their jaws. The two of three Maginots Miho had trouble with just quickly stepped back from her in shock of what they saw. Éclair and the rest of the Maginot students quickly stood up from their tables and chairs after witnessing that in disbelieve whilst blankly stares at Miho.

Miho then take a step forward passing the downed student calmly as her friends stood frozen behind her, and then stares straight at the students. "Alright, I'm officially angry," Miho replied coldly aloud, to the oddities of not showing her anger.

Éclair was standing across her from afar, separated between the forces of Maginot students. "Who the hell are you?" Éclair asked aloud in suspicion.

"A girl who had enough of your nonsense," Miho coldly replied aloud. "And your 'friends' here started a trouble."

"Well, I let them do all they want," Éclair replied, she was glaring at Miho in hostilities. "What's the problem about that?"

"The PROBLEM is that your friends are harassing my friends there," Miho replies as she pointed her thumb to her friends behind her.

"Well, I don't care," Éclair replied with a shrug and a tone of carelessness. "We do what we think it would pleases us. And we hate them anyway. So you're on their side?"

"Yeah, I'm on their side," Miho replied flatly with a nod. "Is your name Éclair?"

"Correct, that's me," Éclair replied with her arms crossed and narrowed eyes. "What's your name?

"Miho Nishizumi," Miho replied, all the Maginots and the people other than Ooarai and Kuromorimine students were surprised.

"Wait, you're the one who came back from the dead?" Éclair asked in surprise along with the other Maginots. "I didn't see that coming. But it's a shame, I wanted to be like the Nishizumis. But you have dishonored your own heritage."

"That doesn't matter to me," Miho replied, her hands were patting each other with her right hand shaped into a fist. "What matters to me is only to know the reason about what I'm doing right now."

"You should have learned that you shouldn't mess with the Maginots," Éclair said with a soft threatening tone. "And you shouldn't have been on their side."

"They don't have any intention to be enemies with you," Miho replied coldly.

"No way, and you just beat up one of our friends," Éclair replied with a shook. "I know we heard that the Bonples had a fight with you, but I think that's because they're not good at fighting. We should beat you up. Girls?"

There were around 15 Maginot students including the two of three Maginots she met first that had stepped forward closer to Miho, only Éclair and the other two Maginot students that stayed back to watch the fight. Erika, Mika and the vice commanders were afraid if they beaten up Miho to the ground, Kay on the other hand had hoped that Miho didn't kill those students, or at least sending them to the hospital for the next 2 years. Éclair and her two friends were all grinned evilly as the Maginots come closer to Miho. They have expected that Miho would doubt and worried on taking a fight with all 15 students of Maginot.

To their oddities, Miho only gave a cold look and wasn't afraid of them as if she didn't give a fuck about them.

The Maginots had looked into her eyes for a moment, and somehow gave them a little discomfort. Éclair and her two friends couldn't see what her eyes looked like due to the 15 students blocking the sight. The eyes Miho made was looked dreary, but somehow more dreary than an angry lion. But then they let that thought away and prepped themselves by warming up their arms. They then ran straight to Miho and the fight began.

Éclair and her other two friends who watched were grinning evilly to Miho's doom, until…

*BAK*

*BUK* "AAAGH!*

*DUAK*

*DAK*

*TAK* "YAIKH!"

*DAK*

*BAM* "AAH!"

*THUD*

*PLAK*

*TRAK* "KYAA!"

*CRANG*

*BUK*

*BAK*

*PRANG* "OKH-!"

*PRAK*

*TAK*

*BAK* "AIKH!"

*PAK*

*TRAK*

*BAK* "AAAAH!"

*BAM-THUD*

Éclair and the two Maginots then slowly turn their grinned into a shock while they watch the fight. Erika, Kay, Mika, Mikko, Aki, Naomi and Alisa along with students of Ooarai and Kuromorimine on the other hand had left their jaws dropped in astonishment and disbelieve. They were not sure if they seeing it right. But they just can't believe on what are they watching.

*DAK*

*BUK*

*CTAK*

*PLAK*

*BUK-BUAK*

"AAAAHHH!"

*PRANG-PRANG-PRANG* *DUK-DUK-GLUDUK*

Three Maginots just thrown out from the front window.

*DAK*

*PAK*

*BUAK*

*DAK-DUAK* "AAAIIKH!"

*TRAK-DUAK*

4 Maginots had landed on the tables with their backs hard, one of them actually got her head slammed to a table filled with Kuromorimine students. Éclair and the two Maginots then slowly dropped their jaws and become afraid.

*BAK*

*BRAK*

*PRANG*

*TRANG*

*DAK*

*DUAK*

*BAK*

*KRAK* "AAAGH!"

*BAK-TRAK* "KYYAAAGH!

*DAG-BAK-KRAAK* "AIIKH!"

"PAK-KRAK* "KAAAAIKH!"

*DAG-BUK-BAK-CRAACK-PRRAAKK* "AAAAAH!"

*BUAK-BAK-KRAAK-CRAACK* "AAAAAAH!"

2 Maginots got their arms broken one each, 2 Maginots got their legs broken one each, the other last 2 got both their arms and legs broken, one arm and one leg each. 2 Maginots left to deal with.

*BAK-BUAK*

*DAK*

*BAK*

*PLAK*

*TAK-BRAK*

*PAK-BUK*

*DAK*

*BOK*

*BUAK-SCHAK* "AAGH! GOD!"

*BAK-PAK*

*DUAG-BAK-THUD-SCHAK* "KYAAAIII!"

The last final two Maginots got their each one hand stuck onto a table, after one each knife stabbed through their hands into the table. "AAH! PLEASE!" one of the Maginots who got her hand stabbed and stuck onto the table begged in agony.

Erika, Mika, Kay, the vice commanders, Éclair with the two Maginots, and everyone else including Ooarai and Kuromorimine students inside the restaurant were very shocked, deadpanned and froze to see Miho had beaten up all 15 Maginot students brutally by herself. They were much more horrified to see that Miho had stabbed two students by their hands and made their hands stuck onto the table with the knives. She was using the butter knives to stabbed them in their hands, in the middle of the palm.

Miho was looking straight to Éclair coldly with her dreary eyes, as her left hand was holding the knife that was already stabbed through the last Maginot student's hand on the table. Éclair can't even stand to see the blood that was pouring from the last beaten up student of her Maginot friend on that table. Though, Éclair was pretty frozen to stare straight to Miho's eyes. None of them move a step nor even a part of a body. Just silent and frozen like that.

 _"What the hell… how di-?"_ Éclair thought fearfully inside her heart, had left a sweat from her forehead. _"That's… that's no Nishizumi… is she… is she a monster?"_

As all of them watched Miho, frozen, Miho then quickly pulled out the knife from the student's hand. "AAKH!" the student quickly fell to the ground and held her wounded hand in agony.

Mika and Alisa nearly vomited to see that as Miho just dropped the bloodied butter knife to the ground with her dreary eyes still staring at Éclair. Everyone was in tense along with the atmosphere of the restaurant was only eerie silent and feelings of discomfort. Éclair and the two Maginots have slowly stepped back to their table without even looking back, awkwardly and fearfully. Éclair and her two Maginot friends then slowly and uncomfortably sat back down at the table near the corner. Erika, Kay, Mika, the vice commanders, and all other students and people in the restaurant had felt the horror Miho made looks like a bloody massacre.

At least no one died from that.

Miho still only gave a cold look as she only kept staring at Éclair from afar, Éclair was actually sitting next to her friend who was sitting right next the window. Éclair had expect that Miho just walked straight to her and starts beating her up. Éclair has to gulped in fear for that. Though, after a moment of waiting for Miho walking up to her, that didn't happen to her surprise.

Instead, Miho just took a couple of steps forward and leans against the counter on her left. She looked at one of the waiters then pointed him a glass bottle of white grape juice behind him. The waiter didn't reply, but he brings the bottle to her and stepped back in worry. Miho then softly took the bottle, and then took about 4 small drink glasses that has piled into one on her other hand. Miho then walked up Éclair and her friends as calming as ever, no expression of rage, no expression of hurry, no expression of annoyance. Just uncomfortably calming and cold, but with dreary aura surrounds her.

But dreary, when Eclair looked straight to Miho's scarred eye.

Miho reached the table Éclair's in and stopped in front of her and her friends. Miho then calmly and slowly puts down the glasses and the bottle first, before giving each three of them a single glass. One glass was left for herself. She then takes the bottle again, and opened it. She did that whilst talking.

"There are two kind of choices in this world.."

Miho then pours the juice into each glass, Éclair was the first. "A choice that hurts…"

And then the Maginot next to Éclair. "worsens…"

And then the next last Maginot across her, next to Miho. "Sorrowful.."

And then herself. "Full of.. regrets…"

Éclair had listened so sharp as ever in worry and fear of Miho as she calmly sits down, joining the Maginots. "A choice… that alters the pain…"

Miho then take her small glass of juice. "Fixes.."

And about to drink it. "Heals…"

Drink and then puts it back at the table. "A possibility to have a second chance."

Miho then stares straight at Éclair as she did the same. Éclair was afraid of her but also reconsiders of what she said. Maybe she wanted to be a Nishizumi, but letting all of this is wrong. She knew what Miho meant was the hostility she had with the other schools. But she also knew that she had to apologize to Miho if she got no choice.

Though, as she reconsiders, Miho continued. "Now… the question is…"

"What choice will you choose?"


	30. Chapter 29 - Persona Non Grata

**Satellite Uplink: Showing the Earth**

 **Magnifying…**

 **Battlefield detected. New York City**

(screen shatters, scenes of Shepherd, stabbing Soap, Price saving Soap from Bullet Shot.)

Price: _Your world as you knew it is gone. How far would you go to bring it back?_

(flying knife, stabs Shepherd's eye, killing him)

Price: _Shepherd created a war… but only we knew the truth_

 **Code name: Soap, Call sign: Hotel Six**

 **Code name: Price, Call sign: Bravo Six**

 **Code Name: Miho, Call sign: -REDACTED-**

 **Fugitives, Highly Dangerous. Disavowed**

Price: Nikolai, we've got to get Soap out of here.

(scenes of Price and Miho carrying Soap, Nikolai approaching in a Black Hawk, helping the two lie Soap down on the floor of the chopper)

Nikolai: Da - I know a place.

Flight from Afghanistan 33'00 N, 65'00 E to Northern India, 22'00 N, 77'00 E

Flight Time: 12 hours, 42 minute

Soap POV

"Get him inside!" Price shouted as Miho and Nikolai helped move the stretcher which Soap was occupying.

 **(flashback)**

'What the hell kind of name is Soap?"

 **(flashback end)**

"The Safe house is up ahead!" Soap saw Price and Nikolai pulling the stretcher he was on. He was fading in and out.

Price saw Soap's body and was getting increasingly worried.

"Keep moving!"

 **(flashback)**

Price slides Soap his M1911 to Soap, he shoots Imran Zakhaev

 **(flashback end)**

"Out of the bloody way! Get a doctor!" Price shouted as the stretcher was being moved. Soap couldn't see anything in front of them properly.

 **(flashback)**

"Back up! Back up!" Price was shouting to Miho, who was piloting the craft the three was in. He was looking in front of him.

"I know! I'm trying!" Miho shouted, the boat was attempting to reverse, but still moving forward due to the current being too strong.

"Too late! Brace for impact!"

 **(flashback end)**

"Keep pressure on that wound!" Price told Miho, who was holding the wound that Soap got from the knife that Shepherd threw.

"I'm trying my best!" Miho replied.

"Hang in there, my friend." Nikolai told Soap, who was still dizzy.

 **(flashback)**

The knife flew and hit Shepherd, hitting his eye and killing him. Shepherd died due to the knife hitting his vital parts of his head, not just because the knife stabbed his eye.

The memory reverses itself

 **(flashback end)**

"He needs help, now!" Price told the doctor, who was waiting for Soap in the room. Nikolai had the doctor wait with everything in advance, the medical tools, everything that the doctor can get before they arrive. Due to the fact that the doctor was a field doctor, he could only treat field injuries. Something that wasn't exactly enough, but should be acceptable."

"I'll start the surgery. You three, I'll need your help based on his wounds, which is almost life threatening." The doctor said as Price, Miho, and Nikolai waited for the doctor's orders.

* * *

 _People who talk about war like it's nothing haven't experienced it firsthand. Shepherd, Soap, Nikolai, Price and I have seen what war does._

 _Despite What Shepherd said, it doesn't justify his actions on killing Roach and Ghost, including betraying the 141._

 _He paid for what he did, but now, we have to deal with the fallout that resulted from it._

* * *

7:35 AM, Madhya Pradesh, Northern India

.

MIho was in the balcony, smoking her favorite cigar. She still had a few Villa Claras with her, which was a miracle. the stress from these recent days made her want to vent it out somehow. Shepherd almost killing Soap, Price almost dying, and his men trying to kill them all they two days ago, it was too much.

 _I need a break. This is a bit too much._

She finished the cigar. With it gone, she entered the safe house, with men preparing their guns, cleaning them, checking their inventory, and even preparing evacuation routes were all around her. They were expecting Makarov's men to come after them sooner or later. Seeing this, she went to the guys planning the evacuation route. she overheard them planning.

"What is our evacuation options?" One of the men asked.

"We have some aerial transport that we use. We Loyalists have in possession of a Pave Low, two Black Hawks, a Hinds, an Mi-8, and three Little birds. They will be used to evacuate as much as possible to nearby areas, temporarily. We also have two C-130s with us". The Russian told the guy sitting next to him. Funny thing, he reminded her of Chemo.

"Chemo?" Miho asked. Chemo looked up and saw Miho there.

"Miho!" Chemo shouted as he went to Miho and gave her a pat on the back.

"So Chemo, how have you been?" Miho asked.

"I've been doing missions in the Middle East. When reports of Shepherd's death reached everyone's ears, we knew we had to run."

"Nikolai told me some Task Force 141 soldiers will be here." Miho said.

"I'm here, and so is Royce." Chemo said as Rocket was sitting right beside Chemo. The two were talking to a Loyalist.

"Great to see you two. But how did you get here?" Miho asked.

"We've been stationed near India. As soon as we heard Shepherd died, we knew that the 141 is going to be on everyone's shit list." Royce told her.

"I'm happy you two are safe. So what were you three talking about?" Miho asked.

"Our Loyalist friend was informing us about what we have for use as evacuation." Chemo told her.

"We Loyalists formed a PMC. If there are men after us, the airfield outside town has our vehicles in them." The Loyalist told her.

"So you have aerial transport covered. How about moving supplies?" Miho asked.

"We're moving almost everything out. For now, we're transferring everything or almost everything from this building to the planes. By the time the house is under siege, everything is in the planes, and ready for takeoff." The Loyalist said.

"Better leave some equipment in case something goes wrong. Like a UGV." She told the man.

"There's a UGV somewhere near the compound." He replied.

"Thanks. But so is everyone going to stay here, or only some of you to guard Soap and us while we get him patched up?" Miho asked.

"Majority of them are leaving. Out of 250 of us, 30 of us volunteered to stay and watch over you guys while Soap is having surgery. They will move out soon, just preparing everything."

"Thanks." Miho replied.

"Welcome. Get some rest. Someone's bound to come for us."

* * *

She walked to her room. Opening the laptop, she turned the power on to check for the news. There was an email from MacMillan. Opening it, her eyes were wide open.

 _Miho. I understand that you are in a bad situation. Despite you and Price killing Shepherd, I understand why you did it. I called in some of my favors, so the government offered to give you asylum. They assured me that if you agree to it, they will purge all records of you being a Task Force 141 operative and create a new identity for you. You can come home, Miho. You don't deserve what happened to you._

 _You can return to civilian life in London and stay there. no one's forcing you to keep fighting. I'm not forcing you to come back to London, but I'm not encouraging you to stay there either. If you see this email, reply as soon as possible._

 _Signed, McMillan_

It was tempting, but she would not abandon her fellow soldiers, her brother in arms. She fought with them, bled with them, and they were new family. She would never leave her new family.

Writing a reply to the email, she had one thing in mind. She would rather die with her family than abandon them to Makarov's men.

" _McMillan. I am sorry to say this, but I would rather stick with the 141 than accept your offer of abandoning them. I fought and shed blood with them, so please understand why I cannot accept your offer. They are my brothers in arms, and I am not abandoning them. Thanks for the offer though. The 141 won't go down easily, and we will clear our names._

 _Miho_

 _P.S When Task Force 141 is restored, we should have tea together._

Sending the email, she went back to the room where Soap was with the doctor. Price and Nikolai was there, acting as nurses. Providing simple tools to help him fix the wound wasn't hard.

On the way, she saw Yuri, the new Russian guy that she met a few hours ago. He didn't like to smoke or drink, which meant he was a healthy person.

 **(Flashback)**

Miho was walking out of the room where the doctor was treating Soap when she bumped into a Russian person. he was nearly bald, wore the PMC Loyalist uniform, and was approaching the hospital room.

"Sorry." He said as he let Miho move first. Miho wondered if this was Yuri.

"Are you Yuri?" Miho asked.

"Yes." He replied.

"Nikolai told us about a friend of his named Yuri. He said that you will be here." Miho told the Loyalist.

"He did?" Yuri asked.

"Yes. So when did you get here?" Miho asked.

"I was outside, preparing the helicopter. They expect an attack on the safe house, now that Task Force 141 is disavowed and potentially sheltering you guys. Most likely Makarov's men."

"I see. I hope we're not troubling you or anything." MIho told Yuri.

"No, its okay. A friend of Nikolai is always welcome, even if they are potentially bringing the Ultranationalists here. A lot of the soldiers want to have a chance to kill Makarov and his men for what he did to us in the first place." Yuri replied.

"Thanks. I'll be looking around, and Price is with Nikolai, helping the doctor. They are inside." Miho said.

"Thanks. Let's talk again later." He said as the two parted ways.

 **(Flashback end)**

"So Yuri, how is Soap?" Miho asked.

"He isn't doing too well, but he'll live. the Doctor was one of the best field medics we have, and he was even a surgeon who studied surgery in a university. We can trust him." Yuri reassured Miho.

"I hope so." She said as she entered the room.

* * *

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

.

*BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-*

Price: _Beyond the jagged edges of war, there were still Russians who rejected Makarov's lunacy._

 _Men willing to stand against the tide._

 **Profile: Nikolai**

Nikolai: Price, we've got vital signs but they're weak. Soap won't last without proper attention. The doctor is a professional, but we don't have the tools needed for the job.

Price: He's a hard bastard. Trust me, he'll make it.

 **Low Heart beats detected**

.

 **Alert: Perimeter Breached**

Loyalist: We're picking up inbound signatures.

Nikolai: We've got company.

Miho: Who?

 **Helicopters inbound**

Price: It's Makarov. He's tying up loose ends.

 **Profile: Makarov**

Miho: He's come to clean house, isn't it.

Price: Yeah, he is. Who's your best man?

 **Profile: Yuri**

Nikolai: Yuri. Ex-Spetsnaz. Only man I know who hates Makarov more than you.

Price: Get him.

 **Radar: multiple hostiles detected**

Price: They'll use the ridgeline for cover and fly in from the south.

 **.**

 **Profile: Price**

.

Nikolai: How do you know?

Price: It's what i'd do.

* * *

"Russian attack choppers coming from over the ridge!"

"How many of them?"

"Three Havocs and four - no, five Mi-17s! Commandos fast-roping down!"

"Get a fire team on the roof!"

"Yuri!" Nikolai shouted as he was helping the doctor.

"Yuri! Over here!" He called the two. As soon as the two entered, Soap grabbed Yuri.

"We need to get Soap to the chopper!" Price shouted. Suddenly, something was in front of the room. The light of the room was gone.

"What's that?!" Nikolai asked. They felt wind coming from the door. It was similar to a helicopter producing wind. Suddenly, an explosion occurred, and the room exploded. A Mi-24 Hind crashed into the room, but it fell back outside.

" **Persona Non Grata"**

 **August 17th, 9:51:42**

 **Miho Nishizumi, Yuri**

 **Task Force 141 - Disavowed**

 **Himachal Pradesh, India**

"Do whatever this man says!" Nikolai shouted to Yuri as he pointed to Price.

"Yuri, take a position on the balcony! We need to buy the doctor some time!" Price shouted as Yuri got out his AK-47 and started shooting at the men assaulting the compound. The Mi-8 was dropping men ito the compound, providing reinforcement.

"They've breached the Courtyard! Take them down!" Price shouted as Yuri continued to shoot at the men in the courtyard. He saw Miho shooting at them herself with her SCAR-H.

"We'll provide cover until you finish with Soap!" Yuri told Price. He nodded.

As they were shooting, Miho asked Price.

"Price. So until when will we keep holding them off?" Miho asked.

"Until we can move Soap, Miho!" Price replied.

The two kept providing assistance to the 15 Loyalists in the courtyard, shooting at the men. They kept coming, making Miho wonder when will they stop. Suddenly, two Mi-28s came flying toward them, shooting at them. However, they failed to hit anything crucial, or anyone for that matter.

"Damn it!" Miho shouted as she was almost shot along with Yuri. He was breathing in relief that they both was alive.

"Shit! They're deploying smoke!" Miho complained. She knew that it will be useless to keep shooting. It is impossible to take someone down without heat scopes, and she doesn't have any currently.

The men in the courtyard deployed smoke, making it harder to deal with them. With these problems, Miho and Yuri had to shoot blindly, which was useless. What was worse, was that one of the Mi-28s came back and shot into the building, injuring the doctor.

"The doctor's been shot!" Nikolai shouted.

"Miho, Yuri. We need your help!" Nikolai shouted as Miho and Yuri stopped shooting at the courtyard and came back inside.

"You two! Get over here!" Nikolai shouted as Miho and Yuri approached him.

"What's the situation?" Miho asked.

"We need to give Soap this shot!" Nikolai replied as he pointed to the syringe on the table.

"This one?" Yuri asked as he got the syringe.

"Yes! Give him the shot quickly!" Nikolai said as Yuri gave Soap a shot with the syringe. It brought Soap back to the world of the living, making him move. Suddenly, there was some sounds, so Price and Miho went to the door. There was an enemy soldier, so Price took him down.

"They're on the roof. We've got to get Soap and the Doctor to the chopper!" Price shouted.

"I've got Soap!" Nikolai replied as he grabbed Soap

"I'll get the Doctor!" Miho said as she went and grabbed the doctor, who was unconscious. He looked like he'll live due to minor injuries.

"Yuri! you're with me! Price shouted.

"They're already inside!" Yuri shouted as he started shooting at the soldiers entering the building. He took them down.

"Down the stairs, move!" Price shouted as he ran down. Yuri followed. Seeing a man down with another trying to revive him, he wondered how he can help.

"Yuri! follow me!" Price shouted. Immediately, Yuri snapped out of it and followed Price outside the house.

There were the Loyalists who stayed there fighting for their lives, with Makarov's men just coming endlessly. killing one brought in another, and another.

"We've got to get through the courtyard!" Price shouted as he started to shoot at the ultranationalists entering the compound. They were coming in endlessly.

"We got to clear the courtyard for us to do that!" Yuri shouted angrily.

"I know! Keep shooting!" Price replied. The two managed to kill enough of them to enter the middle, but there was some of the men who climbed on the walkway of the courtyard.

"Shoot them down first!" Price shouted.

"They're dead." Yuri said as he took down everyone on the top.

when they approached the middle of the courtyard, the walkie-talkie turned on.

"We're pinned down in the street! We need reinforcements!" a Loyalist shouted.

"The courtyard's clear!" shouted a Loyalist as the rest of the men who could move started to leave. As Price and Yuri was leaving, they heard a drone fly overhead.

"Russian drone overhead!" Price told Yuri. This was bad. Looks like Makarov invested a lot into trying to get rid of them.

"We're outnumbered and outgunned. We need some heavier firepower." Price contacted Nikolai via communicator.

"There's a weapon cache at the edge of town! We have a UGV stored there." Nikolai replied.

"Then we'll use that to get to the chopper. Let's move!" Price shouted as Yuri followed him. Yuri saw some of Makarov's men approaching and started to fire at them.

"Hold fire! Civilians!" Price shouted.

"I'm just getting rid of Makarov's men!" Yuri replied.

"Just listen to me." Price replied. Yuri nodded.

Suddenly, there was gunfire from the balconies.

"Watch the balconies!" Price shouted as Yuri saw Loyalists helping civilians move away from Makarov's men.

Price saw a way to get Soap and the Doctor out of harm's way.

"Doorway, right side!"

WIth the other Loyalists, Yuri cleared the street for Miho and Nikolai to keep moving.

"I hope you know what are you doing, Price!" Yuri said.

"I'm finding a way to get those four to safety!" Price replied.

"Now keep moving down the street!" Price shouted. Yuri wasn't a person to talk much, so he just listened.

"We've got to get Soap out of here!" Price continued.

"Exactly how are we going to get them to safety in this situation? We're down to 20 men!" Yuri finally decided to Tell Price.

"We're going to keep moving with their support!" Price told Yuri. Yuri nodded as he kept shooting.

At that moment, the drone just came by, making an attempt to kill them.

"The drone's doing another pass!"

"Cyka Blyat!" Yuri was pissed with that thing.

"Even worse, Makarov's men are surrounding the area!" Yuri replied.

"We're almost there!" Price shouted.

"FIne!"

Makarov's men clearly had enough time to set up machine gun turrets in the nearby village.

"How on earth did Makarov's men get this prepared? Makarov must have been working with someone." Yuri complained as he got rid of the guy in the machine gun.

"Too late to figure that out!" was the reply from Price. The two killed more of the men surrounding them, and kept moving. There was a shortcut that lead to the chopper. Not only that, it also lead to the heavy weapons cache.

"The chopper's this way!" Price shouted as Yuri followed. Seeing the building that held the UGV, Price saw how many men was between them and the chopper.

"Yuri! There's too many of them between us and the chopper." Price told him as he called Nikolai.

"Nikolai, we need that UGV now!" Price shouted.

"You're almost there! Go through the building!" Nikolai replied.

"So, did you find the UGV?" Yuri asked.

"Yes! Follow me!" Price shouted as the two ran. They kept moving, Price knowing the way.

"Yuri! this way!" Price shouted as Yuri followed Price. Remaining members of the Loyalists were waiting for them. They were standing outside one of the locals' house, hiding from the chaos.

"Let's go! Price shouted as the Loyalists nodded. They all moved together. Inside the house, one of the guys help open the locked door. Price and Yuri went separate ways from the Loyalists. For some reason, Miho was behind them.

"Miho! I thought you went with NIkolai!"

Miho knew that it was a bit outrageous to separate from Nikolai. She decided to do that because of how many of Makarov's men were there.

"If I stay with him, Makarov's men might easily kill both of us. I decided to separate and followed you two here behind."

…

"Fine. We're going to use the UGV to clear the way. We'll ensure you are able to safely transport the doctor to the helicopter."

Miho was a bit tired from carrying the doctor. She didn't exactly wanted to ask this.

"Yuri, can you transport the doctor? I can handle the UGV." Miho told Yuri.

"Sure. You look exhausted from carrying him and running."

Price was waiting for the two.

"Get inside, you two!" He told Yuri and Miho.

"The UGV is in a shipping crate, directly below you." Nikolai told him.

"Just a question, Nikolai. Why is Miho here?" Price asked.

"She wanted to separate because we were almost surrounded with the Ultranationalists. I agreed, so we went separate ways." Nikolai answered simply.

"Uhh… fine. " Price decided not to question anymore. He pulled the wooden platform up and down the staircase, was a giant crate.

"So do you see it?" Miho asked as she followed after Yuri, who was behind Price.

"Yeah. I see it. Price said as he approached the box. Seeing a opening, he pulled on it, making it open.

"Unmanned ground vehicle. Two centimeter armor plating, mounted minigun and grenade launcher." Price described as he dragged it out.

"As expected, the controls are in Russian. So who's going to use it?" Price asked.

"Miho said she wants to give it a try." Yuri told Price.

"Fine. Miho, you're up." Price said as Miho let Yuri grab the doctor and went to the small terminal near the door.

"Nikolai. what's Soap's condition?" Price asked as Miho was booting up the operating system and connecting to the UGV.

"We've got to get him out of here!" Nikolai replied.

"Miho, clear a path to the chopper. we'll be right behind you!" Price shouted. The terminal finally connected to the UGV, booting up the thing.

"That mini-gun will punch right through walls!" Price told Miho. She drove it outside the storage.

Driving the UGV, she saw that the street in front of them was full of soldiers, and that Mi-28 that almost killed everyone. The UGV couldn't destroy the helicopter, so she attacked the men on the ground instead.

'Damn… this thing's good.' Miho thought as cleared the path. The UGV was able to literally kill everyone in front of her. Despite almost 20 men being there, she was able to shoot at everyone with ease. The UGV's armor was able to withstand all of those shots.

"Use your grenade launcher!" Price shouted. Miho finally decided to try the launcher, blowing men away.

'Maybe this will be useful for Senshado…' Miho thought as she kept going. as she went near a construction site, she saw men on balconies. Shooting them down, their bodies fell.

"Miho! Take out those choppers!" Price warned her, as another Mi-28 flew into the area. Using the UGV, she shot at it with the minigun and a rocket, making it crash. Two Mi-8s arrived, attempting to drop men near the vicinity.

'No you don't!' Miho thought as she shot the two transports down. Just as she shot that thing down, another Mi-28 arrived in the scene.

"Just how much did Makarov spend to try and kill us?" Miho asked herself.

After getting rid of those helicopters, she went through the construction site and drove it near other buildings partially built. Due to those transports bringing more of Makarov's men in, they were everywhere in those houses.

'Just a few more to go.' Miho thought as she got rid of them.

"Miho, we're moving up! Keep them pinned down!" Price told her via communicator. Miho knew that Price, Yuri, Nikolai, and Soap was almost there. All she had to do is keep moving.

"Keep pushing to the chopper!" Price told Miho. She was almost there, with a few more of Makarov's men nearby. Arriving to the Black Hawk, she had to defend it until everyone could make it. Good thing resistance wasn't that bad, except for a Mi28 flying into the area.

"Are you almost there?" Miho asked, wondering why they are taking time. Just that moment, Price and the group was at the chopper.

"We're at the chopper! Loading Soap in now!" Price told, waiting for her.

"He's not looking good." Nikolai mentioned about Soap.

"How about the Doctor?" Price asked.

"He's not so good, but he's just unconscious. I got rid of the sharp objects that flew toward him due to machine gun fire from that heli, and bandaged him. He'll be fine."

"Good…. Drone inbound!" Price shouted. Suddenly, the UGV was destroyed.

Miho knew that she's in trouble if she stays there any longer. The drone was in the area, so she had to move fast.

"Miho, run to the chopper! Move!" Price shouted as Miho ran for her life. Missiles were bombarding the area, causing massive damage.

"Go! Go!"

Avoiding a tree that almost squashed her, she ran through exploding buildings, exploding roads, and even worse, the construction site was hit by a missile, making it collapse. She was on it, making her fall.

"Look out!" However, it was too late. Miho was falling, sliding down the slope that the platform was under construction in. She saw the drone fly past her. Trying to grab a part of the falling apart platform, Nothing worked. She fully lost her grip and began to fall.

While sliding down, she almost hit a house, which was almost collapsing as well. The debris from the collapsing platform was dropping on her as well, with her not being so lucky. The debris gave her scratches all over any exposed part of the body.

After sliding down the slope, it was a cliff. A giant waterfall was there, where she was falling. Hitting the water from such a height, she got her head out of the water, but with difficulty. The waterfall led to a river, making her move in the water.

Being swept away in the river isn't fun, especially if it is a fast current. Miho found herself in that situation. She saw the helicopter fly ahead of her, but as soon as she saw it, her head was forced into the river. Being forced down, she had to grab something. After three times, she finally grabbed a rock, pulling herself out of it. She was exhausted, almost dead. Suddenly, she heard the sound of a Black Hawk's propellers.

"There she is! There's Miho!" Nikolai told everyone in the helicopter.

"Good. I won't forgive myself if something happens to her.

Miho was losing consciousness as she saw the helicopter land and Price got out.

"Don't worry, Miho. I got you." Hearing that, she lost consciousness.

* * *

 _Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories._

 _-Sun Tzu-_


	31. Chapter 30 - Back In The Grid

Location unknown, Loyalists' safehouse

.

 _I understand. I hope you stay safe, Miho. The 141 is already disavowed, so you won't be receiving any support from the government, or any government for that matter. Stay safe... That's all I ask._

 _On the other note, the offer still stands. Anytime you wish to return, just send me an email. I'll have some men pick you up and fly you to London anytime you need._

 _Stay safe, Miho_

 _._

 _Your good friend, MacMillan_

 _._

Miho read the email. She wasn't going to leave the 141, leaving the men. As a member, she needed to do what she needed to do.

Soap was being treated by the Doctor, who miraculously survived. He only had minor injuries and was able to return to work the next day. Having nothing to do, she opened up classified Intel and started reading about Intel gathered on Shepherd, everything that happened before her. With the reading lamp on her table so she can read clearer.

 _Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fuckin' watched. Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots. I know you understand._

.

File: Operation Shock and Awe

 _We received Intel on Khaled Al-Asad's hideout. The Pentagon approved the operation code name: Shock and Awe, our invasion of the Middle East. Our job was to capture or kill him. Unfortunately, that isn't what happened. I lost 30,000 men that day, thanks to a single nuclear warhead. Thousands of US marines aren't going home thanks to this. Khaled Al-Asad wasn't in the city. He escaped._

.

Miho finished reading the report and went straight to the next one. It was about Price and Soap during their mission to stop a nuclear missile launch from a launch site taken over by Ultranationalists.

 _Second File: Day 68_

 _Soap and I was deployed in the Altar Mountains, Russia. After Imran Zakhaev's son died, he wanted revenge by threatening nuclear war unless the American and European government leaves the country._

 _._

 _Five years ago_

 _._

 **Imran Zakhaev's broadcast:**

 _Our so-called leaders prostituted us to the west...Destroyed our culture...Our economies...Our honor. Our blood has been spilled on our soil._

 _My blood... On their hands._

 _They are the invaders._

 _All U.S. and British forces will leave Russia immediately... Or suffer the consequences..._

Audio and picture log:

 **Price: It's quite simple. Either we retake the launch facility or we won't recognize the world tomorrow. Green light to HALO. Charlie Team go. Second drop approaching. Bravo Team stay tight. Go.**

 _We had to rescue SSgt. Griggs because he was captured by Zakhaev's men. He landed half a mile away, but got himself caught._

 **Command: Bravo Six, Griggs just activated his emergency transponder. He's half a klick to your southwest, over.**

 **Captain Price: We're on our way. Bravo Six out. Let's go.**

 _We fought our way to the house that Griggs was being held. It wasn't easy._

 **Captain Price: The must have Griggs in one of those houses. There's an entry point through that basement door. We'll go room to room from there. Keep it quiet. Move out.**

 _The first house we visited didn't have Griggs inside._

 **Captain Price: Moving to the next house, keep it quiet. Soap, go take a look.**

 _We were running out of time. It was almost daylight, and we had to move fast._

 **Captain Price: The sun's coming up. We're running out of time.**

 _We immediately made our way to the second house. We were lucky we found him. Griggs was being interrogated._

 **Ultranationalist: Where are the others?**

 **SSgt. Griggs: Griggs. 678452056.**

 **Ultranationalist: You know, товарищ (comrade), the Geneva Convention is a nice idea in theory, you know? Why don't you save yourself the trouble and simply answer my question. How many others are there?**

 **SSgt. Griggs: Griggs. 678...**

 **Ultranationalist: Who is your commanding officer?**

 **SSgt. Griggs: It's gonna get real busy here soon. And hey, if I was you, I'd get my ass outta here.**

 **Ultranationalist: Юра! Где ножовка? (Yura! Where is the hacksaw?)**

 **Yura: Я думал, она у тебя! (I thought, it was with you!)**

 **Ultranationalist: Если бы у меня была ножовка, я бы тебя не спрашивал, кретин! (If I had the hacksaw, I would not ask you, asshole!)**

 ***BRAK***

" **What the hell?!"**

 ***DAR-TRAK-TRAK-TAK-DAR-DORR***

 _After rescuing Griggs, we made our way to the power tower, as we had to cut the power to let us enter the base with less casualties._

 **Captain Price: We need to knock out that tower so the advance teams can breach the electrified perimeter.**

 _After cutting the power, the advance team went in first._

 **Captain Price: Charlie Six, the tower's down and the power's out. Twenty seconds.**

 **Charlie Six: Roger. We're breaching the perimeter. Standby.**

 **SSgt. Griggs: Backup power in ten seconds...**

 **Charlie Six: Standby.**

 **SSgt. Griggs: Five seconds...**

 **Charlie Six: Ok, we're through. Bravo Six, we'll wait for you at the rally point. Out.**

 _On our way to the base, we had difficulty reaching there in the first place._

 **Gaz: Enemy helicopters.**

 **SSgt. Griggs: Gonna get real busy around here soon...**

 **Captain Price: Gaz, take Soap and the rest and scout through this base. Griggs and I will look for an alternate route**

 _We fought our way through the and met up with the sniper team._

 **Kilo Four Foxtrot: Bravo Six, Sniper Team Two. We're coming out of the treeline to the south.**

 **Captain Price: Hold your fire, it's one of the American sniper teams.**

 **Kilo Four Foxtrot: Good to see you guys made it. We'll give you sniper cover once you're inside the perime-what the hell is that?**

 _It was a nuclear missile, or precisely, two nuclear missiles being launched from the base._

 **SSgt. Griggs: Uhh we got a problem here!**

 **Captain Price: Delta One X-Ray, we have a missile launch, I repeat we have a missile -**

 **SSgt. Griggs: There's another one!**

 **Captain Price: Delta One X-Ray - we have two missiles in the air over!**

 **Command: Uh...roger Bravo Six, our satellites are tracking them now. Get your team inside the facility and retake the launch control center. We're working on getting the abort codes from the Russians at this time. Out.**

 _At that point, we had to move fast and stop the missiles._

.

Miho finished reading the report. She was shocked at what Price and Soap had to go through, stopping nuclear threat from happening. The file was in four parts, so she was going to read the three left later.

Closing the file, she shut the computer down. She made her way to the hospital, where Soap and Price was. He was still asleep from the surgery.

"So, Doctor. How is Soap?" Miho asked the Doctor, who was tending to another injured patient, one if the Loyalists.

"I managed to patch him up. Good thing the equipment here is actually a full-fledged hospital, which means I have access to the tools needed to operate on him. Without it, your friend Soap might be in serious pain, and we might not be able to stick him up perfectly." The doctor replied.

"Thank you, Doctor."

Miho looked around and saw Price sleeping on a chair beside Soap. It seems Price was worried about Soap so much that he stayed with him all night. Having nothing to do, Miho left the ward and went to the bar where ten of the Loyalists and the five 141 soldiers were having a drink. The rest was probably sleeping due to how tired they were from the evacuation.

"Gimme a bottle of Smirnoff vodka." Miho ordered the bartender.

"Sure, Lt. Nishizumi. Just wait a moment." The bartender said as he looked around the counter. He found it and gave it to her.

"Thanks."

After chugging it down, she asked for another, which made the bartender surprised. Normally, only the Russians drink this much, and at that speed.

"I hope you know what you are doing, Ms. Nishizumi." The bartender told her as he gave her two more bottles.

"These two is enough. I know what I am doing." She said as she immediately drank the second one and went to a table, where Yuri was in.

"So, Miho. How is Soap doing?" Yuri asked.

"He's still unconscious. The doctor was able to patch him up due to the medical equipment in the infirmary here."

"This safehouse is underground for a reason. A nuclear bunker can provide us protection from Makarov's men. It also has an underground hangar so we were able to move all of our aircraft and military hardware from India." Yuri told Miho.

"Good."

* * *

That night

" _You have failed the Nishizumi way. Get out of the house." Shiho said as Miho saw her mother saw her out of the house. Her sister was beside her, grinning. The looks, those faces._

' _I have nowhere else to go.' Miho thought as she carried her bag and started walking down the frozen road. As she was walking, she saw a truck heading for her. She saw a flash._

 _Miho blinked her eyes and saw her fellow Senshado team from the Kuromorimine. They were angry, holding knives, baseball bats, and other weapons. They were the ones who were mad at Miho for making the team lose the Senshado championship. Miho ran for her life, but one of the students caught up and stabbed her heart._

 _She then blacks out for the moment._

 _Miho regained consciousness. She was dressed in the 141 uniform, in the middle of the Victoria Memorial. The body of the dead people from the was where they were when the bomb blew up, killing those men, women, and children. Remembering what happened, she followed the same route, passing by the bodies._

 _As she kept moving, some of the bodies were members of the Task Force 141. They were in uniform, dead. Price, Roach, Ghost, Yuri, people who Miho met and recognize seeing was laying dead before her. Tears were in her eyes. She knew she had to keep moving. Seeing more of the 141, the men that she worked with, she was about to fall to her grief. She had to stay strong, for everyone._

 _Finally approaching the place where the showdown between her and the terrorists happened, she saw Makarov holding Soap hostage. As soon as he saw Miho, he shot Miho in the chest, making the impact make her black out._

 _Miho woke up tied to a chair. Soap was sitting tied to a chair as well, adjacent of her. Makarov was standing there, holding a Benelli Supernova._

" _Hello Miho Nishizumi. I was worried you wouldn't wake up. I will ask only once. Who?" Makarov asked as he cocked the shotgun._

" _What?" Miho asked, confused._

" _Don't make me repeat myself again. Who. You, or him?" Makarov asked._

" _Don't hurt him!" Miho shouted frantically. She lost everything. She lost everyone. She couldn't lose Soap._

" _Don't, Makarov. You had a grudge against us, not her." Soap said as he tried to remove the restraints._

" _No… Soap, please."_

 _Makarov grinned. He was walking around the two, carrying the blasted shotgun._

" _It would be a waste to kill a girl like you. You were an innocent child that got involved in the world of adults." Makarov said as he shot at Soap's left knee._

" _NO!" Miho shouted as she frantically tried to remove the ropes._

" _Such a waste for a girl like you to fight a war that you weren't even involved in. It has nothing to do with you, yet you keep fighting. Why?" Makarov continued as he called the remaining knee._

" _I'll fucking kill you!" Miho shouted as she struggled even harder._

" _You know it's me who was responsible for the dead here. I am also going to be the end of your friend, Soap." He finally said as he pumped it for the last time, shooting Soap's head. It flew right off from the strength._

" _You motherfucker!" Miho was able to remove one of her arms._

" _Patience, Madam Nishizumi. " He said as he tossed Miho a G18. Miho immediately tried to fire it, but because it was empty, no bullet came out._

" _We'll settle this here." Makarov said as Miho finally undid her restraints and stood up. He threw her ammo for the G18. As soon as she started to reload, he pulled out his own gun, a Desert Eagle. It was fully loaded._

" _Good bye, Miho Nishizumi." Makarov said as both Miho and he fired at the same time. Miho blacked out_.

* * *

"AAAAARRRGGHH!"

Miho woke up from the nightmare. It was still night time. Knowing that, she then turned around to the side of the bed and stood up. She took a nearby glass on a cabinet and fill it up. She then sat down on a chair near the table.

Finding the pills on the table, she ate a tablet and with water helping her swallow, she went back to the bed and sleep. She has a day coming for her.

* * *

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

.

" **RUSSIAN PRESIDENT IS MISSING; Disappeared only hours ago... US government are in talks. Evidence points to extremist groups."**

News Reporter: The Russian President never arrived in Hamburg for the peace summit. With his whereabouts currently unknown, no one is certain what this means for the peace treaty...

.

 **Target: Makarov, missing.**

 **Interrogation has yielded no results.**

.

Soap: Looks like Makarov just played his next hand.

Price: If he puts himself back on the grid, he wants it to be known.

Miho: Why on Earth would he want to do that?

Soap: We're still verifying that info.

Miho: Of course.

Soap: So where do we start hunting?

.

 **Intel: Sierra Leone:**

 **Pictures of the militia in the area, PRF Africa.**

.

Yuri: Makarov's been using a local paramilitary group to move shipments into Sierra Leone. From there, they go towards Morocco, and into Spain.

 **Locations: Sierra Leone, to Morocco, to Spain, Final destination, London, UK.**

Miho: Makarov's cargo is heading to London?

Soap: obviously.. He's moving north...

Price: Right towards her majesty's doorstep. What's the cargo?

.

 **Manifest of Makarov's cargo. Unknown cargo.**

.

Yuri: I don't know... but it's important to him.

Price: Then I want it.

.

 **Sherbro, Sierra Leone. Airport in the area, strategic area: river points to inland. Makarov's cargo is currently in the factory.**

.

Soap: We can use the river to get in close. There's a factory in the camp where they store the shipments...

.

 **Pictures of the PRF militia.**

.

Soap: The PRF's been waging genocide in the highlands for months. They'll be everywhere.

.

 **Zakhaev international massacre security footage, Makarov's associates.**

.

Price: Makarov wouldn't let this travel lightly if it didn't serve a greater purpose... and chances are, the bastard will be there personally to see things off.

Price: If he's back on the grid, then so are we.

* * *

The four soldiers slowly got their head out of the water. They then cocked their rifles out and slowly and carefully inspect the area around them. Aside from the river they're in, there were a lot of trees on their left and right. No sign of enemy militia in that river nor the forest.

Price was in his green olive drab shirt and sand-olive combat pants with holster straps on his torso and his military belt with pouches, along with his boonie hat of course. Soap was in his white shirt with the black bandana covered in the collar along with his sunglasses hanging on the front collar and green camo combat pants and of course he was wearing the same straps like Price except there was a Sawed-off shotgun on the back of the body straps along with the back protector. Yuri was wearing a dark blue shirt and blue pants with a green chest-rig ammo pouches, his pistol was strapped on his chest-rig on the right side. The three men were wearing one knee protectors on their left knee.

Miho was the only one who wore a black Kevlar vest, an IOTV kind. She was wearing a grey shirt and black combat pants along with her knee and elbow protections. She was also wearing a headgear which is her Tactical Polarized Glasses. Her G18 pistol was strapped to her right thigh with her Suppressed AK47 W/ Red Dot Sight was on her back.

"Ugh. This reminds me of my time in Brunei," Miho had replied in annoyance after they got out the waters and scanned the area with their MK14 rifles.

"I guess it does, Miho. You did have outdoor training right?" Soap asked jokingly.

"Shut up," Miho replied in annoyance.

"Sure princess," Soap replied as he laughed, Price and Yuri only shook with a smirk.

"Nikolai, we're just outside the village." Price contacted Nikolai.

"Copy. I'll pick you up in one hour." They cut radio contact.

Price then turned his head to behind him, looking over to the three soldiers with him. "The factory isn't far from here. Makarov's cargo should be there. Keep it silent. Let's move."

"Sure thing, old man," Miho replied with a hint of sarcasm.

The four soldiers made their way through the river.

"Maintain a low profile. The militia's all over this area." Soap advised everyone.

"The 141 is mostly about stealth. I thought we in that." Miho replied.

"Obviously. If not, we wouldn't be here." Was the reply from Soap.

"After Shepherd fucked everything up, we have to clean up the fucking mess," Miho commented in disbelieve. The group kept moving in silence.

"So what happened to you guys?" Yuri asked the three finally.

Soap then replies to him quickly. "It's a long story."

"I See..." Yuri decided not to pursue to question further.

As the group kept moving, Price said something.

"Soap, try not to die this time."

Soap was amused as he chuckled. "You worry about yourself, old man." Was his reply.

.

" **Back on the Grid"**

 **October 5th – 18:27:39**

 **1** **st** **Lt. Miho Nishizumi**

 **Task Force 141 – Disavowed**

 **Sierra Leone, Africa**

.

The four soldiers approached the small bridge in front of them, but suddenly, Soap heard something as they marched.

"Vehicles approaching." Soap informed the group. Everyone quickly moved toward the tall grass ahead of them near a bridge and a surface above.

There was a pickup truck, which stopped and a militia soldier got off.

"Get down." Price told the group as they hid. The tall grass hid them from the truck.

The Militia soldier said something to the driver. The driver nodded as the soldier got off the truck, and the other truck behind the front one began to drive away. Seeing this as the chance to get rid of the militia soldier, Soap waited until the soldier walked close enough to him from a the ground above. The soldier saw Soap below and responded by aiming his AK to him, but could not pull the trigger before Soap swatted his barrel weapon away and stabbed him below his head. Before Soap flipped him down to below into the grasses with a splash before hiding in cover again.

It was a good thing that the truck went off as Soap killed the militia, everything was then quiet.

"Move." Price informed them, the group began to move and climbed over a ground above them.

They quickly walked forward toward the tumbled down tree. Miho quickly reached there and watched their six as the men crouched down and passed the wood. Passing under the wood, Price had spot two hostiles ahead of them. They quickly took cover by some rocks, still crouching as they watched one of the militia was dumping dead bodies to the destroyed shack on their left.

"Two x-rays, eleven o'clock." Price told the group, Miho got her sniper out to target the militia soldiers.

She saw what one of the soldiers were doing. She was disgusted. The pictures that she saw in the briefing was nothing compared to seeing the real thing. It disgusted her, seeing the dead person being moved like that. She had enough. She immediately shot the two men, and the dog nearby.

"Clear." Soap said as the group kept moving.

Once they got out from cover, Miho was then realized about one thing. "That's not a dog, right?"

"That's a bloody hyena, Miho," Price replied to her.

"They looked same to me," Soap commented, continued by Yuri. "They're not even in the same sector."

"Why you two can't tell the difference between dogs and hyenas?" Price asked with a sigh of annoyance.

They passed through the area, then slowly walked through a burned shack ahead of them. After Price slowly opened the door and walked out, they finally reaching a place where they were viewing a large area. Once they took cover at a shack and rocks, they saw the area on the right was full of militia men enjoying themselves, one of them was shooting at the sky. One of them has poured gasoline on a civilian, these men were also about to torch a man for their own amusement. Soap saw this and knew the outcome as one of the militia along with a hostaged-civilian walking pass in front of them.

"They're gonna torch the poor bastard." Miho already saw the gruesome things these soldiers do for fun. What she just saw made her sick, these sick monsters doing to their own people. Likewise, those pictures from the report was nothing like the real thing.

"Let's light them up before they light him up." Price replied as he readied his gun.

"Miho. It's your call." Soap said.

Miho did the only thing sensible. She waited for a moment until the militia who's escorting a hostage lined up with the ones who wanted to burn a civilian. Then she took the shot.

*CTAK*

She shot two men in one bullet, both of those bastards quickly thrown away from the force of the bullet. Immediately, the group of militia went alert to see that. Good thing was the civilians quickly run off in time.

"Take them out!" Price shouted as everyone began to shoot at the militia.

The militias quickly taken down with out any trouble. The militias weren't able to pull their triggers in time, resulting to not producing a lot of AK noises in the area. They only saw the civilians were safe and took cover at some shacks nearby.

"Move." Price told the group. Everyone reloaded their ammo and began to move. Leaving the area, the group arrived in a place overviewing an area and took cover at a couple of trees with crouching.

"Tangos up ahead." Price said as he went into position.

Soap saw the area and knew it was risky.

"Hold your fire. There's too many of them."

There were militias all over the area, a truck driving through with four men on board.

Right in front of her, there were two captured Africans who were tied down. Two men were nearby.

"Don't do anything stupid, lads." Price told everyone.

Miho wasn't too happy to hear this, as she was forced to watch the captives die before her eyes. She could have saved them, but she couldn't do it at the same time.

"Those despicable bastards…" Miho said.

"I'm sorry, Miho. We can't let the enemy know where we are." Soap said. He knew how Miho didn't take kindly to civilians being killed.

"It's fine." She replied lowly, sorrow was heard in her tone.

After the second guy was shot, Price was ready to move.

"Alright, get ready." He said as everyone got ready to move.

As soon as the 3 men there looked away, Price gave the signal.

"Move." The group began to move quickly. They were going through an area which was beside the road. a truck was passing by, filled with grasses.

"Get off the road, now!" He ordered. Everyone went into the grass nearby.

"Get down! Now!" A soon as they hid by proning, two trucks passed by them. Yuri was a bit nervous.

"Easy." Price told him.

There were also a couple of X-rays escorting the trucks. Though, what made Miho felt annoyed was that the militias inside the truck played a song. A bad song for a worst action in Africa. As soon as both trucks passed by them, Price gave them a signal.

"All clear." He said as everyone got ready to move.

They got up from the grass and headed forward to the shack next to the road. They left the area and entered the shack. They quickly took cover in the shadows within the shack as they saw two militias just walking by the in front of them. Waiting for the soldiers to pass by, they kept on a lookout.

"Clear." As soon as Price said this, everyone walked out the house and moved to left.

The four specialists saw two militias on a bridge. They had to kill them to keep moving.

"Two more on the bridge. We'll have to take them down." As soon as he said this, a truck was seen a bit far away.

"Wait for the truck to pass." Price told everyone as the truck passed. With the truck nowhere in sight, It was time to kill the two.

"Drop 'em." Miho shot the two immediately by herself. She hated the men who reminded her of Makarov.

"Move up." Price told everyone. Everyone got ready to move. Soap and Price went to the bridge and dragged the bodies of the two under the bridge, hiding them in shallow waters.

They quickly mmoved ahead and took cover at the walls of wires and wood ahead of them. It contains a corridor in the middle of the wall, in which where Price took cover. Soap and Miho took cover at the entrance of the corridor with Yuri behind Miho.

"Did you know that Africa is known for Malaria?" Soap asked, wanting to just try and make Miho not think about the London Massacre.

"I did kind of know… Shit. I thought they created vaccines for it." Miho said as she was dumbfounded of that.

"They did create some type of partially working ones. Sadly, none of us got vaccinated for Malaria fever. If we get out of this place, let's hope none of us gets a fever. I doubt the doctor wants to work with that."

"If I get a fever, you'll be the one taking care of me." Miho replied flatly.

"Hey you two!" Price said. They faced price, who just grabbed a militia man and rammed his head on the wall, with his knife stabbed the militia's neck.

"Just trying to make Miho not think about the massacre, Price." He told his buddy.

"I heard about that. Miho, don't focus on the massacre. It won't help in this mission." Price told her.

"I know. I'll try not to."

Yuri was there, just silent. He wanted to know more about Miho, as he saw her drunk last night. Helping her go to her room, His room was nearby hers. He heard her wake up, almost shouting. She went back to bed after that. Wanting to know how to help her, he would better first observe her first.

"Anyway, let's move."

The group entered the compound and found a watchtower ahead of them. Though what caught their attentions was the compound on their right side.

"I see the factory. It's just up the road." Soap said as he stared at the building afar. Meanwhile, Price was taking a lookout in the building beside him.

"Right. Soap and I will advance. You two, you guys are on overwatch. Get to a position on the roof and cover us." He told the two.

" _Please protect Soap, Price. And Soap, please don't die on us."_ Miho also wanted to tell Price to make sure he doesn't die, but then she never saw him actually almost die in real life. _"better keep it to myself."_ she thought.

Miho and Yuri climbed up the ladder. They saw a guard sleeping. Miho, wanting to slaughter these pigs, got out her favorite knife that she used from the very beginning (She somehow recovered the one she lost before leaving the factory in Afghanistan), to slit the throat of the guard on the roof. They both then quickly take their positions in the watchtower, their snipers aimed toward the compound.

"Hostiles approaching, 5 meters." Price informed Miho. Yuri was beside Miho, ready to provide support if Miho would need it. Miho, seeing the two men walking out of the building, instantly shot the militias and killed them with the blink of an eye.

" _Lets see how she goes,"_ Yuri thought as he was impressed of her aim.

"Two more from the West. Take 'em down." Soap radioed Miho. Finding the two soldiers, Miho shot the two unsuspecting militias immediately, killing them.

"That's fast. We're moving up." Soap complemented as the two moved.

"Another patrol on the road. Take 'em out quick." Soap told Miho, who found them afar near the factory.

Seeing the group, she waited for the group of three hostiles to be lined up at an intersection. After that she took the shot.

*CTAK*

To everyone's surprise, Miho just killed three militias with one bullet.

"Well, Macmillan would be proud," Price commented, feeling impressed.

"How did you know you could kill 3 of them like that," Yuri asked, which Miho glanced at him.

"I didn't know."

Well… right…

Miho then looked back to her scope as Yuri did the same.

"Moving." Price and Soap said at the same time. They started moving. Arriving in the building, Price informed them.

"Breaching now." He said as the two kicked the door. The two rushed into the factory.

"Clear." Price said as he finished checking the place.

"CLear? The place is bloody empty." Soap replied.

"What? Where is Makarov's stash?" Miho demanded, she was surprised of this.

"It looks like they moved it, Miho." Soap replied.

"Nikolai, the factory is a dead end. No sign of Makarov." Price told Nikolai, who was listening.

"He must have moved to the militia's headquarters at the center of town." Nikolai replied.

"We're moving there now." Price told him. unfortunately, there was a problem.

"Heads up, we've got company." Soap warned Price.

"We're compromised!" Price shouted. The sound of bullets could be heard.

"Miho! Yuri! Switch to your AK now! Get the bloody hell out of there!" He shouted!

Miho and Yuri quickly switched their rifles and jumped down the platform and began to run. the place was being bombarded by bullets.

"Dammit Price! You had one job!" Miho shouted on the communicator as Yuri followed her. The militias started getting out of the buildings and started trying to kill them.

"Hey! Don't blame me!" Price retorted back in the radio. "Blame the bastards who just threw a grenade at us!"

Miho ignored that as she and Yuri quickly ran forward and gunning down the enemies ahead of them without stopping to run. Three enemies quickly showed up in front of them from the right, shooting towards Price and Soap who were on the left path. Miho and Yuri quickly mowed them down before running to the left path. They saw Price was taking cover at a thick wood as Soap running and jumped to behind the barrels for cover, a grenade exploded in front of the barrel where Soap took cover.

"You two, push forward." Price told them. He and Soap joined the two. Turning left, The specialists were swarmed with the militias.

"This reminds me of the time we went after Shepherd." Miho said as she kept shooting at the men in front of her. One of them even threw a grenade at her.

"Shit!" Miho shouted as she grabbed it and threw it back. The group of militias who were shooting at them died instantly.

"So, what do you mean the time you went after shepherd?" Yuri asked as he shot a couple of the militia down.

"We were swarmed with men who worshiped a man named Shepherd. He only cared about achieving his goals, and betrayed the 141 to do it." Soap replied to Yuri.

"Oh. I see." Yuri felt a little awkward about asking that question. It was obvious that they were remembering something horrible.

While moving, Miho was ambushed by men coming down the stairs, shooting as they moved. Almost being stabbed, she avoided it and killed them.

"If we return to base, I am going to knock myself out with 5 bottles of the strongest vodka available." Miho shouted as she cleared the route.

"I'll join you." Soap told her as he assisted her, shooting the the men who were in the rooftops. She was focused on the men in the path, while Soap provided covering fire for the militia soldiers on the roof. They finally managed to kill everyone and arrive to the part of town where they met up with Price.

"Area clear." Soap told them. The group kept moving.

"Through here! Let's go!" Soap led the group to the building that they needed to go to.

entering a small building, they had to go up the stairs. climbing the ladder, they ended up on a high area.

"I think they know we're here." This meant that stealth was out of the window now.

"All that matters is Makarov's cargo. Keep moving." Price told the group as everyone followed him.

Going down the area, the sound of a technical could be heard. It stopped nearby and started shooting at them. Before the .50 Cal gunner aimed to the soldiers, Miho shot him down and dead as his corpse leans to the machine gun. Yuri had smirked to know what they're going to do next.

"Miho, man the .50 caliber and lay down cover fire!" Price ordered Miho. Going to the truck, she shoved the dead body off the truck and got the gun reloaded.

"Put fire on the technical!" Using the heavy machine gun, Miho shot at the technical in front of them. Shooting at the exposed gas tank, it blew up, also killing the men surrounding the truck.

"Enemy, rooftop, right!" Price informed Miho.

Miho is still holding the trigger down as she was pointing the gun at them, she mowed down the militias who were moving through the rooftops. They fell to the ground. There were also enemies showed up suddenly on her right, but they got killed by an explosive barrel she shot which blowing the whole roof down. She also found men who were too close, taking them out.

"Contact Front!" Miho then focused her fire in front of her. These men were running toward them, she took them out quickly.

Stupid bastards. They ran toward them in one straight line right in front of the machine gunner in a tight space.

"Contact Left!" This time, the militias were coming out of the building that the technical was beside.

Using the gun, she took them out real fast before they could put more potshots on her. She got shot four times on her torso. Even if she was shot, The rage from seeing how these men treated civilians made her able to ignore the pain of bullet injuries.

"Another technical incoming! Take it out!" Soap informed her. Finding the technical that just arrived, she shot at it, aiming for the gas tank or any weaknesses. Luckily, she found one, making the truck blow up.

Militia hostiles continued to arrive, making Miho continuously have to focus on killing them. What she didn't focus on is the men coming from the right.

"RIght, right!" Soap shouted, making her concentrate on the right. She saw the men coming, and got rid of them. Just then, Soap was horrified when he tried to light up the technical Miho's in. He saw a mortar flying for the technical Miho was in.

"Mortar fire inbound!" Soap warned her as he jumped out the technical.

Sadly, it was too late. The mortar hits the technical before Miho got off the gun and left. The car blew up, making her fly away.

"Hold on!" Soap shouted as he approached a downed Miho. She was getting dizzy, about to pass out. The car almost squashed her but she was lucky.

Seeing Soap there, she saw Soap shouting.

"Get up Miho! We gotta get the hell out of here!" Soap told her. regaining her senses, Miho got ready to leave. Standing up, she picked her gun up.

"The whole militia is headed straight for us!" Soap told like Price and Yuri already went ahead.

"Seriously?" Miho wasn't too happy about that. She almost died due to people who were almost the same as Shadow Company, but instead of professionalism, they showed numbers.

"Yes!"

Following Soap, she saw Price and Yuri waiting for them.

"Don't stop moving, or they'll dial us in!" Price told Miho. The group ran through the path, when suddenly, another mortar just flew toward them.

"Mortar, incoming!" Price warned. Luckily, everyone managed to enter a house. They were saved from being killed. Exiting said house, they went through another passage. Mortars were bombarding them, with danger all around them. One landed in front of their path, blowing up a building. Lucky that they were far away, the group turned away and went left.

"Move!" Price shouted to Miho and Soap, who was lagging a bit. Soap was trying to make sure Miho was okay, Miho was just tired. The explosion did take a lot of strength away from her. At that moment, another mortar struck very close to the two. They managed to avoid any injuries.

With mortars keep flying toward them, they had no time for a breather. "Keep moving!" Soap shouted to Miho, who was almost slowing down.

"I'm trying, Soap! Give me a minute!" Miho complained.

"If we had time, I would have given you. However, I doubt you want to be dead due to a mortar!" Soap replied, trying to make sure they survive.

Finally managing to catch up to price, Miho followed Price as he climbed up a building. While price was successful in jumping, Miho was unlucky and fell into the building, the room collapsing. Yuri wasn't with them, following Soap instead.

Miho got up, to almost die from a militia who was about to stab her with a Machete. She managed to kill him before she was stabbed.

"Miho!" Soap shouted.

"I'm fine!" She replied, quickly in reflex shot another bastard afar up ahead with her G18.

"Miho, I see you! Just keep moving!" Price told her as she got ready to move. Getting out of the building, she shot her way through. She met up with Price nearby.

"They're firing mortars from that tower!" Soap informed the group. They saw the tower where the mortars were being launched from. Miho got rid of the two militias nearby.

"Yuri, slot the bastards!" Price told him as he got his sniper out and killed the men who were in the mortar tower.

"Mortar tower secured," Miho informed the group after Yuri took them out.

"They're down. We got a large group of militia headed our way." Soap told them as they reloaded their guns.

"Then let's give them a proper welcome. Miho, man the mortar on the roof." Price told her as she left for the tower. Arriving there, she prepared the mortar.

"Start putting shells downrange!" Soap told her as Miho aimed toward the men who were coming toward the three.

"Use the mortars and hose those bastards down!" Price ordered, she loads one into the mortar launcher.

*CHPLANG* *BOOM*

The mortar was powerful, killing them instantly in one shot along with a technical and nearly blow up a house.

"Looks like two technicals and a bunch of troops. Light 'em up!" Price told her as she aimed the mortar at the truck afar on her left. It blew up.

"All targets in the village are hostile! If it moves, put a mortar shell on it!" Seeing moving people, Miho shot the mortar at them. It immediately blew up the area, destroying the buildings and killing the militiamen who were nearby.

"Keep firing the mortar!" Seeing another group, Miho took care of them. It was also near the place where she was shot by an RPG. She got rid of both of them. With them dead, there was no activity.

"That's good for now! Let's move!" Price told her. Miho ditched the mortar and left it. Coming down the tower, she saw Soap, Price, and Yuri waiting for her.

"We need to hit the church. We're running out of time." That was bad. It meant that it was a wasted effort to come here.

"Anyway Miho, your aim is pretty good. I guess it's from your Sensha-Do skills." Soap complemented.

"Thanks…"

They marched forward from the tower before walking to the left. From there, Soap found a way to the church.

"Through here." He told them, as everyone followed. It was a sewer tunnel, which led to under a building.

"Isn't that a sewer tunnel?" asked Miho.

"Yeah. There's no other way," Price said as Soap removed the grate. Everyone followed Soap into the tunnel.

"Nikolai, approaching the church now. Are you sure the cargo will be there?" Price asked Nikolai in concern.

"It's the only area they could have moved it to. If not there, then it's already on its way to Europe."

"Let's hope he's right." As soon as the group exited the tunnel, the Militia was waiting for them. They started firing on the group.

"Again?" We just got away from the last batch!" Miho complained. She was getting pissed off.

"I guess we're fighting our way through." Yuri replied.

The group entered a building, which had more of the militia. apparently the entire village was alert by now, trying to kill them.

"Reminds me of a certain video game!" Miho shouted.

*CTANG*

"Really!" Miho sprayed the militia men full of lead, killing them. It took a long time, but they were just plain annoying. Turning right, she found men on the rooftops. She really needed a drink after this.

"Grenade!" Yuri shouted as he threw his. It flew ahead of them, killing the remaining men shooting at them.

"Finally. Yuri, You're my favorite partner today." Miho told Yuri.

"Hey!" Soap complained. He thought Miho liked to fight with him.

"Just joking!" Miho replied.

"Anyways, Area clear." Soap said.

"Soap, get the door." Price told Soap, who nodded. He got near the door, and rammed into it, breaching it. Everyone entered the house. The house they entered looked like a typical house after a natural disaster, or a fire. They were almost near the church.

"There's the church!" Soap shouted. Miho saw the church. Finally, after suffering a long time of fighting against African militias, she was able to reach the church where Makarov's cargo was supposed to be. Sadly, there also was an unwelcome presence. An Mi-8 cargo transport was flying into the area.

"Price! There's the bird! They're moving the cargo!" Soap shouted.

"Dammit!" Miho was pissed. She had to fight all the way just to find Makarov grabbing what they came for.

"We're out of time! Get to that church now!" Price shouted as they marched forward and shooting the militias back.

"Yuri! You're on me!" Miho shouted as she ignored the militia men and began to run. Yuri sighed as he began to provide covering fire while following Miho.

"Get out of my way!" Miho shouted as she shot at the men in front of her.

She quickly turned right by reflex and found one Militia was about to melee her with knife. Miho quickly holds his hand armed-knife with her left hand as her right hand that was holding the AK quickly aimed and put the firing end on his stomach. Pulling the trigger, she shot his stomach once and let go of his hand before aiming it to his head which is killing him instantly.

She quickly moved up to one of the two ramps in front of the church, accompanied by Yuri. She and Yuri had to make a suppressive fire to their left because those bastards were hiding on some market stands. Price, who was at the other side of the area across Miho's, has threw a flashbang straight to their faces. The X-rays quickly taken back and blinded by the light as they stood up from cover, in which everyone shot all the hostiles down with little difficulty since Yuri got shot twice on his stomach.

Reaching the church entrance, the door burst open. She shot the man who was armed, killing him. There were more armed men, who she took care of. Though there were also two hyenas that just quickly charged up at her, but Yuri able took them down quickly before one of those two hyenas bite her. They kept shooting at the bastards inside the church before taking cover at the sides of the church's door.

" _No time to wait for Price and Soap,"_ Miho thought as she and Yuri entered the church.

Some of the men were hiding behind the wall, who Miho had to shoot. Taking care of them, Yuri deals the bastards on the right side of the church with his machine guns on his hands (Miho thought about where the hell he got that). She ducked down as some bullets flew above her heads and shoots them back. After a moment of firefight, the church was clear. By then, Soap and Price entered the church and met them.

"Church is clear!" Miho shouted to the two men.

"Stack up on the door!" Price ordered, they all then quickly stacked up on the door on the left side of the church.

"Alright, lads. Let's do this," Price then looked at Miho and gave her a nod.

Miho quickly stood in front of the door and kicked it. *BRAK* Miho breached the door, just to find a hyena just run and jumped at her until she fell down to kill her. Grabbing its muzzle as the hyena is trying to kill her, she quickly pulls out her gun and aimed it at the two militias who were apparently right in front of her. She eliminates the two militias with ease before putting a gun on the hyena's head, putting two bullets in his head as she throws its corpse away. As soon as she killed it and stood, She saw the helicopter lift off with the cargo. Price and Soap as took care of the man loading the cargo Yuri went in behind Miho, but sadly, the majority of the cargo was already taken on the helicopter.

"They're getting away with the cargo!" Price shouted.

"Dammit!" Miho was mad. She wasn't happy that she came all the way here just to miss the cargo that they were supposed to get. She, Price, Soap and Yuri quickly tried to shoot at the rope but they're unsuccessful, as every bullet they shot missed.

The helicopter was already far away for them to take the shot. The bastards have successful to get their cargo out from there.

"Damn!" Price was mad as he shot the dead militia man in the head. He used his communicator to contact Nikolai.

"Nikolai, the shipment is gone. We missed our window." Price informed Nikolai.

"What about Makarov?" Nikolai asked.

"Must've done a runner. Just get us out of here," Price answered back as Soap opened one of the containers on site.

Soap opened the rest of the containers, which were found to be empty.

"Empty. What do you think Makarov was after?" Soap asked.

Price only sourly and grimly at Soap. "We'll ask the bastard when we find him."

Price then looked and walked away from Soap and head back inside the church. Soap, Yuri and Miho could only watched the old man leave in anger. Miho was also angry too, but she was also worried. They were late to takedown the chopper before it left with the cargo. Miho could only looked down on the empty cargo in front of her as Soap and Yuri had left for the church to accompany Price.

Miho only stood still and looking down in regret.

* * *

Few hours later, Loyalists' Underground HQ

.

Miho was in the gym, doing punching the duffel bag. Wearing a mouth guard, she was using all of her strength to punch the thing. The sounds of the punches were almost noticeable, making passing by Loyalists just move quickly, not wanting to be on the end of her gloves.

" _DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!"_ Miho constantly shouted in her mind as she kept punching the bag.

She punched it so hard, you could see small holes in the thing. She was pissed. Whenever a mission ended in failure, she was in a gym or the shooting range, shooting targets that had Makarov faces on them.

"Miho, you missed lunch," she heard a voice said, it was Yuri coming over her as he entered the room.

He was carrying a tray of shepherd's pie, with some fish and chips. Also on the tray was a cup of Earl Grey. Every each of it was Miho's favorite. But before she walked over to Yuri, she needs to finish up her anger problems with the bloody duffel bag. She just keeps hitting much harder and harder and harder…

*BAM* the last punch made the duffel bag break from the ceiling and fall to the ground.

"So… how're you doing?" Yuri asked. He was definitely worried after he saw Miho break the duffel bag.

Miho took the gloves off and set it on the table. She also did that to the mouth guard. "I'm fine. Not only did we miss Makarov's cargo, It is now heading for Europe, which means bad news." Miho replied sarcastically.

"We'll bag him next time. Just don't overexert yourself." Yuri advised.

"Fine." Miho replied with a sigh.

"Anyway, I have to work on something." Yuri said as he left. He left the tray on the table as he did. Going to the table, She sat down on the table and started eating.

3 hours later, outside a few kilometers away from Loyalists' HQ.

* * *

(Cod MW2 (S.S.D.D))

Miho was in The Pit, a training ground outside. She believed that she was too slow, the reason why she missed the cargo. Soap and Price was in the observation room, overseeing Miho. She asked them to help her.

"All right, Miho. We're going to see how fast you can run this. I guess it's been some time since you have been in a course like this. Since you asked, let's see your score." Soap told Miho.

"Don't force yourself too much. We're not on a mission." Price informed her.

"I know. I just want to get myself back in shape." Miho informed them. She got to the table and picked up the Scar-H and G18, making sure she was wearing the stuff properly. The desert camouflage did make it a bit hard to see, but that didn't make it any harder. making sure the guns were properly loaded, the extra ammo in her belt, and the grenades and her knife with her, she was prepared.

"As soon as you enter the course, the timer starts." Soap informed her. Miho swapped to her G18 first. As soon as she entered the compound, the timer started.

"Clear the first area. Go! Go! Go!" Price shouted as Miho immediately shot at the marked targets. Taking them down, she made a run.

The next targets were two men, with a civilian in the middle. Two of them were moving, the right one wasn't. Taking them down, She moved to the next area.

Next, there were 5 targets. two civilians were in the area. She took them down.

"Area cleared! Move into the building!" Miho entered the building, which was a confined place. Three targets were inside, with two civilians. One of the targets were behind a civilian target, Which Miho missed. Missing all of them, she continued moving.

"Up the stairs!" Price shouted. Miho went up, with a target moving in front of her.

"Melee with your knife!" Price shouted. Miho had her knife out, stabbing the target.

After she stabbed the target, multiple targets were standing. Four Targets and two civilian targets were standing, which Miho took care of without shooting any civilian targets.

"Area cleared! Jump down!" Price shouted. Miho jumped down from the building, landing on the ground.

"Last area! Move! Move!" Price shouted on the mike. There were six targets, with four civilians. She took down the one on the left first, the worked onto the right. Finally, she took down two targets with a single bullet. Hitting the red circle, All she had to do was sprint.

"Sprint to the exit! Clock's ticking!" Price informed her, making her run. This was almost reminded her of the cargo that they failed to secure. She immediately ran faster. Miho reached the exit, panting hard.

"Nice, Miho! Your time is 40.05 seconds!" Soap was cheering for her.

"So I guess I didn't lose my touch."

* * *

4 hours later, Loyalists' HQ

Price was contacting some of the Task Force 141 members nearby. He believed that they were going to need some extra men for jobs because of how the outcome was a failure. Since Task Force 141 always had a secure channel for communications, he made a message to inform some members to meet up at the bunker.

Miho meanwhile, was drinking at the bar with Yuri.

"My family disowned me, so here I am!" Miho was talking drunk. She was on her 6th bottle of vodka, as she just wanted some alcohol. "Fucking great for me…"

"Miho, you're drinking too much." Yuri informed her in worries.

"Nah!" She shouted happily.

As soon as she said that, she collapsed and fell. Yuri sighed to see that. He then picked her up and brought her to her room. He had to sat her down on the chair first, and was surprised that Miho just went awake for a moment of her drunkness before she fell sleep again. He took her jacket and pants off, showing Miho in her sleeveless shirt and boxers. He then put her down on her bed and puts her blanket over Miho. Yuri then sighed of how Miho is doing for the past days, before he exits the room with a shook.

Starting to wonder how is she doing if she got back home.


	32. Extra 2 - Small Talk and Nicknames

Miho is sitting on her chair in her room. Laptop is on her table and some documents are on the table as well. It was a windy and calming night that time which she could feel the peace for her own mind and health, can be seen from the window next to her. Her room is of course already tidied up with perfection, even if she's not a perfectionist. And she had some souvenirs on her wall-shelves she got from Nanajuu Yon Angurāfisshu Café. And also, she has her loaded M4A1 standing next to her table.

She actually finished checking her M4A1, but decided to put it there in case if there's a house break going on.

Miho is continuing her troubles in her laptop and her documents. *KREK* When she hears her door opened. Miho rolled her eyes to her side, before her right hand quickly reached for her rifle and got off her seat. She quickly spun around and aims her rifle at the opened door. Ready to pull the trigger at the intruder.

Only to found that Miho is pointing her rifle at her own mother.

Shiho is actually holding a tray with a teapot and a cup of tea on the side. And Shiho, actually shivered with her daughter pointing a rifle at her straight. To the point she froze on spot and manage to not drop the tray. Eventually, Miho lowers her rifle down as she started to calm down her adrenaline rush. They both only stared for a moment in silence.

"You forgot to knock," Miho stated to her mother.

"I… know, I'm sorry," Shiho replied with a nod. "I thought you weren't busy."

Miho just sighed, putting her rifle away and then looked back at her. "What are you doing here?"

"Well… I wanted to give you some tea," Shiho replied with a shrug. "I hope you don't mind."

Miho chuckled and smiled as she looks away for a moment. "Tea is the last thing I need, come on in."

Miho gestured her to come in as Shiho closes the door behind her with one hand. Miho slowly sat back down on her chair, with Shiho walking up behind her. Shiho then gently puts down the tray of teapot and a cup of tea on the table next to her laptop. Miho gets back on her job in the laptop as Shiho only stood silent and watches her on what she's doing. Shiho forced a little smile to her and raised her end of her eyebrow gently.

Shiho looked around the room, and found an empty chair next to Miho's bed. She took it and put it down next to her daughter. She then sat down and continue to watch Miho on her job. Shiho wanted to break the ice, but she didn't know what she really want to talk about first. Miho didn't even look at Shiho for a moment, even if she knew she's still sitting next to her.

Miho just sighed in defeat and softly ask. "What do you want?"

Shiho stayed silent, but then replies after Miho turned her head at her. "I just want to talk. If… that's okay with you?"

Miho only stared at her for a moment as Shiho gave an awkward face to her, before replying. "Alright, let's talk."

Miho pushed her laptop away a bit and then turned her body to her mother on her seat. "What do you want to talk about?"

Shiho paused for a moment, then asked. "How are you doing?"

Miho stared at her for a moment, before looking away, then looked back again. "I'm doing fine for now."

"No, I mean… how are you really doing?" Shiho asked again, that answer doesn't fit for her.

Miho sighed again, before replying. "I'm… well… not sure…"

Shiho tilted her head in perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"Well… I'm actually happy to be back home here and all," Miho confessed with a small, but then a frown. "But… I just feel like I don't belong here."

"Why not?" Shiho asked in her worried tone.

"It's because… that…" Miho paused, she then straighten her back. "I'm… I'm just kept thinking to myself about what is going on with me."

Shiho raised her eyebrows to the answer, she then leans her head forward. "Is it because of what you do until now?"

Miho reluctantly looks at her mother, but able to reply with a shook. "Like… being a soldier?" Shiho asked again.

"Actually… it's more than that," Miho replied with a nod. "But… yeah… you could say that. And it's still a long way for my own retirement for that."

Shiho chuckled at that, then asked again. "How are you feeling when got back here, our home?"

"You want me to be honest?" Miho asked, Shiho nodded. "Well, I'm very content to be back home again, to where I came from. But… I'm also upset about it."

They both fell silent, as Shiho realized what she was talking about. "About that time… we had that argument a year ago?"

"Bloody more than that," Miho added sourly, something that surprises her mother.

"Umm…" Shiho thought for a moment. "How I treat you a long ago?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "The time I'm still in Kuromorimine."

Shiho frowned to that and looked down to that so as Miho. But Miho added softly, "at least, you gave me a delightful childhood."

Shiho quickly lifts her head and looked back at her, then smiled. Shiho then puts her hand on her hair and rubbed her softly. Miho slowly smiles as her eyes closed with her hand holding her mother's hand. Shiho then slowly moved her hands away from her head and left it hanging onto her side.

"I'm thankful for your honesty, Miho," Shiho said happily and softly.

"Don't thank me," Miho replied with a smile. "You're still my mother."

Shiho just chuckled as Miho chuckled as well. After that, they both slowly fell silent and stare at each other. The silence they're in was pretty awkward, so awkward that they both don't know what they want to talk about next. They've been silent for about a minute in awkwardness

Miho then began. "So… is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Oh, um, yeah," Shiho quickly replied awkwardly, she quickly clears her throat. "Umm, I was wondering. You know, about your friends' nicknames."

Miho curiously raised a brow to that. "What about it?"

"Well, I met your friends back in base and most of them has their own nicknames," Shiho explained to her. "But most of them has nicknames that refers to things, verbs, and animals. Not using the nicknames relates to their own real names."

Miho just sighed and leaned her back against her chair. "They have their reasons to earned their nicknames."

"I see," Shiho replied with a nod. "Royce doesn't have his own nickname, right?"

"Correct," Miho replied with a nod.

"Well, we know about why Ghost got his nickname," Shiho said, then shrugged. "How about Dioxide, your Mongolian friend?"

"I will assure you that you don't want to be with him when he's around chemical gas," Miho said to her as she turns her head to the table.

This took Shiho surprised. "Why is that?"

"He got his nickname from his killings," Miho replied, lifts her hand on the air for a moment before looking at her. "He once used two barrels of pure Carbon Dioxide to kill 50 terrorist in a third story building."

Shiho's face went pale to hear that. "He what?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "I don't even know where the bloody hell he got those."

"What about Chemo?" Shiho asked as she crossed her arms.

"Remember his story about he sent a terrorist flying high with a rocket?" Miho asked, Shiho nodded in remembrance. "The rocket he used on that terrorist is actually an ammo for an anti-tank rocket launcher, AT4. He managed to modify the fuel in the rocket with the Aviation Turbine fuel and kerosene to make the rocket fly higher."

"W-wait, how did he do that?" Shiho asked with confused look. "And isn't that suppose to be Bazarov's job?"

"Yeah, that's suppose to be Bazarov's job," Miho replied with a nod, then tilted her head. "But how did he do that, I don't know. Well bloody, I don't even want to know about it. In other words, he did some 'chemotherapy' on him."

"Okay... how about Chrome?" Shiho asked curiously. "I heard the color about Chrome before."

"That's another story," Miho replied with a shook. "He got trouble with an internet company before, called Google Chrome. He got sued for about 2 million dollars for what he did to the company."

"And how did he get sued?" Shiho asked with her brows winced.

"He 'accidentally' hacked their servers. He managed to left a sorry note for that."

Shiho maybe doesn't know what that means, but she's sure it was that bad. "I see."

"Alright, is there anyone else you had in mind?" Miho asked, crossing a leg on top of the other.

"How about Trunk?" Shiho asked. "What's his story?"

"That bloke?" Miho asked with a raised brow. "He got that name in an operation one day. He was out in Afghanistan in the middle of operation until he decided to doze off inside the trunk of a civilian car in the middle of the city because he was sleepy. He slept there for about 4 hours, right when there are a couple of long firefight in the city where the car is located and some rockets barely miss the car he's in. He didn't even get awake by the loud sound of gunfire and rockets. After a couple of firefights were over, a private had suddenly heard a snore from a trunk of a car and went to investigate. And then they found him there, even his commanding officer himself not sure whether to reprimand him or put him on a job as a Humvee gunner."

Okay, Shiho definitely not going to do something like that. "That sounds… pretty careless and odd. How about Mouse?"

"He got that name because he kills 30 rats in the barracks," Miho replied with her head leans back. "With a shotgun and when there's a lot of people around."

Shiho gave her shock to Miho on what she had heard. "That's because he has a phobia on rats and mice."

"That's something scary to hear," Shiho commented in discomfort, with her eyes rolled to her side.

"Don't worry about it, they're still good men anyways," Miho replied with a small smile, before getting back on writing her document.

Shiho thought to herself for a moment, until she looked back at Miho again with a question in mind. "Do you have a nickname?"

Miho then stopped writing, and sighed. It was clear that she was uncomfortable to talk about that. She got off from her documents and turned around at Shiho.

"I don't really want to talk about it."

Shiho raised an eyebrow to her answer. "Why not?"

Miho looked away for a moment, before looking back. "I hate to have that nickname."

Shiho opened her mouth a little and frowned, she then puts her hand on her shoulder. "Miho… just tell me."

Shiho had hoped Miho won't be angry about this. To her relieve, Miho didn't retort. Miho just sighed in sorrow when she remembered her time in her previous operations. Miho then looked up to Shiho, her gleaming eyes locking up to her mother's eyes. They've been silent for a moment until Miho managed to reply.

"Banshee."

"Pardon me?"

"It's Banshee."

Shiho was really surprised of the nickname she got. "Banshee? That name of an Irish myth?"

"Yeah, that one," Miho replied with a nod lowly.

Shiho raised her eyebrows in worry. "Why Banshee?"

Miho paused for a moment as she looked away, but then rested her head against her chair. "I ever went on a rampage once, in a previous mission. I was in Northern Afghanistan that time, we were sent on an operation involving clearing out a city. I was inside an Abrams tank along with my crew that time, there were also quiet amount of Afghanistan Armed Forces with us. But then, we got caught inside a heavy firefight with me and my crew putting shells down on the enemy. We got high casualties on the Afghan Armed Forces that time. But… my gunner who manned the minigun on top, got shot by a sniper and he fell down inside our turret. I… just went made that time, I quickly go out the turret and manned the minigun he used and then… I unleashed hell on them with a loud war cry. I also ordered my crew to charged in to those terrorists as well, seeing they were also enrage for what happened to the gunner."

Shiho was quiet stunned of her story as Miho took a moment of pause. "Then… our tank stopped at the middle of the road as the terrorists quickly gaining high casualties and the AAF and US soldiers following up behind us. Seeing how those bastards are running away, I took the opportunity to get off the tank and chase them down. I chased them with nothing but a pistol and a knife. I charged, tackled, shot and stabbed about 13 of those bastards before the allies managed to clear them out and calmed me down. I… I… *sigh* I don't know what to say that time. I didn't think of myself about what I'm doing that time and I… well… When we got back, Nikolai told me that I did a great job to do that, but it was insane as well. He told me that I caused a civilian casualty in the field, but we were glad that the civilian is only injured. He said that I looked like someone who just came in from WW2 but with a louder cry. That's when they gave me the nickname, Banshee. I… can't forget about that."

Shiho was at a loss of word. She would never imagined if Miho could do something like that. Her own daughter ever went on a rampage before. But she is happy that Miho is still alive and well now. And was glad that Miho had come home as a veteran soldier.

Shiho slowly and gently hugged her around her shoulders, then kissed her side of her head. "You're going to be alright, Miho."

Miho softly smiled, then leans her head against her mother. "Hopefully, mother."

"Hopefully."


	33. Chapter 31 - Ongoing

Somewhere in Osaka city. 10:00 PM.

It was a quiet crowded night despite it's a little late to see that city was like that. Cars are crowding the streets as headlights blinding the street. People on the sidewalks were having a fun time to talk with themselves as those people are walking throughout the sidewalk. And there was one bar right in the middle city of Osaka. One specific bar right there, and a man just happens to walk out from there.

Keteru Jotokani has happened to be out from the bar after he got his drink. He was rather an alcoholic man since he was a punk, dressed in his formal attire. He just got out the bar not only because he got his drink, he also made a little trouble inside the bar so he had to go out. So what's he's going to do right now is to stroll through the sidewalk in the night and drinking along the way. Planning to spend his rest of the time to be drunk outside instead of home, not in a jail for the least.

He was quiet an asshole as well when he drinks and walked pass the pedestrians. He told them to scampered off and mind their own business for that.

Keteru Jotokani had decided to go back home by using an alley on his left as a shortcut. He just grinned as if he didn't care as he continued to drink his bottle of alcohol. Keteru then entered the alley a little drunk but sober enough to not lean against a wall. All he wants to do tonight was only to drink his bottle until it's empty. And then he can go back doing his business as a punk or doing his stuffs at home.

The alley was mostly dark on the entrance and the other end of that alley. The only light that exist in that alley only a light in the middle of that alley. It was wide enough for him to move his body freely and the length of the alley was around 20 meters. There's a trash container in the middle of the alley where the light is placed. There was no one in that alley except Keteru himself.

Keteru almost reached the trash container, when his bottle was already empty after he take a last gulp of it. He then walks over to the trash container and throw the bottle into it. He then wipes the wet out of his mouth and turned to his right. He grinned as he has another plan to do this night. As a punk, he likes to do stuff at this night.

*shrek*

Until he hears a small noise from behind him.

He stopped, nearly froze. He then turned his body around to behind him slowly and look if there's anyone else with him. To his surprise, there was no one behind him. Only darkness blanketed the alley aside from the middle alley with the light he's in. He only saw the view of both roads on both ends of the alley, there was nothing else he saw aside from the cars crossing those both roads.

He was a little drunk, so it must be himself. "Hmm…? It must be my imagination."

He turned around and was about to walk again, but then he heard something. "Are you sure about that?"

Keteru was pretty startled to hear that and quickly turned around to behind him again. But then he saw no one is behind him. He quickly turned around to the other end of alley and found no one was there also. The voice of this unknown man was pretty close to him so it would be impossible that the man who was talking to him just disappeared like that. Keteru quickly rubbed his own eyes and looked around again.

"Wh-who's there!?" Keteru quickly asked aloud as he quickly turned around and around again to find him.

He was waiting for reply as he looked around him and stood still in the light, no one was replying to him. "I know you're here! Don't think it is fun to play a game with me!"

Keteru was facing on the exit of the alley, but then froze with his eyes stared forward when he heard someone. "I don't play games, Mr. Jotokani."

The voice was coming from behind him again. He then turned his head slowly to behind him and looked over through his right shoulder. There, he saw a shadowy figure standing at the outside edge of the light. He was blocking the view of the road from where Keteru came in. Keteru was pretty startled to see that shadowy figure. He had thought the mafia just sent another punk to kill him.

Keteru quickly turned around and pointed his finger at the figure. "Hey! Show yourself!"

It was an order that he shouldn't say.

The figure then stepped forward into the light. Keteru was actually terrified of who he was looking at right now. The figure maybe shadowy, but his true appearance was very intimidating. This was not a punk he was dealing with, nor even some sort of hitman who wanted to kill him.

The man that he was looking right now was wearing black jeans and grey jacket. But above his jacket was his some sort of vest along with its ammo pouches and a square shaped pouch on his chest. There were straps on his both legs, one is a pistol holster and other is an additional small bag. He was wearing black gloves, though it was different kind of gloves than the military wear in the year of 1960. And the last part was something he couldn't forget.

Aside from the headset he used along with his dark red sunglasses, his whole face was masked with a skull mask balaclava. One of the kind that would scare the hell out of him.

The skull-masked man stepped forward towards him, Keteru quickly pulls out his switchblade for that. "Who the hell are you?! Stay back!"

The skull-masked man ignore his warning and approached him more. "I said stay back!" Keteru warned aloud again as he shifted his switchblade towards him, making a stabbing gesture.

The skull-masked man however, got close to Keteru and overpowered him first. The skull-masked man just quickly disarms him by a simple hard hit to his hand-armed knife that made the knife slip off his hand and thrown away to Keteru's right. Before the skull-masked man strikes Keteru's neck hard before grabbing his head and throws him to the trash container, slamming his head first. Keteru was stunned as he sat against the trash container, unaware that the skull-masked man had kicked away the switchblade away from him. Keteru then slowly regains his consciousness from all of that.

Keteru was then able to aware on what's going on now, despite he was a little drunk from that drink. He then lifted his head up to look at the skull-masked man. He saw that the mysterious man has already pulled out his pistol and is already gripping in his right hand. He was a little terrified for now as he wonders why his gun still on his hand like that instead of going ahead and shoot him. He heard the skull-masked man sighed as he stares blankly to somewhere else on Keteru's right. Then the mysterious man turned his head at him and walked over to him, his pistol is still gripping on his hand.

Keteru then backing up from by putting his back against the trash container and retracts his legs away from him. "Nantekotta i, who the hell are you?" Keteru asked lowly.

"Just a man who wants to find some information," the skull-masked man then looked over his gun, an expression of curiosity is hidden under his balaclava. "And it turns out, the information we've been looking for is linked up… to you."

"Wha-what? Linked up to me?" Keteru asked confusedly as he winced his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

The skull-masked man then crouched down in front of Keteru who's still sitting against the trash container, then looked up to his face with his pistol resting on his knee. "I believe you have involved with the Rogue Foxes before."

Keteru widen his eyes in surprise of that information. "W-wait, how did you know?"

"I have asked some 'friends' for that," the skull-masked man replied with his head tilted. "So you better tell me about them."

Keteru does know about the Rogue Foxes, but he can't just tell him that. "I won't tell you about it. They're going to kill me if I do."

*DOR*

The skull-masked man shot him, fortunately it was a warning shot. The bullet goes through the trash container, right next to Keteru's ear. Keteru was frightened as hell until he was actually jumped when the shot happened. Keteru quickly turns his head to the bullet hole next to him and immediately sweats in fear.

"How about now?" the skull-masked man casually asked, his pistol was already aiming straight to his head.

Because he didn't want to get risked by getting shot in the head, he quickly gave up. "Alright, alright! I'll tell you! Now… what do you want to know about them?"

"We heard that the Rogue Foxes had recently kidnapped a student of Ooarai," the skull-masked man replies. "Her name is Ogin. Do you know about her?"

Keteru only quickly shook his head in denial. "I don't know about her, I swear! I'm just a courier and a messenger. I do know them but I don't work for them!"

"Alright, let me ask something else," Ghost said to him as he holstered his pistol. "What do you know about the Rogue Foxes?"

"They actually have a lot of big connections in the city, especially their connections with the mafia," Keteru replied. "Though, they are very good at blackmailing and kidnapping people. Particularly on people who has been abused or the people who are pretty rich. They also deals with weapons trading and they're doing it just fine. They are also good at bribery, to which they weren't getting any attention from the police."

"Huh… interesting," the skull-masked man then stood up and kept looking down at him. "Do you know who's the leader of their group?"

"I honestly don't know, I swear," Keteru replied with his head shook.

"Are you sure about that?" Ghost asked, somewhat grimly and cold as he stared at him.

Keteru paused for a moment as he looked down, something dawned his mind. "But there's this one guy I know when I was doing my courier job."

"And what's his name?" Ghost asked curiously, he crossed his arms for that.

"His name is Sakeyabaru Cojariyo," Keteru replied. "I never met him but… he is one of the guys who's leading the kidnapping jobs. I think he is involved with the kidnapping of an Ooarai student that you're looking for."

"You sure he is involved with that?" Ghost asked again to make sure he confirmed this.

"I think so, my boss had told me to sent pictures to one of Sakeyabaru's men because they wanted to do some kidnapping," Keteru then raises his hands quickly. "That's all I know, I swear!"

The skull-masked man only paused as he stares at him for a moment, until he felt satisfied. "I see… Sakeyabaru Cojariyo… right?"

Keteru only stared at him as the skull-masked man writing down the name on a piece of paper. "Yeah, Sakeyabaru Cojariyo."

The skull-masked man then stashed the paper inside one of his jeans pocket and then looked back at him. "Know anything about the Rogue Foxes location?"

"I only know about the one in this city and the other one in Wakayama," Keteru tries to remember the exact location but failed. "I don't really remember where's the exact place because I'm a drinking type of guy, so… I like to forget things like that. Besides… it's been a long time I didn't go to those places."

The skull-masked man believed him judging from the tone Keteru make, and yes he was telling the truth. Though the man only glared at him as if he was disbelieve of what he said. Keteru was afraid that he's going to kill him. Until…

"Alright, you're free to go, Keteru."

Keteru was of course surprised about that. "Wait, just that?"

"Yeah, just that," the skull-masked man then turned around and about to walk to the exit from where he came from.

Keteru quiclkly stood up and called him. "Wait!"

The man stops, and then looked behind him by his shoulders. "Who are you?" Keteru asked in a tone of fear and curiousity.

The mysterious man then give a skull-masked face to him. "What do you think?"

Keteru said nothing, at loss of words. The skull-masked man then turned his head forward and headed out for the exit of the alley. Keteru looked away from him for a moment to calm himself down with the shook of his head, before looking back at the skull-masked man. To his surprise, he just gone. No noise was heard nor figure was found of him when he exited the alley.

Keteru only looked back and forth in the alley but he was nowhere to be found. Keteru could only be glad that whoever this man was had let him go. He quickly took his switchblade and gets out the alley. Out the alley, he then turned left following his path home whilst his hands resting in his pockets. He wouldn't forget of this event. Though, he doesn't know the man's name but he could make a name from the mask he saw.

He called him… Yūrei.

* * *

Komatsushima city, Tokashima Prefecture. 10:00 AM.

.

"What do you think about this Exhibition, Duce Anchovy?"

"It's been a long time to see a 3 vs 3 teams match. It would be fun to watch I guess."

"Though, I wondered why they asked for 35 tanks instead of 30 for the match."

"I think they just can't get enough of that. It's normal."

"What do you think about it, Éclair?"

"Well, it's interesting."

"Interesting? Really?"

.

Anchovy along with Pepperoni was with her friends from the Maginot and the BC Freedom. The Maginots were Éclair and Fondue. The BC Freedom were Andou and Marie. They all are currently taking a stroll in the city.

As they chatted for a moment, they decided to stop by at a café for the moment to have some snacks and coffee. They all sat down at a table with 2 couches, the one it's attached to a wall where the window was. One couch was for Anchovy, Pepperoni and Marie while the other couch was for Andou, Éclair and Fondue. They then asked for the menu and waited for a moment as they chatted a little on something else. The place they're in however was pretty nice.

Andou and Marie apparently ordered some cakes, Éclair ordered strawberry milk pudding while Fondue ordered some Pretzels. Anchovy and Pepperoni both ordered ice creams for themselves called Gelato. It was a 5 minute waiting until the orders were served to them. They really loved on the orders they asked, it was very delicious. Too bad, Anchovy didn't invite Miho to take a walk here.

Anchovy then opened up her phone as she eats her ice cream, her phone rings for a moment and caught everyone's attention. Everyone had wondered who had send a text message to Anchovy. Though, as Anchovy checked her phone, she smiled at who had sent her the text which made her friends raised their one eyebrows. Anchovy then texted back to the person who messaged her.

Pepperoni leans her head in to see who's Anchovy texting to. "Who's that, Duce Anchovy?"

Anchovy looks back at her with a smile. "Well, it's Miho Nishizumi."

Andou and Marie only stare at her and both expressed mild surprise. Though, the only person who were froze to hear that name was only Éclair and Fondue. Fondue had heard of what happened to Éclair and the rest of 16 girls that had a fight with only Miho, frankly she just can't believe it. Éclair and Fondue were both shock to know that Miho was really a good friend of Anchovy. Though, Éclair was also glad that she didn't get punched by Miho.

The question was why Miho didn't hit her?

"Éclair, Fondue, are you both alright?" Marie asked as everyone else noticed this, they both quickly shook their heads to broke their frozen state. "You looked so… undelightful to hear that."

"No, it's nothing," Éclair lied awkwardly with her hand waved at them. "We're just… can't believe that rumor is true."

"Y-yeah…" Fondue added awkwardly with a false smile, but then speaks smoothly. "We just thought that was a lie."

Marie, Andou and Pepperoni only stares at them both with blank eyes and flat face because of their odd replies. Though, Anchovy however had noticed the awkward tones they made as she stopped texting for a moment.

Anchovy only stares at them both in suspicion, then asked. "Did you both had a fight with Miho Nishizumi?"

Andou and Marie were both surprised to hear that, Éclair and Fondue however were both shocked to hear that. "How did you know?" Éclair asked with her eyes widen.

"I knew you both were lying," Anchovy replied, then she shook her head. "Why did you both had a fight with her?"

"Um, well… you girls know we have our own trouble with the Saunders and Jatkosota but we didn't expect to see Miho was on their side," Éclair replied flatly. "Though, we do what pleases us and let ourselves have a fight with Miho. Fondue wasn't involved in the fight because she's not there with me. But… aside from that, I never knew the outcome will be worst than I expected."

"Worst? What happened?" Andou asked curiously and worried, reminded of what happened to herself and the Bonples.

"Well… I just do all the talk-fighting while the rest of my girls deal with Miho by beating her up," Éclair then paused as she gulped a little to remember that. "Miho, beaten all 16 students of Maginot to the ground brutally, and without getting hit by any of my girls."

Marie, Andou and Pepperoni widen their eyes in disbelieve, Fondue only kept eating her pretzels while Anchovy only raised her eyebrows for that. "What do you mean by… brutally?" Anchovy asked in a little confusion, she wondered if Miho would go as far as she did with the Bonples.

"Well… one student got her nose bleeding ," Éclair then paused in discomfort, before continuing. "3 students got thrown out of the window of the restaurant, 4 students got beaten after they landed on tables hard, 6 students… got their arms and legs broken that they need to go to hospital, and the last 2 students… got their hands stabbed with a couple of butter knives to the table counter."

To hear how 16 students got incapacitated brutally by Miho just make everyone excluding Fondue and Anchovy dropped their jaws in horror. Fondue only hoped with a frown that they didn't get any trouble with Miho. Though, Andou, Marie and Pepperoni was more horrified to hear Miho stabbed the students' hands. The only person who didn't have the reaction like Fondue or everyone else was only Anchovy.

Anchovy was only sad and pitied to hear that. She gave a frown on that. She understands Miho had to do what she had to do, even if violence was needed for that.

Anchovy only sighed in disappointment for that. "If you had known Miho before, you shouldn't have a fight with her."

Everyone was surprised to hear Anchovy's reply was that, instead of horrified. "Well… at least… Miho didn't beat me up."

"Huh? Why did she didn't beat you up?" Pepperoni asked in confusion along with the others except Anchovy.

Éclair wasn't able to reply, but then Anchovy answered for her. "She must've give you a choice, didn't she?"

"Erm, yeah?" Éclair replied with an unsure nod. "Why would she gave me a chance?"

"She just doesn't want that kind of trouble went too far," Anchovy replied with a shrug. "She's maybe a hard girl. But, she will gives a second chance to those who take the wrong step. Miho is actually a very good friend. You just don't see it from inside of her heart."

"Oh, it's good to know, Anchovy," Fondue commented with a smile. "We're glad to understand her more."

"I know," Anchovy replied with a nod and a smile. "I hope I can meet her again."

Everyone was smiling to her, agreed to what she said. Despite that Éclair and Fondue were both discomfort about it, they both were also glad to be given a second chance yesterday. The Maginots declared a truce with the Saunders and Jatkosota again, but gladly it was much more friendly than they had expected. Andou had also hoped she can have a small chat with Miho again if the their paths crossed again. Pepperoni on the other hand, had something else in mind.

Pepperoni only glanced at her with a grin and snickered, Anchovy looked at her in confusion. "Why are you smiling at me like that?" Anchovy asked in confusion.

"Oh, nothing," Pepperoni replied as she looked away, still smiling. "I know about something."

"About what?" Anchovy asked as she along with everyone else stare at her in confusion.

Pepperoni paused for a moment with a smirk, then looked at her. "You fell in love with Miho, don't you?"

Anchovy blushed. Checkmate.

"N-no, I'm not, Pepperoni!" Anchovy retorted as she's still blushing. "Why would you say that?!"

"Oh you know," Pepperoni replied as she snickered, everyone else smiled a little on that. "Remember Miho's compliment back in the tea party?"

"You looked as great and beautiful as the winter's snow," Andou answered for her with a smile. "Back in that tea party, I noticed that Miho has an affection to you, Duce Anchovy."

"Are you serious, Andou?" Anchovy added in annoyance and disbelieve as she stares at her. "It's not like what you think."

"I do agree with Andou, though," Marie added with her index finger on her chin and a flat tone. "She was pretty charming when she talked to you."

"Marie! You're not helping!" Anchovy said aloud to her in discomfort. "Miho and I are both just friends!"

"'Very good' friends," Pepperoni corrected with sarcasm with her fingers gestured with bending index and middle finger forward, Éclair and Fondue only snickered to hear that. "So I would say it's more than friends."

"I can't believe you're into girls as well, Anchovy," Éclair commented with a smile as she crossed her arms on the table.

"N-No, I'm not, it's just-" Anchovy quickly replied.

But then quickly cuts off by Pepperoni with her finger pointed at Anchovy. "You're in love to a girl! You're in love to a girl! Ow-aaah!"

Anchovy is already pinching her face with her both hands. "Stop it, Baka-roni!"

"You're in love to a girl! You're in love to a girl!" Pepperoni continued allowed as her face were getting pinched at.

"Stop it, Baka! You're embarrassing me!"

Andou and Marie only shook their head with a happy grin to see that. Éclair and Fondue were both actually laughing at this. Anchovy continued to pinch and stretch Pepperoni's face while at the same time Pepperoni still continue shouting those words in the café. That caught everyone's attention in the café, and they only shook their heads for their childish nature.

"Ow, ow , ow!" Anchovy pinched Pepperoni even harder. "Ok, ok, I'll stop!"

"You better be, Baka-roni!" Anchovy said as she holds her face. "Just quit it."

"Alright, alright, I'll quit it," Pepperoni replied with a rather cheery tone.

Anchovy then lets go of her face and continued to eat her ice cream. Marie and Andou only chuckled after Anchovy pinched her. While Éclair and Fondue only laughed at Pepperoni's bad luck. Anchovy was already really annoyed of Pepperoni's childish attitude. Well yeah, Pepperoni is really an extrovert and a fun girl, but sometimes she could be annoying.

"Anchovy falls in love with a girl~," Pepperoni said lowly, Anchovy was annoyed again.

Anchovy fisted her shoulder softly. "Quit it, Baka-roni."

"He he he he he…" Pepperoni laughed lowly to herself of that, Anchovy sighed in annoyance.

Everyone else except Andou also laughed a little on that. Andou only smiled and shook her head on that. Anchovy looked away from Pepperoni for a moment, before continued to eat her ice cream. They stayed silent for awhile as they enjoyed their snacks. Éclair already finished up her pudding when she wondered about something.

"But… really?" Éclair asked. "You really liked Miho, despite of her hard attitude?"

"She's maybe a hard girl, but I like her," Anchovy replied with a nod. "I owed her one, but she didn't want me to owe her anything. Just saying that it's what she does."

Then they heard Andou sighed, she was clamping her hands into a fist while her elbows are on the table in discomfort. "Is there something bothering you, Andou?" Fondue asked in wonder

"You know? There's something I don't like to know about," Andou replied as she looked at her.

"Are saying that you don't like Miho?" Marie asked.

"No, not that, I do like her, but…" Andou paused as she looked away, before continuing. "I felt that Miho is hiding something."

Pepperoni leans her head forward to her as the rest only glanced at her. "Are you sure? I mean, she admitted to us about what happened to her for a year."

"Pepperoni, remember what she did to Momo that time?" Andou asked, everyone was left silent but then Pepperoni and Anchovy replied with a nod. "It's obvious she knows how to fight. But is there any such girl that would dare to choke her to death like that?"

She has a point, but Anchovy doubted it. "Even if Miho was actually that… bad… Miho would never dare to kill anyone. I'm sure of it."

"Well… I guess you're right…" Andou replied with a nod, then leans her back against the chair. "It's just my feelings anyway."

They then continued to enjoy their snacks and enjoy their day in the café. They only chatted to themselves about how are they doing in the school and if there's anything new in the city aside from the previous topic. Anchovy really liked Miho, or rather loved her (as in very like her). But something that Andou said about Miho made her curious.

Curious if Andou was right all along.

* * *

Saunders University High School, tank hangars. 11:00 AM

.

"Hey, good training, everyone!"

"Sure bet, Kay!"

"Hey, Alisa, Naomi, how're you doing back there?"

"I can't believe my tank got shot like that!"

"Hey, girl. At least we're having fun here."

"Really, Naomi? I thought this is a training for the Exhibition Match."

"Sure it is, Alisa. Now come on, how about we get some drink?"

.

Kay, Alisa, Naomi and Helmet-chan (Helmet is her nickname) are currently having a break from the training of the full mock-up battle training. They all have sat down at a table with two benches, one bench is for Kay and Alisa while the other one is for Helmet and Naomi. The table was at the tank hangars, some girls are also sat some tables available there in case they wanted to eat here instead inside the cafeteria school. The reason was, they were lazy to take a walk back to the cafeteria. To which why they were bringing their own snacks to the tank hangars.

Kay was quiet happy about the news of Ooarai and Kuromorimine so far on the truce. She was sure that her school along with those could win the Exhibition. Not forget to mention it was thanks to Miho for that. And also her school along with Mika's also declared a friendly truce with the Maginots after that fight yesterday. But now, she needs to do some training with her school's tank crews later.

Naomi was playing her part as a commander of her Firefly Sherman tank pretty well. Alisa on the other hand, who was commanding her M4A1 Sherman tank had bad luck in the practice. Alisa had drove her tank, upside down that time and then got shot by the opponents. Well, it's a good thing that didn't happen in the Nationals. That would be an embarrassing moment for Alisa if that happens.

Kay, Naomi, Alisa and Helmet have brought their lunch to the table near the hangars. Kay brought her 2 Bacon Cheeseburgers, Naomi brought her a big pack of chicken nuggets and soda, Alisa brought her two Tacos full of meat, cheese and vegetables, and lastly Helmet brought her chicken fillet for the lunch. Kay as always lighten their mood up about how excited she is along with everyone on this Exhibition match before proceed to eat their lunch. They then started to make a conversation as they have lunch. But Helmet just gave them one serious topic after a little chat.

"Kay, was Miho there with you back in the fight in Osaka?" Helmet asked flatly, everyone was caught off-guard as they didn't expect that the news spread that fast.

"Erm, yeah, she was with us back in the restaurant in Osaka," Kay replied with a nod after she took a bite of her burger. "We were glad Miho was there to sort out the fight."

"Sort out the fight?" Alisa asked sarcastically as she looked at her. "It's more like she was there to 'beat the hell out of 'em'."

"Beat the hell out of them? What are you talking about?" Helmet asked confusedly as she narrowed her eyes to her.

"She kinda took care of the Maginots by herself when the fight starts," Naomi replied before taking 4 piece of nuggets to her mouth. "We were fairly surprised to see that Miho didn't even need our help to fight the Maginots."

"Even though there were around 15 or 16 of them," Alisa added with a shrug, then bites her taco. "We have no idea how the hell she could beat all of them up without getting hit."

"Basically she's like a mobile punching machine," Kay added with a shrug, continued to eat her burger. "She even broke a few students' bones for that."

"Oh God," Helmet replied with shock. "Did she… hurt Éclair as well?"

"Oddly, no," Naomi replied with a shook. "Instead Éclair just accepted the truce with our school and Jatkosota through Miho."

"Woah, that's something," Helmet commented in awe. "And I'm glad we got our truce that quickly."

"Yeah, I'm grateful that Miho was on our side," Kay added with a nod. "She was a total badass."

"Really?" Helmet asked with a raised brow. "Do you think she would join the Exhibition Match?"

That's when everyone just glared at her blankly, though Kay was the only one who was pretty upset to hear that.

"You know, that sounds great," Alisa commented as she looked at Naomi.

"Though, she's gonna need some convincing about that," Naomi replied to Alisa's statement.

"I think that's impossible," Kay quickly replied in sure.

Everyone then glanced at her in surprise. "Wait, would that be impossible?"

"Well, you guys know that Miho doesn't want to be involved with tankery anymore," Kay replied as she finished her first burger.

"But that doesn't mean she just can't join tankery right?" Helmet asked with her open palms raised at the height of shoulder.

"She really doesn't want and can't join the tankery," Kay replied again, she then started to eat on her second burger. "Not after her failure in the 62nd Nationals and that incident in Ooarai."

"Well, we could try ask her again, who knows?" Naomi suggested again.

Though, Kay shook her head in disagreement. "No. I heard from Maho that Miho ever agreed on doing a practice match in Kuromorimine. But before that, Maho got herself being chased around by Miho who was angry and attacking her with a knife."

Everyone only stare at her, cringed. To think anyone would be pretty angry to be asked to join a tankery match, this one was the most horrifying this far. Naomi could imagine how did that went down for Maho. Alisa and Helmet on the other hand, they were wishing that they would avoid getting themselves into the wrong end of the knife. Kay of course knew that was a lie and the truth was Miho shot Maho with bullets before they able calm her down and get Miho joined up to do a practice match.

"Ouch, is Maho alright after that?" Helmet asked.

"Thankfully," Kay replied with a nod. "Though, Miho warned her to not set her off again."

"Wow, can't believe Miho was so pissed like that," Naomi commented with a smirk.

"Yeah, you never know what to expect from her," Kay replied in consent, then continued to eat her burger.

"Well, at least she able to handle the truce between Kuromorimine and Ooarai," Alisa added, everyone replied with a thumbs up.

"Of course, hopefully we don't have trouble with those both schools fighting each other in the Exhibition Match," Helmet replied cheerily.

"But hey, it's not like we're in the Nationals," Kay said to her with arms wide open. "But it's good to see some change with those schools."

"I know, boy, if those schools were fighting like the BC Freedoms," Naomi added with a smile.

Everyone understood what she meant, everyone laughed at that. "No, no, come on! really?" Alisa replied as she was stopped laughing and still smiling.

"Well, in Miho's perspective would be different," Kay said, everyone glanced at her in curious.

"What will Miho say if she's seeing something like that?" Alisa asked curiously.

"She would say that these schools would just have another civil war again."

Ouch.

"Woah, woah!" Alisa said aloud, everyone was surprise if Miho's answer would be that. "it's been 15 years after the Second World War and Miho would thought of something like that?"

"Well, yeah," Kay replied with a nod and a shrug. "I'm also surprised if that was her answer."

"Damn, now I'm wondering what's going on in her mind," Naomi commented with a smiling grin.

They laughed for a moment as they eat, but then something made Helmet curious. "Hey, Kay."

"Yeah?" Kay replied as she finished her burger.

"You seem a little busy this lately," Helmet stated, making Naomi and Alisa glance at her in wonder. "Something's up?"

"Yeah, you looked in a little hurry about something sometimes after we finished Sensha-Do training," Naomi added. "Though, you always said it was an emergency."

"Well, it was nothing actually," Kay replied with a shook. "Just calls of my parents being sick, get called in to some events that I must attend to, and dealing with some trouble in my office."

"Uuuh, I don't remember if there's any-" Alisa stated but then cuts off by Kay.

"And also I got calls from Miho," Kay added quickly. "Asking me to help her on doing her volunteer jobs."

"Oh?" Naomi asked in widen eyes. "What kind of volunteer jobs?"

"Various actually," Kay replied with an open palm. "None of them was also involving tankery."

"That's interesting," Naomi commented, but also wondered. "But why would she called you? I mean, isn't there anyone else would help her?"

"Basically, she has trust issues," Kay replied, she then landed her cheek on her hand that was resting on the table by her elbow. "The first time I met her, she was like that. But then she trusts me after a few meetings with her, and I was pretty helpful for her."

"Trust issues?" Alisa asked in surprise, everyone else followed suit of that reaction. "You mean after she got back to London?"

"Yeah," Kay replied with a nod. "She told me that she ever got betrayed by a friend before. By trying to kill her. I don't know anything else than that."

Everyone was in shock to hear something like that. "Damn! I'm glad she's alright now," Naomi commented gladly, she just can't believe a friend would do something like that to her.

"Yeah, honestly, what a crazy thing for a girl to get through," Kay added with a nod.

Kay then lifted her head from her hand, and then looked over to them. "Hey, wanna have a party tonight?"

"Really, Kay?" Alisa asked in annoyance.

"Well, it won't hurt," Naomi added in a tone of consent.

They all then get off their seats and headed back for their tanks. They just want to do some checks before heading back to school. After that, she along with her vice-ommanders, Helmet and the rest of the Sensha-Do team then returned to the school to do their daily stuffs. Kay, however, had locked herself in her office and checked up in her laptop. Just want to know if there's something she could do for the 141. Knowing she got nothing to do to work with the 141, she closed her laptop and walked out her office and heading for her friends.

So far, she was glad that her identity as the 141 is not revealed yet.

* * *

Ooarai Girls' Academy. 11:30 AM

.

"Ohayōgozaimasu, Miho Nishizumi-san!"

"Good… morning, Ms. Kadotani. Ms. Kawashima and Ms. Koyama."

"So why did you come over to our office?"

"Just paying a visit. Want to know how things going on for now."

"Oh, come. Please sit with us."

.

Miho is currently attending Ooarai school to see how's the progress so far after she made the truce for this school and Kuromorimine. Miho was pretty relieved to hear none students of both sides have decided to do a fight. Good thing though, less bastards she has to deal with aside from the missions back in base. And to know, after that fight in that restaurant with the Maginots, the students of Ooarai and Kuromorimine have been increasingly afraid and avoid any fight in fear of Miho herself. Guessed it's the first time for them to see the dark side of Miho's aside from how Murakami fights.

Miho was doing a visit to Ooarai. As usual, lending a hand to the students of Ooarai when they needed help the most. She also had informed her friends of the Shark team on how the investigation is going before she headed for this office. She also checked up on how her friends from the Anglerfish team are doing. Frankly, she was happy to see them were alright.

Miho was wearing her green boonie hat, another hat she has aside the grey one. She was wearing an olivebuttoned long-sleeve shirt and grey pants. She has a drop-bag on her right thigh that hides her M9 Berreta. Her cigars and lighter was left on the pocket of her shirt. She has a small black pouch on her belt which contains small tool (the ammo for the pistol was also inside the drop bag). There was wristwatch she wore on her left hand.

Miho sat down with the Student Councils at the couches in that office. Miho then puts her boonie hat down on the table in front of her. She then comforts herself by leaning her back against the couch. Momo and Yuzu can't help to feel a little nervous to see that scarred eye of Miho's. Anzu, on the other hand, happily served the glasses of juices on the table.

After Anzu pours some juices to the glasses from her bottle, she then asked. "So, how's your day, Miho-san?"

"Better I guess," Miho replied reluctantly, before taking a glass and drink it. "Thanks for the juice."

"Dōitashimashite," Anzu replied cheerily with a nod.

"How about you?" Miho asked with her right brow raised. "How's your day?"

"Good as always, Miho-san," Yuzu replied with a smile. "Better than I should expected."

"I see," Miho replied as she looked at her with no emotion, before looking back to Anzu. "How are things going after the truce was made?"

"Thankfully everything is going well," Anzu replied happily with her arms crossed. "Though, few of the students of both sides are sometimes taunting each other a bit."

"I see, is there anything else than that?" Miho asked again curiously.

"Also, it seems that…" Yuzu paused as everyone looked at her. "It seems that a lot of students from both this school and Kuromorimine are pretty afraid enough that they all decided to stick with the truce and won't even dare to make trouble with each other."

"Afraid?" Miho asked, confused a little of the statement.

"That time when you beat up those Maginots yesterday," Momo answered, Miho paused for a moment by staring at her but then remembered about it.

"Oh… that one," Miho replied. "I guess everyone who watched the fight was all freaked out on how I fight."

"Yeah, they looked like they don't want to get their faces beaten up," Anzu stated with a flat smile, but then smiled to Miho. "They did say that you were brutal. But I don't think you're that brutal."

Miho just coldly stared at her, unamused. Makes Anzu, Momo and Yuzu to wonder what's up with her looks.

Miho then explained what she did back in the fight. "I threw 3 students out the window. I slammed four of them onto the tables. 6 of the students got their legs and arms broken. I stabbed two students in their hands with butter knives."

Anzu only forcibly smile as her eyes emptily stares at her in shock. Momo and Yuzu on the other hand were both left their mouths open a little and widen their eyes in horror. They three left their sweats pouring down their heads to hear that. Momo had her hands half-opening her palms in front of her chest.

After of moment of silence, Anzu started awkwardly. "Iii… pulled my words. You're that brutal."

"Thank you," Miho sarcastically replied coldly.

That was pretty awkward actually, so Yuzu decided to change the subject. "So… how's the investigation going on finding Ogin?"

"I got good progress about it," Miho replied with a nod. "Got a lead on a man that might knows about Ogin's whereabout. Ami is looking into it right now."

"It's good to hear that," Momo replied with a sigh of relieve. "But I'm worried about her."

"Don't worry, I'll get her back safe and sound," Miho assured her. "The only thing that we need to worry about is your safety involving this case, that's all."

"Ok, Miho," Anzu replied with a nod. "We'll keep that in mind."

"Have you informed the Shark Team as well about it?" Yuzu asked as she hoped Miho told them first.

"I did, they were pretty worried and afraid of losing Ogin," Miho replied as she took the glass of juice on the table. "I able to calm Murakami down when she was insisting herself to help me on this case."

"Oh, forgive us about Murakami," Anzu replied with pity. "She's quiet attached to Ogin and cared about her."

"Don't worry, Ms. Kadotani, I understand," Miho replied flatly. "It's alright for someone to be worried of her friend's condition."

"We're happy to hear that," Anzu replied with a smile.

"But, I have question though," Miho said to Anzu. "What's with the secrecy of Ogin's situation? If you knew about this, why didn't you at least tell anyone else aside the police?"

"We don't want anyone else got hurt because of this," Anzu replied with a frown. "If anyone else knew about this, or this case goes public… I'm afraid they will hurt Ogin if they found out we're trying to find a way to save her."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod. "Now the only person who knows about this are only you, me, everyone in this school, commanders of Kuromorimine including my sister, Ami and my mother. I can assure you those bastards won't know if we ever talked about this."

"Are you sure, Miho?" Momo asked worriedly. "I'm afraid if they-"

"Trust me," Miho cuts her off. "It's what I do."

It would be their first time to hear Miho said that. She sounded pretty confident of what she's doing than how she acted a year ago. Nevertheless, Miho was very willing to help on this case. What they can't believe was that she would risked her neck to save Ogin. How she will save Ogin they don't know, but hopefully she got her back safe.

"Also, I got another question for you," Miho said to them, which caught them off-guard.

"Oh, what do you want to know about?" Anzu asked as she waits for her question.

"I heard from Murakami that Ooarai had recently having… financial problems with no apparent reason," Miho replied to her, Anzu was surprised if she said that. "I was wondering if you could tell me about it?"

"Oh that, well…" Anzu then trailed off, of course as she looked at both Yuzu and Momo who were pretty awkward on how to explain this.

Makes Miho wonder what the hell is going on here.

"Well…?" Miho asked as she trails off, following how Anzu said it.

"Well… we are actually still looking into it right now," Momo replied awkwardly.

"But we have been unable to find the source of the problem," Yuzu added in a tone of disappointment of herself.

"Can you tell me more clearer about it?" Miho asked flatly.

"Well, this problem happened long ago," Anzu replied in upset. "Everytime we got enough money to pay up our school funds, our money mysteriously disappeared into thin air without any trace."

"Someone robbed our school right under our nose," Momo replied in upset. "We never managed to find out who's the culprit of all this robbed money. It's been already a few months like this, now with Ogin kidnapped a couple of weeks ago… we have a very huge trouble now."

"Know anyone who could robbed the school's money like that?" Miho asked, hoping there is- correction- there are any suspects that could linked to this financial disappearance.

Anzu shook her head, much to Miho's dissatisfaction. "There's no one we knew aside all the students and staff in this school. I doubt if any of them would do something like that, since after we got the money it always gone as fast as wind. There's even no one we don't know of entered this school."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod. "I'm afraid I can't help you with that for the moment."

"I know," Anzu replied in understood. "We just want you to stay focus on saving Ogin."

"Alright, I hope you can find out whoever robbing the school's money," Miho replied as she massage her own hands in front of her.

"To itte kurete arigatō," Yuzu replied happily with a bow on her seat. "I also hoped that you bring those kidnappers to justice and get Ogin back safe."

"Don't worry, I will, Yuzu," Miho replied as she took another drink of the juice. "I will."

Miho then checks up on her wristwatch. Miho suddenly leans her body forward off the couch. The Student Councils weren't so sure what made Miho moved like that. But then Miho looked up towards each of the Student Councils in the room. It was time for her to go.

"Ladies, it's time for me to go," Miho said aloud as she looked away from her wristwatch and stood up along with Anzu and Yuzu. "I need to go somewhere else."

"Oh? Where to?" Momo asked curiously as she stood off the couch.

"Let's just say my mother invites me to go somewhere," Miho replied as she rubbed her own hands to get herself comfortable.

"Aw, that's sound nice," Anzu replied happily, but then realized something. "W-wait, I thought your mother was-."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "Let's say she just needs to dialogue with her own lost daughter."

"Oh, I know how that feels," Yuzu replied with her hands clamped each other on her chin.

"Yeah, anyway, it's time for me to leave now," Miho then reached out her hand to Anzu. "May you all have a good day."

Anzu then took her hand and shook it. "We will, be careful out there."

"Certainly, Anzu," Miho replied with a nod after she shook hands with her.

Miho then walked away from the Student Councils and headed out the door by herself. It seems she doesn't want to give a fuss to the Student Councils to open the door for her. It's good to know that she was in a good mood for now. Yuzu though, had a little fascination on what Miho was wearing. Anzu however had been afraid inside her heart. She agitated a little that Momo and Yuzu didn't notice.

 _"I hope she didn't find this out."_

* * *

Sensha-Do Department, cafeteria. 12.45 PM

.

"Kon'nichiwa, Nishizumi-Dono."

"Kon'nichiwa, Hantei. Kon-nichiwa, Ami-sama. How are you doing today?"

"We're doing fine as always. Miho Nishizumi-san, it's good to meet you."

"It's good to see you too, Captain Ami."

"What brings you here today?"

"Just checking out, that's all."

.

Miho was with her mother in the Sensha-Do Department. Her mother had invited Miho to the department so she could gave a tour for her. As much Miho doesn't want to go to this department, she could've broke her mother's heart for it. So Miho accepted her invitation and come over to the department. Frankly, Miho saw her mother, Shiho was quiet happy that Miho can come over.

They were currently in the cafeteria because her mother and herself needed to get some lunch. The cafeteria in the department looked better than Ooarai's. This cafeteria has decorations of tanks and banners all over the walls, along with the logo of the department. The walls were also colored in refreshing green paint with the floor was made with shiny woods. There was also a wide wall of windows on one side of the room, facing to the east side of the department.

They have met with the judges of the Sensha-Do Department who are responsible to make sure the event of the tankery match goes smooth along with Ami. She recognized those judges actually, but she doesn't know what the judges' names are. One judge girl was a medium size girl with short brown hair and pair of brown eyes, and wear a pair of spectacles which is the head judge. One judge girl has long light brown hair with dark brown eyes. she wears her hair in a ponytail, tied by a black ribbon. The last judge girl has short black hair with dark blue eyes. The last two judges were the assistants of the head judge.

They all sat down at a table for six persons as Miho puts down her hat on the table, the table was one table away from the windows and was shaped in circle. The judges, Ami, Shiho and Miho have already got their own food from the food counter across from where the windows were. Frankly, the food the department got here was better and the same as Ooarai's. Ami was pretty happy to met up with Miho again, but also hopes that Miho didn't mention anything about the relationship between herself and Ghost. Shiho felt so happy that she could come while the judges were glad to met Miho by themselves.

They then began to eat as Miho starts a conversation. "I recognized you but I haven't got the time to know your names."

"Oh, yeah," the head jugde with the spectacles replied, then shook hands with her. "My name is Kanon Sasagawa, the head judge of the Sensha-Do Department."

Then Miho shook hands with the girl whom her brown hair tied to a ponytail. "My name is Remi Takashima, Miho-san."

And then Miho shook hands with the girl with the short black hair. "My name is Hibiki Inatomi. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miho-san."

"The pleasure is mine as well, Ms. Inatomi," Miho replied with a nod after they shook hands. "I believe you all have a good day."

"Oh, sure we are," Ami answered back with a smile. "How's the day for you both, Nishizumi-Dono?"

"Well, pretty fine I guess," Shiho replied with a smile.

"Same goes for me," Miho added in agreement. "How's your job with JGSDF holding up, Ami?"

"Oh, as usual, it's fine," Ami replied with her both hands raised to her shoulders. "So what are you doing for these few days?"

"Just checking up on how Ooarai and Kuromorimine are doing," Miho replied as she took a spoonful of ramen. "Those schools are doing pretty great so far."

"I heard you're involved on the truce between those schools," Kanon stated. "Did you made the both schools to have a truce by yourself."

"Technically, yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "I felt so sick to hear what Kuromorimine had done to Ooarai."

"But, do any students of both schools have any objections about it?" Hibiki asked curiously as she wasn't sure if all students just accepted it like that.

"Well, before the students of Kuromorimine gave their objections first hand," Miho replied lazily. "I gave them a threat if they ever dare to hit any students of Ooarai for that."

"Eih?!" the judges were pretty of this. "Were you bluffing to them about it?" Remi asked in unsure.

Both Shiho and Miho just stared at her a little confused, Shiho then answered. "We didn't say anything about bluffing."

"…." The judges only awkwardly stayed silent about it. "Right…" Ami said trailing off.

"So what kind of threat were you giving to them?" Kanon asked, her face was showing a pretty strict expression.

"A physical threat," Miho replied flatly. "Easier said than done."

"And how did you make the both schools to get a truce?" Kanon asked as she was disbelieve about this. "Because you're not a Student Council of a school or even a member of this Department so I find it hard to believe that you made the truce for both schools without trouble."

"Well, I took the crazy way to do it," Miho replied with a shrug, then continues to eat.

"What do you mean crazy way?" Ami asked as she was confused.

Since the judges were actually the part of Sensha-Do Department instead of any schools, they deserved to know the truth.

"Well…" Miho then paused as she looked away, before looking back at them and replied whilst Kanon was drinking. "I had to deal with the Kuromorimines first. I called all commanders of that school to the meeting room and 'discuss' about their relations to Ooarai. When I made the truce and giving them a threat about it, I pulled out my shotgun and nearly shot any of them."

"GLEKH!"

That made Kanon choked on her drink. Hibiki, Remi and Ami were pretty horrified to hear that and stared at her in shock. Shiho felt there was a sweat leaving down her left side of her head as she was awkward to this situation. Miho on the other hand only gave a cold face for that.

"Wait, are you serious?!" Kanon asked aloud in little anger. "Where the hell did you get a shotgun and how did you smuggle it inside a school?!"

"Long story," Miho flatly replied. "As for getting the shotgun, you obviously know how I get it right?"

"Oh… yeah…" Kanon replied as she trailed off and remembered who Miho is. "You're a soldier of the Task Force."

"Did those students knew if Miho was a soldier?" Remi asked as she massaged her neck.

"No, and actually they knew that Miho has any possession of weapons in her disposal," Shiho replied casually to her question.

That actually freaks the judges out when they knew the Kuromorimines knew of Miho's possession of weapons. "I hope those students can stay silent about it," Hibiki asked in hopeful.

"Don't worry, they know how to stay silent about it," Ami replied with a confident smile. "I can see those students were already afraid of Miho more than Maho."

"Now that's ironic," Kanon commented with a grin. "A little sister able to beat her own big sister."

"Yes, apparently that way," Shiho added in consent.

"By the way, Miho-san," Remi quickly changed the subject. "I heard you had a fight with the Maginots yesterday."

"Yes, I did have a fight with them," Miho replied with a nod. "Those bastards did looking for trouble."

"But I'm impressed that you managed to fight them off without a scratch," Hibiki complimented with a smile. "But the only thing I heard along with the judges here is that you slammed the students on the tables and threw some of them out the windows."

"Oh, there's more than that," Miho replied with her arms crossed. "6 of them got their legs and arms broken while two of them got stabbed in their hands."

And then the judges stared at her in horror. "N-nani!?"

"Yes, I did all that," Miho replied with a nod. "I able to make them to have a truce with the Saunders and Jatkosota again."

"Wow, you really had enough to have people fighting against you and your friends fighting those kind of people," Remi commented in astonishment. "But really, do you have to fight that brutally?"

"Every time when they set me off," was Miho's reply.

"Oh, right," Kanon replied with a nod, then turned to Ami. "By the way, how's the debate holding up?"

"It seems that they have agreed that the Exhibition Match will start with a week from today," Ami replied as she looked at her.

Miho quickly scoffed when she mentioned that. "Bloody hell, I hate that."

Everyone was surprised of Miho's answer, they all looked up to her. "I'm sorry, what?" Kanon asked in wonder.

"That tankery again," Miho scoffed.

"Wait, you hate tankery?" Hibiki asked as she was surprised of this. "But you were doing well back in your time in Kuromorimine."

"I know and I don't want to do that," Miho replied coldly. "I had enough about it."

"After the 62nd National Tournament and that incident in Ooarai school?" Hibiki asked with her right brow raised.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Just… don't talk to me about it."

"Okay," Remi replied as they all nodded, to which Remi wondered about one thing. "I was wondering… what happened to your eye?"

Miho only gazed her eyes to her in silence, though they felt a little dread when they looked straight to her scarred eye. "Took a machine gun bullet to an eye. At least I still can see with both eyes."

The judges could only stared at her in worries. How could Miho survived a bullet to an eye?

"You got that when you were on a mission?" Kanon asked.

Miho only glared at her coldly. The truth was she didn't get this on a mission, it was back in London. But… she won't be willing to reply this question because it was sensitive. She doesn't to say nor hear anything about her past.

Miho still glared at her and coldly replied. "I'm not talking about it."

"But… it's just-" Kanon said but then quickly cuts off by Miho.

"I'm not talking about it!" Miho said aloud to them in anger and cold.

Miho only glared at the judges as they widen their eyes in surprise and worried of Miho's reaction. Shiho and Ami both were worried if Kanon had unintentionally sets her off. Miho then looks away from the judges and sigh to herself slowly and in good pace, trying to calm herself down. As everyone watched her, Miho then looked back straight to Kanon. Kanon was a little confused on why did Miho got angry that fast.

"Sorry… it was…" Miho paused as she looked down, before looking back. "It's personal."

"Oh, I didn't know," Kanon replied quickly in worry. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to-"

"No, no, it's alright," Miho quickly cuts her off. "Just… don't ask me from where I got this scar."

"Got it, Miho-san," Kanon replied with a nod.

They chatted a little for awhile and frankly warms up Miho's mood. At least she was comfy to talk with the judges, Ami and her mother. She knows what's the difference level of comfy with those schoolgirls and these adults. But what found her funny was that Ami had said the judges has no much respect to Ami herself, to which the judges replied in denial. Well, better this than having Maho and Kay around.

She probably want to shot them both for her own sanity.

As they have finished up their food, they then proceed to talk with each other. The judges were talking about what were they doing that time when they're in the previous tankery match. It's funny to know that they have some affection with the students, quiet light hearted. Kanon on the other hand might not be like that like Hibiki and Remi, but she was pretty sly on getting some food by eating with the Anzios. Though… as they chatted, they heard something out of normalcy.

(Remove Kebab Loop)

Everyone, including those who were not in Miho's table are all looking straight to her in confusion and blank stares. Miho apparently forgot to decrease the volume of the tone. Nevertheless, Miho replied to everyone that she got a call. Miho pulled out her phone as everyone else who are not in Miho's table get back to eating their foods. The judges, Ami and Shiho had wondered who called her as Miho looked down on the phone.

"Who's calling you?" Remi asked.

"It's Ernesto," Miho replied. "One of my men from the 141."

She then answered the phone. "Olá?"

"Olá Capitão!" Ernesto replied happily in the phone. "Como vai você?"

"Estou bem, companheiro," Miho replied with a nod, this had confused and amazed everyone due to the language she was talking in. "Por que você me ligou?"

"Temos uma nova pista, capitão," Ernesto replied, which she got up by that.

"O que você tem para mim?" Miho asked as she quickly leans forward, landing her left arm on the table and landing her right elbow that was holding the phone.

"Ghost fez Keteru para conversar," Ernesto replied. "Nós temos um novo alvo."

"Alvo Individual Alto?" Miho asked, the judges, Ami and Shiho were starting to get more confused of what she said except it sounds serious.

"Sim, precisamos que você volte à base se puder," Ernesto replied.

"Tudo bem, volto para a base se tiver tempo," Miho replied with a nod to the phone. "Até mais, companheiro."

"Sim, tudo bem, vejo você, Capitão."

With that, Miho closed the phone call and looked back at everyone in her table. "In what language were you talking on?" Remi asked as she was confused of the language.

"Portuguese," Miho replied flatly.

"Oh…" Hibiki commented as the judges blankly stared at her. "So… what were you talking about with Ernesto?"

"My men got a new lead on Ogin's kidnappers," Miho replied, which caught everyone off-guard.

"Wait, what kidnapping?" Hibiki asked as she was very surprised about this.

"One of Ooarai's student got kidnapped two weeks ago," Ami replied to them in worry. "Miho is on the lead of investigating this kidnapping and saving Ogin out from those kidnappers."

"What?" Remi asked as she was shocked about this.

"It's true, if Ooarai had reported this publicly to the police, Ogin would likely be killed," Shiho stated with a frown.

"If that's the case I hope you can save her," Kanon said to Miho. "But you are also in danger, Miho, if you are doing this."

"It's going to take a lot more than 'danger' to deal with me," Miho replied coldly as she stood up from her chair.

"All that matters now, is that I will find whoever responsible for this."


	34. Chapter 32 - Finding Out

Sakeyabaru Cojariyo's Mansion. 04:30 AM

Sakeyabaru always wakes up at 5 AM in the morning. But not for today, he woke up at a half to 5 AM just because he had an uncomfortable sleep. Though, despite that, he like to wakes up in the early morning so he can to do some private work in the morning. Especially looking over to his account about his money from his evil job. Yes, he is one of the kidnappers who planned all the kidnappings for blackmailing and stealing money.

He gets up from his bed and went for the bathroom. He took a few minutes for shower first before heading back to his room for his cabinet. He suits up in a little formal business suit, a sign of a part of the wanted criminals in Japan. He took his phone and his wallet, and then he looked over to his phone to see if someone had sent him another job or a letter from his boss. There was nothing new from his phone, no messages or miss calls, so he decided that he'll be going down to do his own work out.

He yawned as his hands stretched above him, feeling a little stiff on his back. He then dropped his hands and then scratched his back. Then he looked to his right and headed for his briefcase on the table. He checked all the contents in the table, money included, before closing it. He then walked out his room with his briefcase on his right hand.

But then he remembered of something. After he got out from his room into the corridor, he noticed the two bodyguards who were supposed to guard the corridor had gone missing. He has his own bodyguards that make sure his mansion is safe 24 hours, there should be one of them guarding this corridor for a minimum. But he shrugged off that thought, because he taught that maybe those bastards were playing poker in the main hall down stairs.

Reason why he has bodyguards? He's the best kidnapper and planner in the Rogue Foxes, and a partner of his boss.

Sakeyabaru then decided to go down the stairs. He turned right from his room for a short distance before turning right again to another corridor. He then turned left at the end of the corridor which leads him into the stairs. He walked down the stairs before turning left to go down the stairs again. It wasn't the main hall he's in but the main hall was on his left from the stairs, so he goes there. The reason why he goes to the main hall was that he was heading for his kitchen to cook something for himself, or probably just eat in there because his bodyguards usually make one for him when he wakes up in this early morning.

But he walked into the main hall, everything was slowly to get strange. There was no one else aside him in the mansion. He couldn't hear anything but his own footsteps. And the lights were still off and should be turned on by the bodyguards when he woke up. And stranger, no one seems to notice his footsteps from afar or even coming up to him when they should've heard him coming.

And most of all, everything seems eerily quiet.

Before he reached the kitchen however, he found one of his bodyguards. That bodyguard was sitting on an armchair with his eyes closed. He seems asleep on the chair. Sakeyabaru scoffed at this, that bodyguard was on the night to early morning shift so he should be stay awake by now. Knowing he was already lazy to walk up to him, he just decided to shout to him. They usually frightened of their house-owner's voice.

"Hey, Get up you dumbass!" Sakeyabaru shouted in irritation.

Though, instead for that bodyguard to be startled and wakes up, the bodyguard still in his same posture as if he was a heavy sleeper. "Goddammit, get up you baka!" he shouted as he walked up onto the bodyguard.

He was shouting louder than the previous, but the bodyguard still didn't respond. "Hey, wake up!"

Annoyed that the bodyguard didn't even he walked up to him, he then slapped him as he shouted. "Oki nasai, anata wa bai no mu-!"

He quickly shuts up, after he found something horrifying.

His bodyguard was already dead as the dead man's head leans down after Sakeyabaru slaps him. The cause of his dead was that left side of his head was stabbed. It seems there was no struggle hence his hands was opening instead of fisted. He assumed that he was killed with a knife. Sakeyabaru then looked away from his dead bodyguard and looked towards the kitchen. He pulled out his pistol, Berreta M1951 and put down his briefcase on the table next to the dead guard.

Whoever killed that guard must've been looking for him.

He slowly headed for the door to the kitchen with his pistol in his hands pointing the ground. He then slowly opened the kitchen door and peeked through with his pistol at the ready. He then slowly enters the kitchen and looked around. He found that three of his bodyguards were dead inside the kitchen, one died on the table while two of them were on the floor where they're pouring their own pool of blood. None of those guards ever pulled out a pistol.

He then moved out from the kitchen into the living room up ahead. He then opens up the door and entered the room. He quickly raised his gun forward. But then, he slowly lowers his pistol down in horror. He found something horrifying in that room.

All of his 10 bodyguards were all dead and littered in the living room. Two of the bodyguards were found sitting against the wall-painted blood while the rest of them were lying dead on the floor. Their blood covered most of the floors and carpet in that room. All of the bodyguards he found were all either stabbed and shot or both. But then, there was the uncomfortable part.

Where was the assassin?

*CLING*

Sakeyabaru then quickly turned his head to his left, towards the only table and chair in that room. There was the assassin, sitting there as the dark envelopes on the assassin. He couldn't see the assassin clearer since the darkness has hidden the assassin's torso and head, only the lower parts of his body was visible. He stood still for a moment and keeping distance between himself and the assassin with his gun raised, only to found something odd from the assassin.

That assassin wasn't a man, but a girl.

He still aiming his gun at the girl who was drinking a glass of wine, he asked. "Who are you?"

The girl than put down her glass on the table beside her. "Someone who is here to capture you."

Sakebayaru only chuckled and smirked on that, that just stupid. "You do know I still have my gun pointing to you, right?"

"Oh, I know," the girl replied with her arms crossed, but then shrugged. "But… I'm not the one to take you down."

*CTANG* *CHUK*

"Aa-!" Sakeyabaru quickly pulled something out from his shot neck, and looked at it with his gun still aiming at the girl.

To his shock, it was a tranquilizer dart.

He quickly turned his head to his right, and found that there was a man who had shot him. A man masked in skull-mask. He then quickly turned his head back to the girl. He slowly getting weaker after that shot.

"He's the one to take you down."

Sakeyabaru then abruptly dropped down to his knees. He lost his grip to his pistol as it flew off his hand. Sakeyabaru has felt his eyes were closing and about to fall unconscious. He tried to struggle against the tranquilizing effect but to no avail. He then fell down forward as he blacked out into oblivion. He can hear the girl said something as he blacked out.

"Sleep tight ya' bastard."

* * *

Anzio Schoolship, Anchovy's dorm. 10:00 AM.

.

"I'm glad you able to visit us this morning."

"Sure, and we're pretty happy that today is a vacation for both of our schools."

"Well, it's a shame to know that there are some of the schools didn't have a vacation because of that Exhibition preparation."

"Oh yeah, that's shucks."

"Hey, Erika-san."

"Yeah, Duce Anchovy?"

"Where's Miho and Maho?"

"I… don't really know actually. All they said that they have some business to attend to."

Erika, Akaboshi, and one of the Kuromorimine commanders, Mauko were all in the Anzio schoolship. They were visiting Anchovy, Pepperoni and Carpaccio to enjoy their vacation. Though, for right now they were doing their homework for the moment which make them feel a pain in the ass. Except for Anchovy however, because she finished her homework first before her friends began starting to work on it. Anchovy said that would be bad for herself if she as the Duce would be late to fulfill her job, she would be a bad example to the school if that happens.

Anchovy and her Anzio friends may not have know about what Miho and Maho are doing, aside knowing the other commanders wanted to visit somewhere else to spend their time. But Erika, Akaboshi and Mauko had heard about it. They from Maho that she was needed back in base along with Kay, saying that they're going to do an interrogation on a suspect regarding Ogin's whereabout. It was a little relieving to hear that, because it's one step closer to get Ogin. That bastard better talk about Ogin instead of having a bullet to his head.

They all were working on their own homework, studies about biology. While they were doing that, Anchovy was in the kitchen. Anchovy was making pastas for her friends as they're working on their homework. This had of course distracted her friends pretty a lot when they happily smell the good ol' Anchovy's pasta in the air. Erika swears that she just saw Mauko was already left her mouth open in satisfaction and pleasure to smell the pasta in the air with her saliva nearly dripping out her mouth.

After a moment, Anchovy has come out the kitchen with pastas on the serving board she brought. Everyone looks up to her and quickly smiled at her. It was a good thing they have finished their homework right in time when Anchovy comes over to them. After Anchovy put the pastas down on the table, everyone gathered around and began to eat them, not after Anchovy says a prayer first. Miho had taught her a little about it.

As they enjoyed their food, Anchovy asked. "Have you girls done with your homework?"

"Right on time, Duce Anchovy!" Pepperoni replied cheerily as she eats the pasta. "Mmmmm! Anchovy's pasta is the best!"

"Heh, sure it is," Erika replied with a smile. "But I prefer with a side of steak though."

"Really, Erika?" Mauko commented with her right brow raised. "It's already delicious."

"Oh, don't worry about it," Carpaccio replied with a smile and closed eyes. "Perhaps Anchovy can give that to you next time."

"Don't worry about it," Anchovy added as she took a bite of her own pasta. "Got a lot of stock in this house."

"Wait, I thought you guys were having budget problems," Akaboshi said in surprise.

"Well, we are," Pepperoni chuckled as she scratched her head. "But we have our own ways on getting our own stocks."

"For real?" Erika asked in disbelieve as Akaboshi and Mauko. "How did you do it?"

"I'm sorry, but it's a secret," Anchovy denied with a sheepish smile.

"Ooh…" Mauko trailed off in disappointment, Erika and Akaboshi only smiled with a shook.

They continued to eat as Carpaccio asked something. "What's up with Miho and her sister by the way?"

"Well… Maho was busy visiting her mother somewhere, she didn't say where did she go," Akaboshi replied to them, which is actually a lie.

The Anzios of course in their confusing glares. "That's something, Maho wants to spend her time with her mother and also helping her on something?" Pepperoni asked, unsure about it.

"Yeah, something like that," Erika replied with a nod.

It's good to know that the Kuromorimine able to reply like a normal person when they tried to lie to them.

"What about Miho though?" Anchovy asked curiously. "How is she doing?"

"She's doing fine as always Anchovy," Mauko replied with a thumb up. "Though, she's busy for today."

"She must be busy with her volunteer jobs, right?" Anchovy asked as she took a bite of pasta.

"I'm afraid it's not a volunteer job," Akaboshi answered honestly, everyone got caught off-guard with that.

"Oh… so she's been busy with what?" Carpaccio asked curiously as they gave their raised eyebrows to the Kuromorimines.

"To be honest, she's doing a private investigation," Mauko answered nervously, they were honest to answer this question because they thought that Anchovy needs to know.

"A private investigation?" Anchovy asked as she and her Anzio friends were surprised with their eyes glanced at them. "That's odd… what's the investigation is all about?"

Erika, Akaboshi and Mauko then looked each other, before looking back at them as Erika answered. "She's investigating about one of the Ooarai's student that has been kidnapped."

The Anzios all choked on their upon listening that. They were horrified about what did they said. They never heard any news from Ooarai this lately. But to hear something like this, they can't believe that the Ooarais never tell anyone else or to the public about this. Why would Ooarai tell anyone of this?

"What happened that time!?" Anchovy asked as if she was demanding about it.

"These called Rogue Foxes have kidnapped a student of Ooarai a couple of weeks ago," Erika explained to her. "Since they confessed this to us and to Miho, Miho had offered a help to them to get their friend, Ogin, safe and sound."

They were amazed if Miho just offered a help like that. "So… these Rogue Foxes… why Ooarai won't tell police about it?" Pepperoni asked.

Erika didn't like to reply, but Akaboshi helped her out. "If they told the police about this, they would kill Ogin."

Anchovy, Pepperoni and Carpaccio just can't believe their ears. "What?!"

"And how would Miho could dare to help them to do some investigation like that?" Carpaccio asked as they were worried of Miho's decision.

"She ever did this before actually," Akaboshi replied with a sure tone and smile. "She ever succeeded before, and she will on this one."

"Wait, really?" Anchovy asked in surprise.

"Yeah, but I hope Miho is doing fine for now," Mauko added as she took bite of her pasta. "Because the kidnappers she's dealing with are more dangerous than before."

"Me too, Mauko-san," Pepperoni added with a nod and a frown.

"If she indeed able to save that Ooarai student and come back safe and sound…" Anchovy paused, but then smiled. "I would want to hear how did she succeed in her investigation by herself."

Everyone felt their hearts warm to hear that. "Me too, Duce Anchovy. I'm wondering if she had some kind of adventure when she's investigating."

Anchovy giggled to hear that. "You just made that sounds fun!"

"But also dangerous," Erika added to remind her.

"Oh, come on, Erika," Pepperoni added, a little teasingly. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

"I hope so," Akaboshi added with a nod.

They continued to eat again, but something dawned in Anchovy's mind. "Umm, I actually want to tell you something…"

Everyone then glared at her in curiosity. "What is it?"

"Umm… well…" Anchovy had doubted if saying this was the right thing.

"Well… what?" Akaboshi asked as they waited for her statement.

"How do you say this…?" Anchovy asked herself as Pepperoni then slowly smirked. "It's complicated actually."

"What do you mean complicated?" Erika asked as they were confused of her reply.

"Well… this is embarrassing actually," Anchovy replied as she was in doubt and scratched her neck.

They were getting more confused on what she's going to say, but then Pepperoni was the one who said it. "You're talking about that, aren't you?"

"Y-yeah, that!" Anchovy replied with a nod to her. "But how do I say this to them?"

Pepperoni, ignoring Anchovy's worries, just turned her head straight to Kuromorimine and shouted. "ANCHOVY IS FALL IN LOVE WITH MIHO!"

"Hnggh!"

Erika, Akaboshi and Mauko quickly choked on their food to hear that. They were thinking that Anchovy would be just friends with Miho. But to hear Anchovy also loves Miho, they just shocked to hear that. Miho might be as well shocked to know that Anchovy loves her. Looks like they both could be one family in the future after all.

They swallowed up their food as Pepperoni is still shouting those words. "ANCHOVY IS FALL IN LOVE WITH MIHO! ANCHOVY IS FALL IN LOVE WITH MIHO! AN- Oww!"

"Stop it you baka!" Anchovy retorted as she's pinching Pepperoni's face hard, leaving Carpaccio with a forced smile with the rest could only gave their blank stare. "You're ruining it!"

"Aaikh, ow! Anchovy is fall in love with-! Ow!"

"Stop it, Baka-roni!"

"No, I won't-Aw!"

In all honesty, to watch Anchovy pinching Peppa as hard as she can whilst Pepperoni still shouting about that it's really fun to watch. Erika only smiled with a shook as Akaboshi and Mauko laughed to watched. Carpaccio only smirked and happy to see Anchovy was having her 'fun' with Pepperoni like that. Then Anchovy has started to grab her head and swing her around. Anchovy does that, as she was blushing of what Pepperoni said.

Anchovy looked cute when she was pissed and blushing.

After a moment of that, Anchovy let Pepperoni go in annoyance. "Alright, that's enough, Peppa."

"Ok, ok," Pepperoni replied with a chuckle, but then messes around again "Anchovy loves-"

In which she received a pushing fist on her shoulder. "Stop it, Baka!"

They both then looked back at Carpaccio and the Kuromorimines, which all were smiling with a laugh. "That was funny, Anchovy. You always do that to Pepperoni?" Akaboshi asked with a smile.

"Yes, I always do that," Anchovy replied shyly. "But… yeah… I think I'm fall in love with Miho."

Erika, Akaboshi and Mauko then looked back to each other in concern, before looking back to her. "Are you sure you are in love with Miho?" Erika asked with her brow raised.

"I'm… very sure about it," Anchovy replied as her blush still not gone yet. "But… I'm not sure she would like me that much."

"Why do you think of that though?" Akaboshi asked softly and curiously of her concern.

"Well, I think she wouldn't like where's this going," Anchovy replied awkwardly in shame. "You know? Girls to girls…"

Anchovy was expecting to see that the Kuromorimines a little bit disgust to hear that, but what she saw was the looks of... empathy? "I thought you would not like about what you hear," Anchovy stated in confusion as her Anzio friends reacted the same.

"Well… actually this is kind of awkward actually," Mauko replied awkwardly as she scratched her head and looked away. "This would be weird for you as well."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Carpaccio asked in confusion as Anchovy raised a brow.

"What Mauko trying to say is…" Erika then paused, ready for Anchovy's reaction as she looked at her. "Miho loves you, Anchovy."

"HAAAAAAH!?"

Like what Erika expected, the three Anzios leaned their heads forward to her. All of them were in shock and disbelieve. Anchovy couldn't believe it with her own ears, Miho loved her? This was just impossible for Anchovy, knowing how a hard girl Miho is. Why would a hard girl like Miho would fall in love with Anchovy?

Aside from being one year above Miho.

"Are you serious, guys?" Anchovy asked as she was not convinced of what Erika said.

"Yes, we are!" Mauko replied with a serious nod and arms opened wide. "We were surprised at first when Miho said that to us."

 _"So, Miho really meant it…"_ Anchovy thought silently to herself at a loss of words.

"Are you okay, Duce Anchovy?" Akaboshi asked as she had noticed anchovy's blank stare.

"I'm… I'm fine," Anchovy replied with a stammer. "I'm just… I'm just wondered why Miho loved me…"

Erika, Akaboshi and Mauko looked away for a moment as one of them scratched her head in doubt. "Umm… I'm not sure actually…" Erika replied in unsure tone as she looked back to them.

"From what I could say…" Akaboshi paused for a moment, remembering of her previous memories. "She might have interested of you, after what happened in Yokohama. I also found that she has an affection for you after we took a walk at the main plaza. That's… all I can say…"

Anchovy was quiet convinced of what she said, which warmed her heart. "I see… it's good to know, Akaboshi-san."

"I know this is uncomfortable to you but…" Mauko added with concern. "It's the truth, Anchovy."

"Don't worry, it's fine," Anchovy replied with a smile. "I'm not upset."

"We're happy to hear that to be honest, Mauko," Carpaccio added, which comforting them all of this topic.

Until Pepperoni ruined it again. "I like to see you kissing with her!"

"Baka!" Anchovy retorted quickly by pushing her sideways in annoyance and with her face blushing.

Everyone just facepalmed on what Pepperoni just said. As soon as everything has calmed down, Erika decides to ask her.

"So…" Erika started. "Are you starting to think about going on a date with her?"

Anchovy and the other two Anzios just glared at her in silence, Anchovy was unsure about it. "I dunno… I'm not sure about that…"

"I know, it's really awkward for you," Mauko added.

Anchovy felt a little uncomfortable to hear that, Akaboshi then said it to her. "We're sorry to ask you that, we didn't mean to-"

"It's alright," Anchovy cuts off. "I guess… I can't do that now. Just… let me think about it."

"I think it would be hard to do a… date with her," Erika stated in doubt.

"Well, I guess she's not that hard when she's around," Pepperoni replied with a confident smile.

"Maybe," Anchovy added interrogatively. "Still, I will consider about it."

"And you will asked Miho about that?" Mauko asked, which made Anchovy a little alarmed on that.

Anchovy was able to calm down, and replied. "If I have to."

"Right…" Carpaccio started awkwardly, hoping one of them would change the subject.

"Also… is there any news around the town?" Erika asked. "And I mean not about the Exhibition."

"Hrm…" Pepperoni thought for a moment before replying. "You guys heard about the 141, right?"

"You mean those odd foreign soldiers who've been doing their operations around Japan and stopped a robbery a few days ago?" Akaboshi asked, which received a nod from Anchovy. "Anything new about them?"

"Recently they have taken down a pack of mob who were doing their job on corruption of money," Carpaccio replied as she finished up her pasta. "But we have heard a rumor about them."

"I thought the rumor of 141 exists across Japan is already obvious," Mauko asked as she and her Kuromorimine friends were confused.

"Actually, there was a rumor about one particular soldier in the 141," Anchovy replied as she tilted her head for a moment. "He seems quiet… scary, though."

"Scary?" Akaboshi asked as she raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah, this one soldier," Carpaccio stated. "The one with the skull mask."

Erika, Mauko and Akaboshi went wide eyes to hear that, they were talking about Ghost.

"Recently," Carpaccio then paused in discomfort. "People had called him, Yūrei."

They were surprised they called him in the Japanese version of Ghost. "Why people call him that aside of his mask?" Erika asked as she was hiddenly curious of Miho's LT.

"It's because he's really like a ghost!" Pepperoni replied enthusiastically with wide arms. "Got a news yesterday from Tokyo that this Yūrei just killed 4 people who were actually killers of a killing spree in Tokyo with a submachinegun. Before he just disappeared right in front of everyone."

How Ghost did such a thing? It would be impossible for him to disappear like that, but somehow he worked it out. Damn, Erika better not messing around with him about it. From what Erika can gather of this man, he has a good damn skill of stealth and able to hide himself after he was 'killed'. Erika was happy to know he was on Miho's side.

Though, she had hoped he along with Miho is doing alright now.

* * *

Unknown location. 12:00 PM

The room is only lit with only a single light and at least almost lit up the whole room. The only darkness that exist in the room is only the walls on all sides of the room. There was nothing in the room except for silence. And except for one man who is now tied to a chair. The bastard called Sakeyabaru Cojariyo is tied to the chair with a bag on his head, he was conscious for the moment.

Then out from the darkness in front of him, was a girl. She was stepping out the darkness towards him with determination, serious, calm, strict and focus. She was wearing her long-sleeve buttoned grey shirt with her blue jeans along with her military belt that comes with pouches and a drop bag on her right leg. And as always, her grey boonie hat in on her head. And she was dragging a chair with her towards the bastard.

Other people also emerged from the darkness inside the room. First were Ghost, Vicek and Chemo, already prepared in their combat uniforms. And then Maho and Kay, Maho was in her casual clothes while Kay was in her Saunders school uniform. And then Ami, Shiho, Yuko and Akashi, all wore their official formal JGSDF Uniform. They all were in this room, wanting to interrogate this bastard.

Miho then puts the chair in front of him as Sakeyabaru winced in surprise to hear the sound of the chair. Miho then opened up the bag off his head and threw it to her right side. Sakeyabaru then slowly lifted his head up to looked up to the face of the girl as Miho gently sat down on the chair she brought for herself. Sakeyabaru was surprised to see that behind this girl, Miho, there were 3 soldiers who were 141, two girls who are actually high-schoolers and three officers in JGSDF Official uniforms along with the other one in usual attire and jodphurs. He glanced up to Miho, as he was disbelieved on how he was taken down this quickly.

Miho glanced back at him with dead serious eyes, and began. "You gave us a little hard time to find you."

Sakeyabaru was taken back by her statement as he straightened his back. "And you thought you got away from trouble."

Sakeyabaru only stares at her scarred eye, before asking in a demanding tone. "Who the hell are you?!"

"Someone who has a personal trouble with your organization," Miho replied coldly. "And also including you."

"And who the hell are those men!?" he demanded aloud. "And why there are girls and JSDF officers here?!"

He then quickly felt his hands on behind his chair he was tied to. "You're going to pay for this!"

"And why would you say that?" Miho asked coldly as her friends stood in half-circle near her, facing to the man tied to the chair as Miho leans against her chair and crossed her legs.

"You don't know who are you dealing with, you bitch!" Sakeyabru retorted with pride. "Do you even know who I am?!"

"Sakeyabaru Cojariyo," Ghost replied calmly, Sakeyabaru was surprised to know that he wasn't a Japanese. "Your friend, Keteru told me pretty little about you, only regarding your name."

Sakeyabaru was already shock to hear Ghost mentioned that courier. "That asshole… thanks for doing me a favor for killing him…"

Assuming that he thought that the three 141s behind Miho were mobsters, Ghost answered to him in unamuse. "Funny, I let him go after he told me about you."

This has left Sakeyabaru in disbelieve and dropped his jaw to him. "What?! I thought you killed him!"

"Really? He's just a messenger," Chemo replied with a chuckle and then a shook. "I did a background check on him and we just found out that all he do just doing his courier jobs, including sending drugs. He's not responsible for all of this because he was doing his job."

"Aside from car parking violations, of course," Maho added with her arm crossed.

"Heh, so you're not any kind of mafia," Sakeyabaru stated as he chuckled. "Who the hell are you and why there are people from the JGSDF here?"

"'These people' you're referring to are the 141," Ami replied sternly to which Sakeyabaru was surprised to hear that, then continued by Yuko. "Including the girl who is right now sitting in front of you."

"And the reason why we are here," Akashi continued flatly, as he took a step forward calmly. "Is because you kidnapped one of our friends."

"Friend? What friend?" Sakeyabaru replied with a grin. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"No, you actually know what we're talking about," Miho replied coldly.

"Oh really?" Sakeyabaru asked as if he was listening to a little girl's bluffing. "Who are you talking about?"

"An Ooarai student," Kay replied to represent Miho's voice for a moment. "Her name is Ogin."

"And the last time we heard," Miho stated coldly, she then wears off her boonie hat and put it on the edge of the leaning chair on her left behind her. "You were the one who kidnapped her."

"Ogin… I don't know her," Sakeyabaru replied with a shook in a rather sarcastic tone. "I don't know anything about Ooarai student."

They knew he was lying, so as himself. "Where is she, Sakeyabaru?" Miho asked coldly as she stares at him.

"Who cares, dumbass?" Sakeyabaru asked back sarcastically, Miho remained in her cold posture. "What about you let me go and we can forget about all of this? I'll give you money if you want."

"Not a chance," Yuko replied with an angry look. "We're not that easy."

"Yeah, you better start talking while you're at it," Vicek added as he crossed his arms.

"Oh, what are you gonna do to me?" Sakeyabaru asked sarcastically with an evil grin. "You punch my face? Yeah, go ahead and punch me, moron. I don't know anything about the student."

"Even though you're doing a lot of kidnappings for the Rogue Foxes?" Shiho asked with her right brow raised.

Sakeyabaru flinched a little to hear that, but then countered it. "Rogue Foxes? The hell you're talking about? I'm just a businessman."

"Really?" Miho asked with a nod. "The list of targets for kidnapping that's found inside your hidden safe along with your suspicious money account says the otherwise."

 _"Ah, shit!"_ Sakeyabaru shouted in his thought in shock. _"How did she found my hidden safe?! It's hidden well inside the wall of my room!"_

"Do you even know what are you getting into, girl?" Sakeyabaru asked.

"What do you think?" Miho asked back. "I'm asking you, where is she?"

"Go to hell, jackass!" Sakeyabaru retorted in denial. "My men are going to find and kill you if you don't let me go!"

"Heh, I don't think your men even know what happened to you," Miho added with a shook. "Or even know where are you right now."

"We're asking again," Kay demanded angrily to him. "Where is Ogin?"

"I'm not talking to you, bitch!" Sakeyabaru retorted back, Kay only stay neutral of his response. "The Rogue Foxes will going to make you pay! You better let me go if you don't want them to hunt you down!"

Everyone was fell silent for a moment as he looked at each one of them, before Miho began. "The hard way it is."

Everyone looked back at Miho, who said to Chemo. "Gun. Now."

"Yes, ma'am," Chemo replied as he walked over to the table at the wall on their right outside the light.

When he came back with the gun in his hands. Sakeyabaru was startled to see the gun. The reason why he startled was not because he afraid of guns. The reason he was startled was…

The 'gun' Miho meant was actually a SPAS-12 shotgun.

"What the hell?!" Akashi shouted as the rest of them except the 141s were shock on what Chemo was giving to Miho. "Is that a shotgun?!"

"Yeah, *SCHLIK-SCHLAK*" Miho replied coldly as she cocked the shotgun and stood up from her chair. "Where is she, Sakeyabaru?"

"What? you're going to shoot me?" Sakeyabaru asked as if she was bluffing. "You're not going to shoot me because you're a girl!"

Pissed at his statement, Miho just quickly put her shotgun on his left knee. *BAM* To which everyone was quickly startled of her actions. Sakeyabaru has screamed in pain before putting her shotgun on his other knee. *BAM* "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Now both of his legs are crippled and can no longer stand up. Her men understand what she had to do, but for Shiho, Maho and Kay who watched this interrogation for the first time this had made them nearly puke. Ami, Akashi and Yuko however, felt this was too sadistic for an 18 years old girl who is a soldier to do something like that to her victim.

"AAAAAAKHH! MY legs!" Sakeyabaru shouted in agony. "MY LEEEGSS!"

Miho only ignored his shouts and asked him again coldly. "Where is she?"

"Damn you, crazy woman!" Sakeyabaru shouted back as he screamed in pain.

"Where is she?" Miho asked a little aloud, she's not going to give up until she found out where did this bastard locked her up.

"I won't tell you, you crazy woman!" Sakeyabaru shouted back in agony.

"Alright then…" Miho then aimed her shotgun straight to his shoulder.

 _"Is she going to blow his arm off!?"_ Everyone except the 141 thoughts fearfully in their hearts as they were horrid to watch this.

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" Sakeyabaru shouted at last in agony and defeat. "DON'T BLOW MY ARM OFF!"

She was about to pull the trigger when he shouted that, she then slowly retracts her shotgun away from him and asked. "Where. Is. She?"

"Look, I did kidnap her and brought her to the Rogue Foxes!" Sakeyabaru replied quickly and in fear. "But I didn't know where did they hold her for now because I handed that girl to the men sent by my boss and took her away. I never knew where did they held her because they or my boss never tell me where they held those kidnapped people."

"Hmm…" Ghost hummed as they disbelieved of the truth. "You never met your boss?"

"Yes, I never met my boss," Sakeyabaru replied with a nod as his legs shook in agony. "He wants to keep himself anonymous to avoid himself from getting a lot of attention from the police."

"Devious bastard," Vicek commented lowly, Kay, Maho and Akashi agreed to him with a nod.

"I don't think that's all you've got, mate," Ghost said as Miho agreed to him with a small nod. "Who's your boss?"

"I won't tell you of his name!" Sakeyabaru shouted in retort, ignoring his pain for the moment.

"Alright," Miho the put her firing end of her shotgun on his shoulder, everyone was ready as hell to look away.

"Alright, alright! His name is Tasaki Korna!" Sakeyabaru quickly replied in fear of losing his arm. "Tasaki Korna! That's his name but I never saw his face and I don't know where he is, I swear!"

Miho then lowered down her shotgun from him, to which Ami asked. "Do you know who else who knows about Tasaki and the kidnapped Ooarai student's whereabouts?"

He looked up to each of them with panting in his breath as his knee are bleeding bad and hurts like hell, to which he grinned when she mentioned that. "Heh, I guess I could say who knows about the girl and my boss."

Everyone stared at him as Kay smirked in relieve to hear that. "So who is it?"

"Heh, you think I could just tell you that?" Sakeyabaru asked with a devious grin and ignored the pain. "Your Ooarai student was actually sold out before we make it looked like a kidnapping."

Everyone except Miho who only glared him jumped to hear that. "She was sold out? What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

"Hah! you don't know," Sakeyabaru shouted as if he was met with idiots. "I can't believe she got away after she betrayed a student by selling her out as a friend. That one short bitch."

They were starting to think about who is the student in Ooarai who would dare to sold out her own friend for that. But… Miho had something in mind. When he mentioned the word short at the last sentence. There were some students she knows of were short students. But… Miho knew there is only one suspect of the girl he mentioned. And she didn't like it.

Miho looked back at him and asked. "That girl… it's Anzu, isn't?"

Everyone quickly looked back at Miho in horror, while Sakeyabaru just chuckled. "Heh… looks like you're not that stupid. Guess I have underestimated you."

"Why would she sold out her own friend!?" Maho demanded as she was angered of this, Shiho was angry to hear this too.

"We blackmailed her so that every time that school got enough money for us, she must send it to us with the amount we wanted. If she was late to give the money to us, we'll give her a choice that we will kill her or sold out one of her friends so that we won't kill her and we give her chance to not make the same mistake," Sakeyabaru replied as he suppressed his agony of his legs. "If she was late to send the money to my boss again, we will kill her friend."

"Why did you choose Ooarai school as your target?!" Shiho demanded angrily as they anger to hear this.

"Isn't it obvious, That school is an easy target for makin' money," Sakeyabaru replied with a grin. "We took that advantage after seeing that school got insulted and degraded by everyone."

Everyone then looked back at Miho. They knew she was very pissed to hear that as Miho, had started to turn around and walked away from him for a few steps. Her shotgun was pointing to the ground as she looked up to her friends, men and her mother. Miho was giving a cold look to them, repressing her anger inside her heart. How could Anzu didn't tell her about this? Why didn't she told her that she was involved in this?

"If you're going to save that student then good luck, jackass," Sakeyabaru taunted. "She'll be dead, anyway."

Everyone except Miho glared back at him angrily, but Miho on the other hand just scoffed at his words. "No, you're the one who's going to die."

Miho quickly turned and aimed her shotgun at him, Sakeyabaru quickly realized what she was doing. "NOOO-!"

*BAM*

Everyone was startled and jumped after Miho pulled the trigger at him. They were horrified to see that Miho just killed him, putting a buckshot round on his head-to-neck. Blood was pouring from his shot knees and head and neck as he sits lifelessly on his tied chair. Everyone except the 141 all stood in horror to kept staring at the lifeless body of Sakeyabaru, riddled with buckshot rounds. Shiho, Maho and Kay couldn't even know if Miho really that brutal to her enemies.

Miho then lowered her shotgun as she stares at the dead body. "Do you really had to kill him?" Shiho asked, worried of Miho's sanity.

Miho calmly turned her head to her mother, before looking back to the corpse. "He got what's coming for him."

They very well understood what she meant. But Maho, Kay, Akashi and Shiho didn't really like it much. Akashi, Yuko and Miho's men only stood speechless of her words. That bastard did get what's coming for him, but the question was is killing him was necessary? Though, they let that thought go away knowing it's what Miho always do.

Miho then turned around and walked towards Ghost, she then gives him the shotgun. "Get rid of his body."

"Yes, ma'am," Ghost replied as he took the shotgun.

She then walked over to Maho and Kay. "You two, with me. We're paying a visit to Anzu in Ooarai school."

"Rog'," Kay replied as they both nodded at her.

Miho then looked over her mother, Ami, Yuko and Akashi. "I want the rest of you on standby for further instructions from me until I got the information I need from Anzu. Mother… you should go home now. I can handle this from here."

Shiho and Ami was pretty worried about what Miho will do to Anzu, Ami asked her. "What are you going to do to her?"

"…Getting the truth out of her," Miho replied with a sorrowful tone. "That's all I can promise."

It seems she had to do what she needs to do, Shiho could only be sincere about it. "Alright… do what you have to do. Go rescue their friend… and please come back safely."

"We will, mother," Miho replied to her with a nod, before looking back to Maho and Kay. "Let's go."

Miho, Maho and Kay then quickly stormed out the room, leaving the 141s, Shiho, and the JGSDF officials inside. Those who were inside the room helped Ghost to deal with the dead body. Miho, Maho and Kay were heading for their transport outside of the building they're in. They were moving out in a hurry. It's not because they hurriedly want the info from Anzu, it was because Miho was very angry that Anzu didn't tell her about this in which Maho and Kay have to keep up the pace with Miho.

Anzu could have told Miho that she was in trouble along with Ogin who was kidnapped by those bastards. But she didn't, and she was literally betray her own friend because she didn't want to tell anyone else including Miho of this trouble. Miho then quickly pulled out her phone with no trouble and turn it on. It was the time for her to get Anzu locked up in the office.

"Are you going to call Anzu?" Maho asked, concerned of her emotion.

"No, she would've run away if I called her," Miho replied with a tone of anger. "I'm calling Momo."

* * *

Ooarai's student councils office. Same time.

.

Momo was sitting alone on the sofa, dealing with the paperwork for the Exhibition troubles. Anzu and Yuzu on the other were working on their computers on Anzu's table. Momo only glanced back at the both in a distance before working back on the paperwork she's working on. It was a good thing she has another hand to help on documenting stuffs around the school. Not that she was getting tired of this work.

But then, Momo heard a small ring near her. It was her phone she pocketed in her serafuku shirt. She pulled it out and looked who was calling her. To her surprise, Miho was the one who called her. Momo glanced back at Anzu and Yuzu behind her in a distant before deciding to just talk to Miho without both of them getting noticed. Momo answered the phone and put it on her ear.

Momo then began. "Konnichiwa, Miho-san."

"Hello, Momo," Miho replied with a tone of anger. "Look, this is urgent."

"What's going on?" Momo asked as she was concerned and confused of Miho's reply.

"Is Anzu there with you now?" Miho asked coldly, Momo could only raised an eyebrow to that question.

"Yes, she's here," Momo replied as she looked back at Anzu who's still talking with Yuzu and who's in little discomfort. "Why?"

"Listen, Momo you must call all of Ooarai's Sensha-Do teams into your office," Miho said quickly, to which Momo was shock with the order. "And you must make sure Anzu is not coming out from the office."

"Wait, Miho!" Momo quickly said as she lowered her voice. "What's going on?"

"Anzu knew about this kidnapping," Miho replies coldly. "She's the one who sold Ogin out to the Rogue Foxes."

Momo quickly widen her eyes in shock, she just can't believe that as she asked her lowly. "What?!"

"I know," Miho quickly replied. "Just make sure she's still in the office or at least in the school. I'm coming over in one hour."

"Alright, Miho-san," Momo replied lowly with a nod. "I'll make sure of it."

"Ok, good luck," Miho then immediately closed the phone call.

Momo then lowered down her phone from her ear and quickly looked back at Anzu and Yuzu in concern. It's a good thing to see that both of them haven't notice that Momo got a call from Miho. Now, the next step was calling all Sensha-Do teams to the office. Momo quickly looked back at her phone and quickly looked for one specific contact. She then called her and put her phone in her ears.

"Konnichiwa, Kawashima-san," a voice said from the phone, it was Yukari. "Why did you call me?"

"Yukari-san-" Momo quickly replied lowly. "Call all the Sensha-Do Teams to the Student Councils' office. Now!"

* * *

On the road. Same time.

.

Miho was in the car along with Kay and Maho. Miho sat next to Maho, who was driving the bloody car. Kay was sitting on the back of the car, who had convinced Maho that she's the one who drives the car not Kay. Kay was pretty uncomfortable to have Miho sitting right next to her angrily. Kay had hoped Miho didn't shoot her if she had to talk with her.

It's still nearly an hour away to get to Ooarai school before had found out that Miho knew of this. Miho just can't stop thinking about it, about what Anzu just did. She was thinking if Anzu could be referred as Sheperd by now. Seeing Miho is still pissed by now, Maho and Kay had remembered about her story that she was betrayed by her own CO by killing her.

(Remove Kebab Loop)

Miho, Maho and Kay had thought that Momo had failed to keep Anzu in the office. Miho quickly pulled out her phone and looked at it. They were afraid if Momo indeed fail. But Miho was surprised on who was calling her.

It was Anchovy.

Miho had said to them both it was Anchovy and their hearts got calmed down. Miho looked back at the phone in doubt. Before she answers the phone and put it in her ear. All the while when the car is still driving to its destination.

"Anchovy?"

"Miho-san?" Anchovy asked back. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, milady," Miho replied, her tone became calmer. "How about you?"

"I'm still doing alright," Anchovy replied. "Miho, I heard you were leading a private investigation about the kidnapped Ooarai student. Is that true?"

Miho was really surprised to hear that. "How did you know?"

"Well… Erika and her friends told me," Anchovy replied in a bit of discomfort, before changing to a worried tone. "Are you doing okay?"

"I'm-I'm fine, really," Miho replied as she concerned of her supposed lover's tone. "I'm nearly to put an end of this investigation."

"I'm glad to hear that," Anchovy replied with a relieved tone. "I thought those kidnappers were already targeting you."

"Looks like they're pretty careless about that," Miho replied, she smiled a little to that.

"Just… just…" Anchovy paused as Miho was waiting of what she will say. "Just please come back safely. And I hope you can save Ogin."

Miho paused at those words, it was heartwarming. Miho smiled before replying. "I will, Anchovy. I will."

"Alright, good bye, Miho," Anchovy said back to her.

"Good bye, Anchovy," Miho replied back, before Anchovy closed the call.

Miho then puts back her phone in her pocket and smile. But then her smile fades away the moment she focused back on Anzu. Maho and Kay saw the looks she made, and honestly it surprise them to see the change of mood that drastic. Now, they need to talk to Anzu about Ogin.

Or she'll be dead.


	35. Chapter 33 - The Truth

Entrance of Ooarai School. 13:15 PM.

They have reached the school right on time. Right on time as Miho got a message from Momo that Anzu is still in the bloody office along with the rest of the Sensha-Do teams who were confused on what was going on. When they reached the school, Maho quickly stops the car right in front of the school and they quickly got out the car. With Kay halted a little because she was stuck due to her seatbelt.

Miho looked over to her sister and then Kay. Before they're exchanging nods to each other before heading into the school. It is now the time for them to make Anzu to talk. It's time to get the truth out from her. Ogin's life depends on this.

Miho could only gave an angry look for what Anzu didn't tell her about. Kay and Maho on the other only gave a serious look and concern. They walked passed the students on path, making the students wondered why they were in a hurry. Before storming through the front door and turning to their right. The students in that corridor only backed away from Miho as Miho's group walked by. Only one sentence that crossed Miho's mind.

 _"Anzu, you bloody wanker."_

* * *

Ooarai's Student Councils' office. Same time.

.

Momo had just messaged Miho that all of the Sensha-Do Teams were here. And gladly Anzu is still in the office, thanks to Momo's skill to delay some time for Miho. Momo had also warned her that everyone in here were to get restless and confused on what was going on. Thankfully, Momo smiled to see the message from Miho that she just arrived at the school.

Momo puts away her phone in her pocket and looked back at the teams and the student councils. They looked quiet confused of what is going on right now as the Tankery teams were talking with Yuzu and Anzu on why they are here. In which Anzu and Yuzu were pretty confused on how to reply to them. Even though, Yuzu and Anzu knew Momo was the one who called them here. But they don't know why Momo called them here.

The teams, Yuzu and Anzu then also looked back at her with their winced eyes. Yes, for sure they were suspicious on why Momo had called up everyone into the office. Knowing Anzu didn't have something for new to tell them. Yukari had crossed her arms for it while the rest only stood by near the Student Councils. They were having questions by now.

"Momo, what's going on now?" Anzu asked as she was confused of this situation.

"Why did you call all of us here?" Hana asked, demanding in her tone. "I thought you said it's important."

"Is this another prank you set up, Kawashima-san?" Sodoko asked suspiciously.

"No, it's not," Momo replied with a shook.

"Then why bother calling all of us here?" Noriko asked as she confused of Momo's action.

Momo didn't anything for a moment but to be silence, which then she replies. "I got some news from Miho."

Everyone quickly got up by that. "Wait, really?!" Nekonya asked enthusiastically.

"Yes, really," Momo replied with a nod.

"What's the news?" Yuzu asked curiously and hopefully.

"Yeah, what did she get about Ogin's disappearance?!" Erwin asked in an energetic tone.

"Wait, hold it, everyone," Momo said to them, making them to frown and groaned in disappointment. "Before I'm going to answer that. I want to ask Anzu first about something."

Everyone was surprised of what Momo had said, which confuse them more. "Um, why?" Azusa asked, somewhat in worry.

"I just want to ask something," was Momo's reply

"Alright… what do you want to ask?" Anzu asked to Momo as she puts her hands on her hips.

Momo paused for a moment as she was unsure what to ask to her, but then replies. "Ogin trusted you, right?"

Everyone raised their eyebrows to her question, but Anzu replied. "Well… yeah, she trusted me. Why are you asking that?"

Momo paused again, before asking back. "Did you sold Ogin out to those kidnappers?"

Everyone quickly taken back of what she said, Anzu did as well plus with a bit of agitation. "W-what?! N-no! Why the hell are you asking that!?"

"Because…" Momo paused as she looked away for a moment, before looking back at her. "Miho told me that you're the one who sold Ogin out… and you didn't tell her or even us about it."

Then silence… everyone who were confused are all now glaring at Anzu. With a little of hostility and large sense of suspicion. Anzu nervously looked back at each of them, noticeably Murakami, who was grinning angrily to hear that. Anzu then looked back at Momo as little sweat pouring down her forehead, didn't get notice by everyone in the room.

"Miho found a man who got information about Ogin's whereabouts," Momo said to them slowly and seriously, though, that was just her guess. "And she told me that the man she interrogated said that you know where she is."

That's when they looked back at Anzu, they able to notice her agitation. Anzu shook her body a little a lifted a fist in front of her chest. They can't believe it, the person who would dare to do that was Anzu. Anzu afraid that Miho is coming for her.

"Oh no…" Anzu said to herself lowly, her secrets has been dismantled.

"Anzu…" Satoko called slowly and with suspicion.

"You better explain… now," Mako slowly added, she was also angered of this.

"Anzu…" Flint called lowly and slowly as well, their eyes won't leave her.

Anzu then quickly began to run for the door before any of them could react. "Anzu! STOP!" Hana shouted as they quickly catch up for Anzu who was already at the door.

Anzu quickly opens the door as everyone in the room were about to run at her. But then, Anzu achieved something unexpected after opening the door.

*BAK*

A hard punch to her face.

Anzu quickly thrown to ground behind her, prompting everyone to stop at their places with startled expressions. The only person who wasn't startled but was stares blankly to what just happened was only Momo. Anzu and everyone inside the room then slowly looked up at the door, and they were very surprised. Miho was already in front of the opened door, along with her sister and Kay behind her. Anzu had felt her heart beating a little faster to see Miho was looked cold… and angry at her.

Anzu then stands up from the ground whilst backing away from Miho. Miho then slowly entered the room which followed up by Maho and Kay. Everyone was unnerved to Miho's dreary shadowed eyes underneath her boonie hat. Miho only looked straight to Anzu, angry for not telling her the truth.

Miho then began walking up to Anzu slowly. "Ogin trusted you."

Miho increased her pace a little as Maho and Kay stood behind her. "Your friends trusted you!"

"And I thought I could too," Miho then pulled out something out from her drop bag and cocked it.

*CLICK-CLACK*

Everyone was horrified to see Miho had pulled out a real firearm. Anzu quickly back away but ended up hitting her table behind her. Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako couldn't believe she could have a firearm like that. Maho and Kay were both afraid if Miho is going to kill her, but they got no choice but to let Miho does what she needs to do. Everyone else in the room however were all shock after she cocked her pistol. Yukari had recognized the pistol she was holding as the Browning HI-Power Pistol.

Miho quickly walked up close to Anzu and then put her firing end of the gun on her head, recoiling everyone in fear and anxiety. "So why THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU SOLD HER OUT?!"

Miho even push her gun harder on head that made Anzu leans back on her table. Murakami was almost to react if not for Maho to give a signal to her by her shook head. Momo won't even dare to move a step with Miho having her gun out. As everyone freaked out on what was going on, they were also confused on why Maho and Kay didn't do anything to stop Miho. Kay could only crossed her arms to see Miho doing her job 'talking' to Anzu, in the hard way.

"Please, please, please!" Anzu quickly replied as her hands raised in defeat by themselves. "I can explain! I can explain!"

"You better be…" Miho said lowly for only Anzu could hear it, before Miho swatted her away to her left into the nearest chair near the Sensha-Do Teams with her pistol still aiming at ehr. "Sit down. NOW!"

Anzu stepped back a little before she sits down on the chair behind her without even looking. Miho then took a chair near Anzu's table and put it in front of Anzu without her pistol leaving its aim. Everyone including Yukari's team backed away and encircle them both along with Maho and Kay in fear, concern and a little anger from Murakami. Anzu gulped as she thought of the best explanation she has.

To which Miho asked coldly and lowly. "Why did you sold her out?"

Anzu paused, but she couldn't hear her. "What..?"

"Why did you sold her out?" Miho asked again a little aloud.

"Look, I got no choice!" Anzu quickly replied. "I just had to!"

"Tell me, Anzu," Miho replied, gripping harder on her pistol.

"Alright, look, I had to sold her out alright?" Anzu replied nonchalantly to her. "The Rogue Foxes caught me out long ago when I was outside of school. They wanted to use this school as a source of their income and they forced me to steal the funds of this school for them."

"So that's why our school is having financial problems!" Oryou shouted in anger. "You stole the money for them!"

"Right under our noses!" Shinobu added with a shout.

"You betrayed our school!" Karina shouted in anger and disbelieve.

"Calm down, everyone!" Maho shouted aloud, they all able to calm down as they agreed of what she ordered. "Calm down, let us finish this first!"

"If you say so, Maho-san," Pazomi snorted, still angered of Anzu's truth.

"Why didn't you tell us or the police about this?" Kay asked, wanting to confirm of what Sakeyabaru said is true.

"They will kill me if I had to!" Anzu quickly replied in agitation. "I swear!"

"Then why you sold out Ogin to them?" Cutlass asked in an anger tone, though her looks were cold.

"I was late that time, I should have sent the money sooner to them if not for some financial complications," Anzu replied quickly, it was getting intense. "I was about to call the police that time but those… monsters have called me and tell me that they will kill me! Unless if I sold out one of my friends and they give me another chance to not make the same mistake!"

"Just that!?" Saori asked in retort. "Do you even know what will happen to her?"

"They will kill her! I know!" Anzu replied in a mild panic. "Look, I got no choice! I tried call the cops but all I got is only dead ends and those kidnappers warned if I do that again they will kill her!"

"You can't trust those cops, Anzu," Miho replied to Anzu, her pistol is still aiming at her. "Those bastards have paid the cops off to not draw any attention to your case, Ms. Kadotani. They're corrupt."

They all shocked to what she had said. "What?! They bribed the cops!?" the whole Leopon team shouted in disbelieve.

"Yeah, the Rogue Foxes got big connections in Japan," Kay added with a nod. "They're really good at bribery."

"Alright," Miho added to interrupt them. "You said you sent money to them."

"Y-yeah," Anzu quickly nodded as she stammered.

"But you're giving money to who?" Miho asked.

"Miho, look," Anzu replied, worried to answer. "I can't tell you-"

"It's Tasaki Korna, isn't it?" Miho asked, Anzu was quickly widen her eyes in surprise.

"W-wait, how do you know?!" Anzu asked panickedly.

"Interrogated a suspect," Miho replied flatly. "I have to put bullets into his legs."

Everyone was horrified of her reply except Maho and Kay who only gave a flat face. "W-what? No-no, he's going to kill you!"

"W-what? What are you talking about?" Maho asked as she and everyone else except Miho were confused on what she meant.

"He has spies that are watching my movements!" Anzu replied quickly, everyone flinched to hear that except Miho who kept her cold look. "Anyone else who knew about this kidnapping, they will kill them. Including you, Miho!"

"Huh," Miho casually replied, everyone confused by that statement.

"Why are you so calm about the spies?" Erwin asked in confusion. "You should have been worried about it."

Miho looked at Erwin, her gun still aiming at Anzu. "Because we were already dealing with those bastards in the first place."

*TI-TING*

Everyone startled by Miho's buzzing phone, except for Maho and Kay. Miho then pulled out her phone with her left hand from her pocket, then looked at it. It was a message from Ami. She looked down on the text that Ami sent as everyone else were wondering what was it said.

'Miho, we've taken care of the spies. The Rogue Foxes are blind and deaf now.'

Miho didn't smile, but nodded in relieve. Miho then puts back her phone into her pocket before looking back to Anzu. Anzu noticed something in Miho's scarred eye, the look of accomplishment on something. Anzu and everyone kept wondering on what Miho just red.

"Who's message is that?" Saki asked in wonder, who's been silent all the time but her anger of what Anzu did.

"It's from Ami," Miho replied without looking at her. "The spies have been dealt with."

Everyone dropped their jaws in shock. Maho and Kay were both glad that Miho had found out the spies firsthand before dealing with Sakeyabaru until the way here. It was all thanks to an informant they got in the town. Yukari and her team can't believe how did Miho could deal with the spies that fast, and right in time. The rest of them including Anzu were starting to wonder how did she found out those spies in the first place.

"How did you-?" Anzu asked but then quickly cuts off by Miho.

"I have my own ways, mate," Miho replied. "You sent the money straight to their boss right?"

"Y-yes!" Anzu quickly replied.

"Where is he?" Miho asked, she narrowed her eyes at her.

Anzu had feared she's going to ask that. "I-I can't!"

"Why you can't?" Miho asked, she tilted her head.

"He-he's going to kill me!" Anzu replied in fear. "He will kill me if I tell you!"

Miho paused at her words, before putting her gun on her head as she stood up and replies coldly. "Remember what I told about a friend tried to betray me by killing me?"

Everyone trembly shook to hear that, except for Maho and Kay. Everyone nodded in reply. "Well, it was true a friend of mine save me in time."

"But…?" Yuzu asked, with her eyebrows raised in fear.

"But…" Miho continued slowly, with a pause. "What you don't know is that I ever put a bullet in a man's head before."

Everyone gasped, Maho and Kay on the other hand had reminded themselves of what Miho did to Sakeyabaru. Yukari, Azusa, Saori, Momo, Murakami, and Piyotan were horrified to hear that. While Anzu and the rest of them, were all shocked on what they just hear. They just can't believe if Miho ever killed someone before. What made her to kill someone before?

"And right now, I have my bloody gun right on your fucking head," Miho continued slowly, angered as she nearly grinned her teeth. "You should've been worried about me putting a bullet in your head."

"No, Miho, you can't-" Anzu begged but then Miho cuts her off.

"You have 5 seconds, Anzu."

Maho and Kay widen their eyes in shock along with the rest of the students. "Miho, what are you-?" Maho asked but cuts off by Miho who was counting down.

"5."

"Miho, wait!" Yukari shouted, but she didn't care.

"4."

"Miho! Stop this!" Saori shouted in panic.

"3."

"No, stop!" Hoshino shouted, Miho still didn't care.

"2."

"Miho!" Kay shouted, along with the rest shouted the same.

"1."

"DON'T, DON'T, DON'T! ALRIGHT I'LL TALK, I'LL TALK!" Anzu quickly shouted at last, tears were already pouring out her eyes. "Please! Don't kill me..!"

"Where. Is. He…?" Miho asked coldly, and in dreary tone as her eyes shadowed by her boonie hat.

"He..-" Anzu paused, she sniffed as her tears still pouring out her eyes. "He's in a abandoned wood factory in Shizuoka! That's where he is hiding, I swear!"

Miho didn't say anything but to be silence as her eyes still shadowed under her hat. Her eyes can't even be seen now when she makes this situation much more… dreary. Anzu was still sobbing as her tears still pouring out her eyes. Anzu was feared to death if she's going to kill her anyway.

Anzu can't even dare to close her eyes as she was panic on what to do with the pistol is still on her forehead. But then, Miho slowly retracts her gun away from her. Anzu gasped to herself in shock while the rest reacted in surprise and relieve, to see that Miho had putted away her aim from Anzu. Maho and Kay were both grateful that Miho didn't kill her, less problem for Ami to be pissed about that.

Miho holstered her gun back in her drop bag, and then she took off her hat and sat back down to her seat. Miho then looked up to Anzu as she leans against her chair. Now, they were surprised to see the change of mood Miho made. The look that Miho made right now, is only disappointment and sorrow. Something that confused everyone on that. Yukari also noticed one more expression she made, pity.

They said nothing for 10 seconds as Anzu tries to calm down, until Miho begins. "If you had told me earlier, this trouble would be over sooner."

Anzu was a little taken back to hear Miho's soft voice, even Maho was surprised of this. "I can't believe you would do this, Anzu."

Everyone felt their heart so sorrow to hear Miho's soft voice. "You disappointed me."

Anzu only felt her heart stop when she said that. "I'm… I'm sorry…"

Miho had understood well of what she said, she mean it. "But… I'm giving you a second chance."

Everyone felt warm to hear that, Anzu was raised her eyebrows though as she wipes her tears. "Just a chance to fix of what you did to your own friend."

Miho then stood up from her seat, wearing on her boonie hat as she looked at Anzu. "Don't worry about Ogin. I'll save your friend, Anzu. I'll make sure of it."

Anzu then stood up her chair, her eyes never leaving her. "And don't worry about me. Just make sure you are safe."

Miho then turned around, and then nodded to her sister and Kay. They both then nodded back in agreement, before heading for the door and leave the office. Anzu stood frozen to watch them leave, while everyone else watched them leave in concern. Murakami and Yukari stepped forward and stood at Anzu's sides.

Miho, along with Maho and Kay are going against the dangerous criminal organization called the Rogue Foxes. Anzu had doubted if she could get Ogin out from there. Anzu just had feared the worst of what will happened to Miho. Murakami and Yukari could only feel so concern of Miho's, Maho's and Kay's safety. Anzu only sat back down weakly as she looked down. Everyone looks back at her.

"Are you okay, Anzu?" Yukari asked, worried if Anzu would be traumatized by what Miho did to her.

"N-no…" Anzu weakly replied in regret. "It's… it's all my fault."

"Anzu… you have did all you can," Hana comforted her. "But you should have tell us about this."

"I'm sorry," Anzu replied with a shook and regret. "I just don't want anyone else fall into danger. I'm sorry…"

Everyone had pitied her of what she had done so far. Up to the point Miho had confronted her into a gunpoint to which Anzu was afraid if telling the truth will kill someone. Anzu had sacrificed everything to make sure the school is still running. Even though, under the pressure of Ogin being kidnapped and Anzu had to do the Rogue Foxes dirty work. Even Anzu had trying to work out on how to save Ogin until Miho stepped in.

Murakami then looked at the door. Before she took off to the door. Everyone suddenly jumped a little to see Murakami was about to left like that. Anzu quickly stood up from her chair as Yukari took a step forward to the leaving Murakami.

"Murakami," Yukari called, Murakami stopped at the door and turned around. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to help Miho," Murakami replied, this took everyone off-guard.

"Wait, what?!" everyone asked with a shout, then continued by Hoshino. "Are you crazy, Murakami-san?!"

"Isn't it dangerous to go with Miho?" Rum asked in worry as she tried her best to not be 'drunk'. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I can't just stand here and wait for Ogin to be back!" Murakami retorted, but then changed to a calmer tone. "I had enough standing here and do nothing. I'm coming with them."

She was about to leave, until she was halted by Anzu. "Wait!"

Murakami stopped and turned around at her again as Anzu walks up to her. "I'm coming with you."

"Nani?!" everyone shouted in shock as they jumped, then continued by Taeko. "You too?!"

"You don't have to go, Anzu," Yuzu added in worries as she clasped her hands on her chest.

"It's dangerous!" Erwin added as she stepped forward with a couple of steps.

"Look, I started all of this trouble," Anzu replied back as she turned around. "This is my responsibility. I'm going to get her back."

Anzu quickly turned around at the door and then looked up to Murakami, who nodded. They both then quickly walked out the door, leaving the rest of the Sensha-Do teams in concern and blank stares. Yukari, Hana, Saori and Mako had hoped that Anzu and Murakami knew what are they doing. Flint, Cutlass and Rum would only hope they come back safe and sound. While the rest, hoped that they will able to save Ogin.

* * *

Miho, Maho and Kay already walked out the front door and heading outside the school area. The students around them had wondered what them to rush like that, noticing that they just got in the school and got out in a few minutes. They only watched Miho and her group walked passed them as they muttered to each other on what gives them the rush. Miho and her group ignored them, even if there's a student coming up to them and asked what's going on.

Another one came up to them and Miho replied with: "Unfinished business."

Miho, Maho and Kay had reached the car. Maho and Miho were about to get in the car, but then Kay asked. "Do you really have to do that?"

Maho and Miho stopped in their tracks and looked back at Kay. "Putting Anzu in gunpoint?" Miho asked coldly.

"Yeah," Kay replied with a nod. "Do you really have to do that? I mean, she's just a Student Council who's trying to keep her school up and running."

"No choice," Miho replied, shook her head to herself. "I have to do that."

"No choice?" Kay asked back with winced eyes. "You could go soft on her, y'know?"

"Kay," Maho called. "We should trouble about Ogin first. We can talk about that later."

"You're right," Kay replied in agreement, waved her hands wider to her sides. "Let's get going."

Before any of them could get into the car, Miho was surprised to notice someone was running to them behind Kay. "Anzu? Murakami?"

"Miho!" Murakami shouted as they stopped right in front of them, the group looked at them both. "We're coming with you!"

"Wait, what?" Maho asked with disagreement in her tone, the rest were surprised.

"You just said what?" Kay asked.

"No, you're not coming with us, Anzu," Miho replied with a shook. "I told you I just want you to consider your own safety."

"Miho-san, we won't stay here and do nothing!" Murakami exclaimed in denial. "We're going to help you."

"No, we don't need your help!" Miho retorted as she pointed at her. "I won't risk anyone else to save Ogin."

"I don't care, Miho," Anzu replied with a shook and narrow eyes. "We're coming with you."

"No, you're not goddammit!" Miho retorted back as Maho and Kay grew angry a little about it. "I won't let you coming with me to save her!"

"We can handle this, alright?" Maho added, angry a little and concerned of Anzu and Murakami. "We don't need anymore help. And we won't dare to risk your neck to save her."

"Miho, listen to me," Anzu exclaimed as Miho nearly looked away from her. "You said that I have a second chance to fix of what I done to my own friend. It's my responsibility to make sure everyone in this school and all of my friends to be alright. I failed that and I know it. Just give me a chance, Miho. I can't bear my own fault after all I did if me along Murakami didn't come along with you."

Miho stared at her momentarily as she processes of what Anzu said. Maho and Kay on the other hand soften their expressions up after hearing that. Miho had regretted about one thing of what Anzu said. She had a point. But Miho didn't expect that Anzu would get her own chance to fix all her fault by helping Miho on rescuing Ogin.

They had been silenced for 15 seconds… before Miho gave her decision. "Fine… get in the car."

"Nani?" both Maho and Kay asked in unison and surprise. "Are you sure about this, Miho?" Kay asked.

"I'm sure, Kay," Miho replied as she looked at her, before looking back at Anzu and Murakami. "Just get in the car."

"Thank you, Miho-san," both Anzu and Murakami replied with smiles and nods.

Miho got in the car first on the front passenger seat, before Maho got inside and sat on the driver's seat. Kay, Murakami and Anzu sat on the back of the car. After that, Miho nodded at Maho which giving her the signal to drive the car. Maho turned on the car and turned the car around to the road behind them. Before driving onwards down the road, away from the school.

Anzu only looked back at the school behind them for the moment, before looking back forward and awaits for their destination. Murakami had wondered if they'll be going straight to Shizuoka or they go somewhere to get themselves prepared first. Kay and Maho had only felt discomfort, knowing that Anzu and Murakami will help them to save Ogin. Miho, who's seating next to the driver, could only hoped that she won't regret letting Anzu and Murakami joined the team.

What really unnerving Kay, Maho and Miho, was that they're heading for TF141 HQ. To which Anzu and Murakami didn't know about.

Maho only darted her eyes to her right, looking at Miho who's blankly stares forward. "Miho… do you think we should tell them?"

Murakami, Anzu and Kay got up by that, but they were confused except Kay about what Maho meant. "Wait, what are you talking about?" Anzu asked in confusion.

Maho then darted her eyes forward, as Miho didn't even bothered to look. Kay was unnerved about this. Murakami and Anzu were both wondered if Miho had hidden something else from them. Something that they don't know of.

There were only silenced filled the atmosphere along with the sound of the running car, until Miho began. "Anzu, Murakami, I wanted to know something before I'll tell you."

"What is it, Miho-san?" Murakami asked impatiently, but manage to not jump to conclusion.

"Do you swear you will keep our secrets in between us?" Miho asked softly. "Promise me that you will not compromise our secrets to anyone else without my permission, as friends, as comrades, as sisters, as a part of a family. As someone who can swore loyalty and trust to each other. Will you keep your promise?"

Everyone was taken back of what she said. They never for once in a lifetime she ever said something like that. Saying those words, as if she was really cared of her own family. Anzu and Murakami could feel the determination Miho had, feel it in their heart. It's the first time for Anzu to hear the tone of… motivation, perhaps, coming from Miho herself. Miho only turned her head a little to her left to look at the mirror in the middle front of the car on the ceiling to look at Anzu and Murakami.

Anzu and Murakami had considered of what she said. Whatever Miho said to them, it was meant to be important.

Anzu and Murakami looked at each other, before nodded and looked back to the front. "Alright, I promise."

"Me too," Murakami added with a nod. "Now… will tell us what is it you want to tell us about?"

Everything was in silence for a moment except for the sound of the car, before Miho looked over at Maho and nodded to her. Maho sighed… before answering to them. "We are operatives of the Task Force 141."

That took both Anzu and Murakami completely off-guard. They both widen their eyes on shock and left their mouths open agape. How could this possible? There are three soldiers of 141 with them. Not just soldiers, they were also students and commanders except for Miho who was the former of both.

They realized that the first time they met the 141, was back in the day when Miho and Maho first visited to Ooarai with Erika.

Anzu and Murakami slowly closed their hands first to the reveal. "Yeah, I know this is surprising. But… it's who we are," Kay interrupted with an awkward smile.

"That's…" Anzu started but then paused. "Impossible… Maho, Kay, you're both are students."

"We know," Maho replied with a flat tone. "We both signed up to the 141, and we have our own reasons on why."

"Maybe it's crazy for us to joined up," Kay added, then she shrugged. "But… it's also our job to protect people from harm's way."

Anzu and Murakami smiled to hear that, and they'll be damned if anything happens to them. "I'm glad to hear that, I thought it's going to be that bad," Murakami commented with a relieved tone.

"Don't worry about it, mate," Miho replied as she crossed her arms and not bother to look back. "It's our job to make sure everyone alright, and make sure everyone made it out safe and sound."

Anzu and Murakami smirked happily again, before Anzu asked. "So… where are we going?"

"We are going to prep ourselves up for our assault to the factory," Kay answered as she looked on her phone to see if there's any social status coming up.

"Wait, we're going to assault that factory?!" Murakami and Anzu asked in unison and shock.

"Yeah, why?" Miho asked with a raised brow, still not bothering to look behind her.

"I've been there before and I saw a lot of them have firearms all around the place!" Anzu exclaimed in worry. "I don't think we would last 5 minutes if we assault the factory."

"That's why we need to prepare ourselves for it," Maho replied, her eyes looking to her right and looked behind her out the corner of her eyes. "And that's why we need to make a plan."

"Where are we heading anyway?" Murakami asked curiously as she tilted her head.

That's when Miho turned her head to behind her and looked straight to Murakami. "To our headquarters."

* * *

Temporary Hidden Task Force 141 Headquarters in Osaka. 14:30 PM.

.

There was another TF 141 HQ located in the city of Osaka. It was said to be temporary due to the private investigation that Miho has looking into. It was built by the request of Ghost and Miho, in the purpose of fast-response situation and investigation of Ogin's disappearance. It was rather small compared to the original one back in Kumamoto, but enough to store an arsenal of weapons and a few jeeps.

Miho's team had stopped their car on empty street. In front of what it appears to be a medium-sized warehouse, right at its front door. Maho didn't turn off the car though, because they wanted to enter the warehouse along with the car. To which Miho used her wireless earphone (something Anzu and Murakami never seen before) and turned it on. And Miho said the following.

"This is Captain Nishizumi, let us in."

"Roger that, welcome back, Captain."

The warehouse garage-like door opens by itself as Maho drives the car slower and closer into the warehouse. They could see some light inside the warehouse, bright as ever. Once the door was open enough for the car, the car went inside with no difficulty. To which then the door behind them starting to close.

Maho kept driving as they looked around. Anzu and Murakami were awed to see there are the soldiers of the 141 around them. They were walking up near them as Maho stopped the car. Everyone then got out the door and close the doors. Followed up by Miho's men saluted her respectively.

Then one of Miho's men, someone Anzu and Murakami had recognized as Yūrei. The skull-masked man walked up to them and stopped in front of Miho. The two then shook hands as if they were brother and sister. Something that Anzu and Murakami found uncommon but looked so bonding for Kay and Maho.

"It's good to see ya' again, mate," Ghost said as he patted her shoulder. "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine, Ghost," Miho replied with a small smile, Anzu and Murakami were surprised if that was his name despite being called Yūrei. "How's our boys holding up?"

"Much better, Cap'," Ghost replied with his thumb up. "We got more recruits from this country along with outside of this country. They looked pretty happy to know that we're dealing with multinational incidents, and our status is still PMC."

"Not sure if we are PMC now, but I like the news," Maho replied with a hand raised to her side.

"So…" a man behind Ghost started, Miho, Maho and Kay recognized him as Vicek. "Who are these two girls here?"

Everyone then looked back at the said two girls, the short redhead girl only awkwardly smiled while the sturdy girl only kept cautious. "Umm… Miho?" Anzu asked, concerned and awkward on how to deal with this situation.

"Don't worry, they're with me," Miho assured them all, to which every 141 soldiers relieved to hear that. "That short girl is Anzu, and that muscled girl over there is Murakami."

"And they both are students…" another man next to Vicek added, which was Chemo. "Why did you bring them here?"

At this point Miho had sighed when he asked that. "Because they wanted to help."

The 141s are all stare blankly at her, including Ghost. "You mean they wanted to 'join' our forces on our raid to the Rogue Foxes hideout?"

"Much or less," Kay replied with a nod.

Ghost sighed underneath his mask, before looking back at Miho. "How many students have to joined up for our cause, Miho?"

Miho rolled her eyes back in annoyance, and then she readjusted her hat. "Don't ask. Just don't ask."

"Fair enough," Ghost simply replied with a shrug, before looking at Anzu. "Does she knew where's the bastard's hideout?"

"Yes, she knows," Kay replied with a nod. "She couldn't tell us sooner because of those goddamn spies."

"I see, it's a good thing you knew that coming, old girl," Ghost commented at Miho whilst crossing his arms, the girls were confused for a moment when he called her an old girl.

"Heh, it's no problem, mate," Miho replied, almost smirking.

"So, we should load up now?" Chemo asked aloud from afar behind Ghost.

"Yeah, but first…" Miho then paused as she looked over to the Student Council and the muscular girl. "You should teach them both how to shoot."

"Kapitáne, je to dobrý nápad jim dát kurs havárie?" Vicek asked aloud as he along with the rest of the soldiers concerned of her decision.

"Jsem si jist, kámo," Miho replied, to which the girls were surprised of Miho's understanding of that language. "Jen se ujistěte, že vědí, jak střílet a kachna."

"V pořádku," Vicek replied with a thumb up, before motioning to the two girls to follow him and Chemo. "Come on, you two. We're going to give ya' a crash course."

Anzu, Murakami, Miho, Maho, Kay and Ghost then followed the two said soldiers as the rest of the soldiers in the warehouse goes back to their own business. Murakami then walked up next to Miho. She wondered about something about the language she said.

"So… were you talking in Czech?" Murakami asked with a raised brow, somehow almost made Miho surprised.

"How did you know?" Miho asked.

"There's a school that speaks in that language," Anzu replied as she walked up next to Murakami.

"Heh, good to hear then," Miho replied flatly as she looked at her.

"How many languages do you know?" Murakami asked as she softly crossed her arms.

"Plenty," Miho replied as she tilted her head. "Do you want a language class?"

"Maybe later," Murakami replied with a shrug.

They reached into one part of the warehouse where is the place was full of arsenal of weapons and shooting range. Anzu and Murakami were both awed on what weapons they have, and apparentlay there are some weapons they never seen before. What was stored on the weapons lockers were SMGs and Assault Rifles. Maho, Kay, Miho, Ghost, Vicek and Chemo couldn't help but to notice the two girls' astonishment of the weapons. To which both of them turned around and asked them.

"How did you get all of this weapons?" Anzu asked. "And where these weapons came from? I never seen most of those kinds of weapons before."

The 141s all looked at each other, before looking back at them with Miho answered. "It's no problem actually. And would you believe if I came just actually came back from the alternate-future universe along with my men?"

Both Anzu and Murakami both deadpanned at Miho, they looked pretty shock to hear that. "You're kidding right?" Anzu asked as she forced to make a smile."

"Aaah, nope," Chemo replied with a quick shook. "She did got transported to London but it was because she was sent there by an uncontained portal, which sent her to London and into our future-alternate universe."

"Alternate universe?" Murakami asked as she and Anzu were both confused. "But you said that Miho was sent to the future right?"

"We did, but it's another universe," Vicek replied with a quick nod. "Because in our universe, in our future. There's no such thing as Sensha-Do."

Anzu and Murakami went pale to hear that. "No… Sensha-Do…?" Anzu asked slowly as she tried to process what they said.

"Yes, no Sensha-Do," Ghost replied with his arms crossed. "But it was for International Security reasons. We won't bother about what you think about Sensha-Do, that's all."

"…right…" Murakami replied, at least they able to process what they meant.

"You know?" Anzu started before she and Murakami looked back at the weapons. "Isn't dangerous to interfere with the past?"

"Well, this is an alternate universe so I guess we're fine with it," Chemo replied with a shrug. "Besides, Miho is the one who's calling the shots here."

"And was the former of the only girl in the task force," Vicek added with a smile.

Which made all of them to glance at him.

"Are you…?" Maho asked, but then halted when she figured she didn't like to say it.

"No, no, that's not what I was thinking," Vicek replied with shooks. "You guys know Miho was literally the only girl in the Task Force before Maho and Kay signed up."

They all still looking at him in doubt, before looking away from him. "Fair enough," Kay commented with a lazy expression.

Maho, Miho and Kay then walked up to Anzu and Murakami at the weapons' lockers as Ghost, Vicek and Chemo only waited at the shooting range. Anzu was interested on the SMGs while Murakami was interested on the rifles, and apparently on a machine gun. There was an M240 SAW machine gun in the warehouse. Miho, Maho and Kay had noticed the expression Murakami made, she really wanted to get a hold of the machine gun.

"So… anything you like?" Miho asked flatly, there was no need teasing her because Miho didn't really like doing that.

"Oh well, this machine gun," Murakami said as she pointed at the machine gun and looked at her. "What's this called?"

"That's an M240 machine gun," Maho answered as Murakami looked over to her. "It used 7.62 NATO bullets. It maybe heavy, but it really packs a punch. You can shoot through walls if you want."

Murakami tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. She was starting to like this gun. She looked back at the machine gun and about to grab it. When she had to looked over to Miho first for it.

"Can I?" Murakami asked.

"Sure, go ahead," Miho replied with a nod and a hand waved at the muscular girl.

Murakami doubtedly took the machine gun and tried out the weight. Despite it was heavy, Murakami able to hold the machine gun with no difficulty. This had made all the 141s including Vicek, Chemo and Ghost baffled to see that. They never see that a girl could hold a heavy machine gun in first try with no trouble. Miho then told Murakami to walk over to the shooting range and see how she's doing with the machine gun. Only leaving Anzu to pick a weapon of her choice.

Murakami then aimed the machine gun onto a target practice in front of her. Though, this was her first time trying out a machine gun carried by her own hands unlike the cannon and the machine gun when she was in her Mark IV tank with her team. She looked back at Miho, giving an expression that she may need to know something before operating a machine gun. Miho is all willing to oblige her for a guidance.

"So, what do I need to know when I'm using this gun?" Murakami asked as she and Miho were watched by Maho and Kay near them.

"Make sure you know where are you aiming at," Miho answered, before continued by Kay. "You can shoot like that, but the chance of hitting the enemies by firing it from the hip like what you're doing now makes the bullets sprayed all over the place instead of the enemy."

"And it makes you look like an ass," Kay added, which achieved the glares of the three girls. "No offense."

The three shook their heads as Miho looked back at Murakami. "If you want to be accurate, aim your gun from your shoulder to hit the target."

Miho then motioned her hand to the target practice as Murakami puts the machine gun on her shoulder in which Maho said. "Now let's shoot a few bullets on the target. Pull the trigger when you're ready."

Murakami aimed her machine gun at the target practice and pull the trigger. Murakami controlled her firing really well, as the bullets hit the target without a miss. Murakami can handle the recoil of the machine gun well thanks to her muscular physic. She then stopped firing and looked over to Miho, who was giving a satisfied expression.

"Nice, you have a better aim than Kay," Miho commented, which offended Kay a little.

"Hey!" Kay protested as she leans at her, it made Maho snickered. "Not cool man."

Ignoring Kay's protest, Miho continued to guide Murakami. "Now, try to aim down your sights at the target. Try to shoot it in the head 3 times."

Murakami nodded at her and aimed down the sight. She aimed the MG at the head and pulled the trigger. For this one, she pulled the trigger one-by-one to achieve incredible accuracy. One shot on the target practice's eye, one on the other, and one to the forehead. Maho smiled to see someone able to get through a shooting crash course with no difficulty. Kay smirked, guess Miho was right about Murakami's aim was better than her. The last time Kay used an MG, she nearly shot Vicek in the arm.

"Macmillan would be proud," Miho commented, as they were confused at the name except for Maho. "Now, let's teach you how to reload a machine gun. Kay?"

Kay walked over to Murakami with a M240 ammo in her hand. "Alright, now to reload the MG. You need to pull the bolt to lock it on the rear and then push the bolt on your right side."

"This one?" Murakami asked as she pointed at the said bolt.

"Yeah," Kay replied.

Murakami followed what she said as the three operative girls observed. Murakami pull and push the bolt, then looked back at Kay.

"Now, you need open the cover assembly to access the feed tray. It's near your shoulder that looks like a rail."

"This one?" Murakami asked as she pointed at the said cover tray on the top of the MG.

"Yeah, that one," Kay nodded.

Murakami opened the cover tray by pressing the button on the rear of the cover tray first before opening by lifting the rear up into 90 degrees. When she noticed a leftover shot Then she looked back at Kay, also noticing the ammo on the MG is not empty yet.

"Pull out that bullet links out and the mag, and changed it with this one," Kay said as she puts the MG mag on the table.

Murakami pulled out the bullet links and de-attaches the MG mag off the gun. Before taking the new one on the table and insert the mag to the gun. Then she pulled the bullet links out the mag and put the first bullet of the link into the feed tray. Then she closed the feed tray after making sure the bullets were in the feed tray.

"Good, that's how you reload an MG," Kay commented with a tilted head. "But that one is when you changed the ammo when there are some of it left. Do the same thing when your mag is empty."

"Okay, Kay-san," Murakami replied with a nod and a smile as she holds her MG.

"And make sure to put it on safe," Maho reminds her. "It's near the handgrip."

Murakami looked at the hand grip and make sure her gun wasn't aiming at someone else. Miho had pointed her the safety locked and she clicked it. Murakami thanked Miho for helping her on the MG. The three operatives had guessed that Murakami would have no trouble dealing with other weapons.

"And also make sure your finger is not on the trigger when you don't want to shoot someone," Miho reminds her, to which Murakami quickly shifted her finger off the trigger.

Then they noticed Anzu was coming up to them. To Miho's surprised, Anzu was bringing in the AKS-74u to them, firing end pointing to the ground. It was basically a carbine version of AK74 rifle (No, it's not a fucking SMG. Look it up on the bloody internet). But Miho believed that she could handle that gun. For Maho and Kay however, doubted if she could handle that gun.

Murakami puts down the MG and walked over to Anzu who already putted down the AK on the other table. Anzu may know about holding the weapon and not accidentally pull the trigger thanks to her shooting experience in tankery. But she may need some directions if she wanted to use the weapon to kill enemies. Anzu looked over to the operatives and Murakami as they walked over to her. They then stopped right next to her, with Miho observing the choice of her weapon.

Miho then looked up to Anzu who asked her. "So… is this a smaller version of AK47?"

"It's a smaller version of AK74, …74," Miho replied, Anzu was a little surprised of the AK's number. "We called this variant the AKS-74u."

"So… it's a carbine rifle?" Anzu asked with a raised.

"Correct," Miho replied with a nod. "It's a good thing to not hear someone calling this an SMG."

"Wait, what's the difference with carbine rifle and SMG?" Murakami asked as she leans forward to looked at her face.

"The difference is what kind of bullets you used," Maho replied, not wanting to bother Miho for answering it. "SMG uses pistol bullets while carbine rifle uses rifle ammo."

"Oh? So basically the carbine rifle is actually a much more lighter weapon while using the same ammo?"

"Yep, in a nutshell," Kay replied with a nod to her.

"So… how do I use this gun?" Anzu asked as she was curious on using the gun.

"Let's start with reloading," Miho then took the AK and showed to her how to reload. "It goes like this."

Miho changed the mag and insert the new one into the gun. She then tilted the gun to her left before pulling the bolt quickly on the right side of the gun. *CLICK-CLACK* After that, she quickly goes to combat stance. Miho then puts the gun back on the table and looked back at Anzu.

"You got it?" Miho asked when they wondered if she payed attention.

"I guess so," Anzu replied with a doubtful nod, before she took the gun.

Anzu had reloaded the gun as quickly as she can. If Miho had to be honest, Anzu was half slower than Miho. But at least, she could reload the gun.

"Not bad," Maho commented. "Now, aim your gun at the target."

Anzu then aimed the gun at the target, aiming it from her shoulder. "Good, now before you pull the trigger. I should remind you that you better prepared for the recoil of the gun. You sure you can handle it?"

"Yeah, sure, Maho-san," Anzu replied with a nod, her rifle still aiming at the target.

"Alright, pull the trigger if you're ready," Kay said as she motioned her hand to the target.

"Ok, huff…" Anzu then prepared to pull the trigger, all the while Ghost, Vicek and Chemo were watching how Anzu can handle it from near next to them.

*DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR*

The three men were impressed Anzu could fire the gun without falling off her stance. At least, she missed two-three shots on the target. And then without order, Anzu decides to aim down the sight to the target, and pulled the trigger.

*DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR* *DAR-DAR-DAR*

It is well glorious, to watch a short girl in school uniform shooting out the AKS-74u was just magnificent. The burst of flame at the firing end was like a flamethrower, before quickly disappear under 1 second. They were also glad that after Anzu emptied the chamber and reloaded the gun, this time Anzu able to get a little faster than before. They saw Miho, Maho and Kay smiled to know Anzu has passed the shooting crash course. Anzu then puts the gun down before looking over to Miho.

"So… how did I do?" Anzu asked with a shrug.

"Better than expected," Miho replied. "Now, I wanted to teach you about grenades but… you know how grenades work, right?"

Murakami and Anzu both nodded in confirmation. "Good, so I could tell that I don't need to give you lads a lesson about it. But I will tell you, we have special grenades in case of tactical movement."

"Special grenades?" Murakami asked, the only thing she had in mind was only smoke grenade. "Isn't smoke is a special one?"

"Yes, it is, but we also have one more kind of special grenade," Miho then takes a grenade at the table in front of them and show it to them. "This is a flashbang grenade."

"Flashbang?" Anzu asked as she was confused by the name.

"It's always been used for tactical purposes," Maho answered as she stood next to Miho. "It can disorient enemy's senses for a moment. Produce a very bright light and deafening noise to stun the targets. It's non-lethal however because it won't cause permanent injury."

"But…" Kay added with a pause. "That doesn't mean you're safe with the Flashbang. There's a low potential that flashbangs might harm you."

"I see," Murakami replied with an understood nod. "Does this thing worked like normal grenade?"

"Nearly, except it exploded right in front of your face the moment you throw it," a voice said from behind them, turns out it was Chrome after they looked at him.

"Oh, that hurts," Anzu commented with winced eyes, she can imagine how painful that was.

"Chrome, what's up?" Miho asked as she tilted her head to him.

"We just got a call from Ami, they need to know where's Tasaki's location," Chrome replied whilst pointing his thumb to behind him.

"Alright, tell everyone to gear up," Miho responded to him, to which he nodded and walked away from them.

"You heard her, lads. Let's go," Ghost shouted to the two men with him, before they're heading off to get their gears.

"We're rolling out now?" Kay asked.

"Yeah, now," Miho then looked back at Anzu and Murakami. "Are you sure you want to do this? You could get killed if you're coming with us. If you want to back out now, it's alright."

Anzu and Murakami paused at the statement as they looked at each other, but then nodded to each other and looked back at Miho. "We both are sure of it."

"Alright, Kay," Miho called her as she looked at her. "Get the gears and uniform for them both. I don't want any risk that the media somehow found out they both helping us out."

"Yes, ma'am," Kay replied with a nod, before she motioned the two to follow her.

"And no skirts!" Miho shouted before the two students left with Kay for the equipments.

"No problem!" Kay replied back with a thumb up in the air, not bothering to look back.

Miho and Maho watched them left, before Maho walked over to her younger sister. "Do you think they could make it?"

"We'll see," Miho replied with her arms crossed. "But now, let's make sure we keep 'em alive and well."

"Okay, Miho," Maho nodded in reply, before they both heading for the weapons locker and picked their weapons.

Another day in the office.


	36. Chapter 34 - Saving Ogin

Task Force 141

Mission Briefing

.

Ghost: Captain, we have found the factory that matches Anzu's coordinates.

Miho: Show me.

.

 **Overviewing target area, abandoned wood factory**

.

Chemo: This one factory is damn large, like the same one back in Bosaso, Somalia.

Vicek: Except this one is in the clearing of the forest.

Miho: Reminds me of Borneo.

Kay: What's the history of that factory?

Maho: It was a famous wood factory once. Until it gone to bankruptcy because of corruption that exist in the factory and assaulted with a lot of controversy of illegal logging. Along with blackmails among the staff.

Murakami: That's a bad history there.

Anzu: Yeah, figures. I'm afraid stepping my foot back in that factory alone.

Miho: Did you do a UAV recon?

Ghost: I just did.

 **Scanning target area**

Ghost: Local triggermen guard the factory compound. Armed with rifles and SMGs.

Chemo: And also got reports that they may have rocket launchers at their disposal. Dunno where the hell they got that.

Miho: Found any entry to the compound?

 **Scanning for possible entry: 1 entry found**

Vicek: I'm afraid, there's only one.

Miho: Shite, stealth's not an option. We will be like idiots in the open.

Anzu: So… what's the plan?

Miho: We have to knock their front door then.

141 Member: Captain, we just got a call from Captain Chouno regarding this situation.

Miho: What is it, Corporal?

141 Member: Cpt. Chouno's inside man has reported that there are hostages within the factory. Though, her spy can't tell the exact place in the factory where are the hostages are held.

Murakami: That means Ogin is also there as well!

Kay: I hoped so, there are a lot of missing people in Japan thanks to these assholes.

141 member: And Captain?

Miho: Yeah?

141 member: Cpt. Chouno said that Major Akashi wanted us to do a favor, by burning the whole compound to ground after we get those hostages out.

Ghost: That sounds real fun.

Miho: Now to hear something like that, I got something in my mind.

Anzu: What is it?

Maho: I hope it's a good idea.

Miho: Don't worry about it. It's time for my sister and Kay to have a ride to the front door.

* * *

 **(Waterflame - Rocket race)**

 **.**

 **"Raidout"**

 **17:00:12**

 **Anzu Kadotani**

 **Task Force 141**

 **Northern side of Shizuoka city, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan**

.

"WOOOOHOOOOO!"

"Easy, Kay! We're not there yet!"

"Are you serious, Miho?! We have to raid that place with these couple of tanks and a couple of armoured cars?!"

"Hey, the JGSDF has asked us to burn the whole place down to the ground. Got any better ideas than that?"

"Uff, never sitting outside on the tank like this before."

"Hey, comrade. You're doing fine just there."

They are on the way to the enemy hideout via an Abrams tank, a Leopard 2 tank along with two Ocelot armored cars. Maybe it's overkill, but that's the transports for the raid. Since Major Akashi had asked the 141 to burn the whole factory to the ground, Miho had ordered to bring in tanks. The Ocelot armored cars? Entirely different story.

Maho and Kay were both in their TF 141 uniform, wearing the official grey jackets and ACH helmets. They both were manning the miniguns on top of the tanks, Maho was in the Leopard 2 while Kay was in the Abrams. Ghost, Vicek, Chemo and Chrome were all on Maho's tank while Anzu, Murakami, Miho and a 141 member, Victor were all on Kay's tank. Ghost's team on Maho's tank were all wearing their own respective urban combat uniforms and weapons, including Victor on Kay's tank. The three girls on the Abrams tank were wearing their own different uniforms.

Anzu was wearing a black lightweight Kevlar vest. Ammo pouches for AKS-74u w/ Red Dot Sight were on the stomach, while her M1911 pistol was holstered on her right thigh which leaves the chest part of her Kevlar empty. Underneath her Kevlar was a long sleeve dark purple shirt and a pair of dark blue pants. She wears Brown fingerless tac gloves along with knee and elbow protections. She wears an olive drab cap and her hair was tied to a ponytail like Kay's and also wearing a tactical transparent glasses to clear the dust coming for her eyes.

Murakami was wearing a forest camo-heavy duty Kevlar vest, which has enhanced protection for her neck and added protection of shoulder protectors. Her uniform was a white sleeveless shirt and black pants. She was wearing her black tactical gloves along with knee and elbow protectors. She didn't bother to have any headgears on her head, except for the grey bandana on her neck. The media would come pretty late, right after they burned the damn place to the ground. Her weapons was the M240 MG and Glock 17

Miho was wearing her olive-drab Mark 3 Kevlar Vest. Ammo pouches on the bottom of her Kevlar while her M9 pistol strapped onto her chest, extra ammo pouches were on her both thighs. She was wearing a long sleeve green shirt under her Kevlar with desert-colored pants. Miho was wearing her black tactical gloves along with knee protectors. She was also wearing a her green-camo boonie hat on her head, the media will be late to come here that's for sure. Her weapons was a tactical AK47 w/ Hybrid Sight.

The convoys followed down the wide dirt road up ahead. They could feel the bumps when they drive there. Thankfully, the factory wasn't near the swamp and it didn't rain. There was no worries bringing the tanks along because the area they're in was actually near the mountain, and on a flat surface. The convoys turned right following the dirt road, and Maho and Kay were both prepping up the miniguns.

Anzu, Murakami, Miho and Victor were all sitting tightly on the back of the tank. Anzu was in the middle of the back tank as she was holding onto the turret in front of her to make sure she didn't fall over. Miho was right next to her, while Murakami and Victor sitting at the edge of the back tank, one side each. Anzu could see Kay was pretty happy to get her hands on the minigun. Which she noticed Miho just shook her head, can't tell if she's okay letting Kay with this tank.

Miho turned her head to Anzu as she did the same. "We're going in and snag Tasaki before he bolts, he's the only one who knows where the hostages held!"

Kay then turned her head to behind her and looked up at Anzu. "Once we're in, everything will be go loud as hell. We need to be quick before the cops gets here. We only have one shot at this!"

Anzu quickly nodded back at her and Kay turned her head forward. Anzu cocked her gun as Miho and the rest behind her did the same. Anzu noticed that Miho carefully stood up and looked over to Maho's tank who was already ahead of Kay's tank and the Ocelots. He held her Ak onto a stand on the turret as the convoy made a sharp turn to the left which leave dust behind the convoy. Anzu saw the Ocelots were having their men manning the .50 Cal machine guns on the roof of their armored cars and cocked them.

Miho waved her hand at the tank in front of theirs as they saw Maho looked back at her. "Rhino 1, take point in the game."

"Affirmative," Maho replied through the radio and gives a thumb up. "Reaching target in 20 seconds."

They looked forward again, and they saw the gate in front of them 15 seconds away. That's when the one of the Rhino gunner stated. "Gate's in visual, over."

"Roger, start putting rounds on them," Miho ordered casually as her fingers was on her radio in her ears.

"Roger, shells away."

*BOOM-BOOM*-*DUARR-BLAAARR*

The enemies who were guarding were taken by surprises as most of them at gate were killed the blast. The gate was destroyed and flung in deeper into the hideout. Some reinforcements were moving up to the gate only to met with a scary sight. When they spotted two tanks and two Ocelots with MGs driving straight onto them, they knew they fucked up. Anzu and Miho quickly raised their rifles forward.

"Contacts! All units open fire!" Miho barked in the radio, and everyone pulled their triggers.

*DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA- DAKKA* *BOOM-BOOM*

Their firepower was massive that in fact destroyed the whole entrance of the hideout, along with enemy casualties. The convoy quickly drives through the entrance and quickly hit the brakes. All foot mobiles unit from Ocelots until the tanks except the gunners of the convoy dropped of their vehicles and advanced slowly forward as they opened fire. Anzu dropped off the tank with Murakami on her side and quickly puts some shots on the enemies right in front of her with her rifle. Murakami on the other hand quickly charged onto a mobster guard like a bull and he flew off until he breached through a wall of a security post.

Wait, what?

Anzu could admit, the 3 of 5 141 members aside Kay's tank who were from an Ocelot car were internally screaming on seeing what Murakami just did to that mobster.

Anyway, Anzu and Murakami quickly took cover at the crates in front of them. She has noticed that Miho and Victor took cover at the obstructions next to the tank across Anzu's cover. The 141 members from the first Ocelot aside the Abrams quickly ran forward and took cover by doing a run-slide action to the cover, while those from the second Ocelots near the Leopard 2 tank charge the enemies and took cover at the walls near the building next to them. They all quickly returned fire, the enemies were heavily suppressed thanks to the MG of the tanks Maho and Kay were on

Anzu could see that the area they're in is the open field of the factory. There were crates and logs around the area which is good for cover. There were two alleys ahead of them beside the dirt road about 60 meters from their position. They need to move forward, despite Anzu and Murakami had felt guilty to kill people and hate the idea to kill people. At least, the first people they killed were those who were a the gate.

Anzu quickly looked back to Murakami and shouted. "Give me cover!"

"Okay!" Murakami quickly stood up and fires her MG at the enemies ahead, killing 4 contacts in the systematical firing of her MG.

Anzu quickly ran forward and reached next cover at the log and return fire, she managed to kill two who were shooting their SMGs at her as she heard Miho in the radio. "Tasaki's office is just down the road ahead! Rhino units, advanced down the road!"

"Why did we bring the Ocelots?" Murakami asked in the radio as Anzu saw her shooting back at the enemies behind the barrels 10 yards ahead killing them.

"The Ocelots are for Hostage extractions," Maho replied in the radio, who was now gunning the enemies from windows next to that road ahead. "Ocelots will stay behind until we got the location of the hostages."

"RPGs on the rooftops!" Ghost barked in the radio, to which they all looked up to the roof of the buildings ahead of them.

There were two tangos on the roof holding the rocket launchers. Anzu aimed and killed one, his rocket fell off the roof. The other one however, was taken out by Vicek with his M4A1. After the deed was done, the tanks then slowly drive forward following the dirt road ahead. Mobsters who were in the covers ahead and dumb enough to shoot the tanks with their rifles and SMGs were either blown off by tank shells or gunned down by the minigunners. Murakami, Miho and Victor advanced to Anzu's position as the 141 foot mobiles advanced slowly through the enemy with no problem.

"Contact, on our 11!" Victor shouted as he ducked down.

"I see him!" Anzu shouted and quickly picks the bastard behind a barrel, killing him. "He's down."

"Good shot, mate!" Miho commented quickly before returning fire ahead.

Anzu and Murakami stood out from cover and provide suppressing fire at the enemies ahead with the help of 141 members on their left. Miho and Victor runs forward whilst gunning at the enemies ahead of them. They both reached another cover as the tanks reached their position. Anzu and Murakami quickly ran forward, and then Anzu changed her pace to walking and aimed her rifle on her right, killing an enemy who was next to the tanks.

Anzu quickly runs up to her team who were already advancing along with the tanks. She shifted her aim to her left and shot some hostiles taking cover at the fence of an elevated surface. Miho, Murakami and Victor focused on their 10 o'clock and gunned down 13 hostiles taking cover near the logs. Anzu quickly walked ahead of her team and took cover at a flipped table ahead. She was about to peek out *WHIZZ* when a bullet flew next to her head, she quickly ducked before returning fire and killed the bastard who tried to kill her.

Anzu quickly ducked down as her team advanced slowly with the tanks pass her. "These bastards really have bad experience at shooting us!" Miho commented in the radio, feeling unamused.

"Well they are nothing compared with the African militias," Chemo commented back in the radio.

To which Anzu flipped in. "Hey, I almost got shot in the head!"

"Well, at least one of them nearly had a good aim," Ghost commented as Anzu catches up with her team and returned fire at the buildings ahead of them.

"Nearly good?" Murakami asked sarcastically as she unleashed a wave of MG bullets into enemies near the building ahead, killing 9 of them. "What the hell is wrong with you, people?"

"I was about to ask the same thing," Anzu stated as they advanced with the tanks and shoot at the windows on the second floor. "Now you're complimenting enemies?"

"A little," all 141s except Maho and Kay replied in the radio, to Anzu's and Murakami's amazement.

"Great, how far to the office?" Anzu asked as they reached the buildings with the tanks.

"Not far," Miho replied. "We're taking the alleys there with Echo 2 (Ghost's team). The rest of you lads, move up with the tanks."

"Copy that," Chemo replied in the radio as everyone obeyed her orders.

"Maho, make sure you watch your front," Kay warned her in the radio. "We keep an eye on our six."

"Copy, moving up now."

Echo 2 quickly teams up with Echo 1 (Anzu's team) and headed for the alleys on the left beside the tanks. They entered the alleys as the tanks got a head start to move forward down the road. They aimed their rifles forward as they walked through the alley. Miho was in front of Anzu while Murakami and Victor were right behind her, Anzu aimed her rifle to above them to make sure they didn't get shot from above. Echo 2 took another alleyway beside the one her team is in.

*BRAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-BOOM*

It seems the tanks along with the men were already ahead of them.

They quicken up the pace as they heard in the radio. "Echo 1-1, this is Bravo 1-1, we encountered some resistance and reached the target building. We're returning fire."

"Roger that," Miho responded as an enemy hiding in that alley pops up in front of him, only to meet a bullet in his head by Miho's AK. "We're heading up, standby."

When they were near the exit of the alleyway, they failed to notice there was another tight alleyway right next to their path. Once Miho passed the right alleyway and Anzu was about to, Anzu was quickly ambushed by a hostile by running out the alley and charging up to her. She tackled Anzu down to the ground to locked her rifle in between them and was about to stab her. Anzu quickly pulled out her pistol from her holster on her leg and quickly putting holes in his stomach as she held his hand armed with knife that was 3 inch away from her chest. Anzu quickly threw the bastard to her left and quickly stood up and backed up with Murakami's help. Miho did turned around and aimed at the bastard along with Murakami and Victor but was glad to see Anzu had killed him by herself.

"Kami! That freaks me out!" Anzu yelled, a little panic and glad she got out from that alive.

"You okay?" Miho asked as she was concerned of her teammate.

"I'm fine, let's just move," Anzu replied quickly with a sighed, which Miho nodded and began to move out the alley.

Once they out the alleyway, they spotted a large building up ahead where the tanks and the rest of the men were firing at. It was a three story building which they would assume where it was once a place for cutting logs or making papers. Each story has their windows, and the building was connected to a part of the factory that has a big chimney on their very left and it was sealed off by small wall with sharp fences about 3 meters high. They could saw tangos were shooting out the windows straight into the tanks along with the men there, quiet fortunate for the Echo teams to not be spotted.

That's when they spotted someone bring out an RPG at the third story window.

"RPG!" Ghost shouted in the radio, Anzu saw Maho reacted to the warning.

Maho turned her minigun just in time at the rocket launcher shooter, but was late to pull the trigger. The rocket shooter fired first before Maho able to shoot him. As Maho get ready for the incoming blast…

*BUAR*

The rocket somehow didn't hit Maho along with the tank.

What they saw was that the rocket was exploded right in front of the tank. Anzu swears Maho was going to get killed by that. Maho cleared off the dust in front of her face as she was glad that she didn't get blow up by that. Anzu and Murakami were both baffled about it.

"That rocket could get Maho killed!" Anzu exclaimed in disbelieve. "How did it just blow up in front of her?!"

"Trophy system," the Leopard 2 driver replied in the radio. "We have set up rocket countermeasures on our tanks so we will be alright from any rocket attacks."

"Rocket countermeasures?" Murakami asked with a raised brow. "Damn, these people are good."

The Abrams change the aim of its cannon to the tank's right, looking away from the main building target. Turns out, there were another hostiles coming up to the tanks and despite that, the tank kill those coming up to them and now dealing with hostiles shooting out in the buildings on the far side. Kay on the other hand only focused on the main target building as she kept suppressing fire on the building along with Maho. The hostiles on the windows and outside that building were starting to thin out.

"They're backing up!" Chemo shouted as they reached a cover of the fence.

"Move in," Miho ordered as they opened fire. "Murakami, slot these bastards fast!"

"I'm on it!" Murakami then puts her MG on the small wall of the fence, and opened fire.

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA -DAKKA-DAKKA*

Thanks to Murakami suppressive attack, a lot of the bastards who were shooting from the covers of cars, in the open and from the windows were mowed down like No Man's Land. Murakami seemed also glad to know the bullets could go through metal sheets and wall which giving her a favor to easily dispatch them. Anzu fired her AKS-74u alongside her and the teams as she could hear Murakami screamed in rage to the enemies for what happened when someone put a friend in danger.

"All clear, move up," Miho ordered, they then got through the fence and headed for the building. "Rhinos and Bravos are to set up a perimeter until we got the target, over."

"Roger that, Echo 1-1," Maho replied in the radio. "Driver, park the tank there."

"Come on, people. Roll out!" Bravo 1-1 shouted with his finger making a circle in the air. "Set up a perimeter!"

"Echo 2, with me," Miho radioed as Anzu's team followed behind her.

"Roger," Chrome replied, then he changed the subject. "Sorry for shooting you."

"Chrome, it's not the time to apologize to the corpses," Chemo said in the radio as they headed for the building with Echo 1.

"I thought you carved 'sorry' on your bullets," Victor said with wonder.

"I had to blew them up for the sake of our Russians," Miho replied in the radio flatly.

Which earned a shout in the radio from the Canadian which near startled them all. "WHAT!?"

"Now I'm curious what's up with them," Anzu said Murakami who was right next to her as they entered the building.

"Me too," Murakami agreed with a nod.

They entered the building and reached the main area of the factory. The ground floor was actually filled with a lot of papers. Though, Anzu had noticed that she could smell drugs of one of the big rolled up paper. Anzu informed Miho of it and she only replied that they will burn this place to the ground for good. They only continue through the ground floor with caution as they won't lower their rifles.

"Left clear," Victor stated.

"Right clear," Murakami stated.

Anzu and Vicek raised their rifles up to the ceiling of the third floor, the reason why there were windows on the second floor was that the second floor was installed with catwalks. "Ceiling clear," Vicek stated.

"Roger, take up the stairs," Miho ordered as they found a catwalk stairs on the corner right of the room ahead.

"Copy, moving up," Ghost replied as Miho was first to walk upstairs, followed by Anzu, Murakami, Victor then the rest of Echo 2.

When they nearly at the top, two contacts showed up from the third floor and were about to walked down. Miho and Anzu had both reacted by shooting them through the grates of the stairs above them. Killing them both as they fell tumbling down to the second story stairs. They just continued to move up stairs and walked over the corpses before reaching the top. Miho then quickly took a left turn and stopped there as Anzu took the right turn and stop with their rifles forward. After making sure the corridor they're in are clear, they followed Miho down the corridor before turning left. While Echo 2 take the right turn from the stairs.

Anzu was right behind Miho as they marched forward with their rifles raised. "Forward clear," Miho stated.

"Got a corridor on our left," they reach the corridor and stopped as Anzu aimed her rifle to that corridor, that corridor didn't meet with Echo 2's path which instead leads to the right. "Left clear."

"Anzu, Murakami, go through that corridor," Miho ordered, Anzu and Murakami nodded. "Victor, on me."

"Roger that," Anzu replied with a nod before she and Murakami entered the left corridor, Miho and Victor marched forward following the corridor ahead of them.

*DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR*

"Echo 1, we got possible visual on Tasaki," Ghost said in the radio. "He's heading for the office. Be advised, we got hostiles on this floor"

"Roger that, Echo 2," Miho replied in the radio as Anzu and Murakami turned right following the corridor. "We're moving up to you, over."

"Copy," Ghost replied in the radio as gunfire sounds were getting closer for Anzu and Murakami.

They reached the end of the corridor and entered a wide room ahead, filled with crates and boxes of papers. Soon, they met with bullets flying over them but fortunately those bullets hit the walls next and aside them both. They quickly jumped front into cover and peeked out to return fire. Echo 2 was already on their left as Miho and Victor entered the room with quick walks and shooting them back without bothering to dodge the incoming bullets that were miraculously missed them. Miho and Victor killed 5 hostiles down before crouching down in the open a little. Anzu walked out from cover and shoots forward at the enemies on her 11 taking cover behind the boxes, eventually killing 3 enemies with headshots.

"Grenade out!" Murakami shouted as she threw the grenade from her cover, throwing afar passed Anzu into the cover of crates ahead where 2 enemies taking cover.

Those two hostiles were both blown up as they flew forward from their cover, killing them when they hit the ground. Echo 2 quickly marched out from their cover along with Murakami coming up behind Anzu. They just kept marching forward calmly as they accurately shoot the bastards ahead of them, whilst occasional dodges Anzu and Murakami made when they were getting shot at. After killing another 9 enemies with conserved bullets, they then try to kill the last 3 enemies as they reached another cover. A bullet managed to hit Anzu in the chest when she peeked out from cover.

"Tawagoto!" Anzu shouted as she got shot and shifted back a little before able to shoot the bastard in the head.

Echo 2 managed to kill the last 2 enemies ahead with headshots, before Murakami checked on Anzu. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Anzu said as she patted the chest of her body armor. "Let's move."

From within the room, there was a double door ahead of them in the end of the room. They quickly stacked up there as Echo 2 was to secured the left end side of the room they're in, which was their exit route of the building. Miho and Anzu stacked at the front in each side of the wall next to the door, Murakami was behind Anzu and Victor was behind Miho with their rifles raised at the door. The next thing they need to do now was to breach the door. Until they heard shouts from inside the doors.

"Dare ga karerada!" they heard one of the goons inside shouted.

"141-Rida to omoimasu! Koko kara deru hitsuyō ga arimasu!" other goon replied inside.

"Dakaranani? ! Watashitachiha kono basho kara dete iki, okane o wasurete imasu ka. Chansu janai!" Another man inside said, but this time Anzu recognized the voice.

"Watashi wa soto no mina ga shinde iru to omoimasu!" another goon shouted after the goons inside realized there were no gunfire sounds at all.

"Soredewa, watashitachi wa nani o matteimasu ka. Anata no imaimashī jū o doa ni muke nasai!" the confirmed voice of Tasaki heard, Anzu then looked at Miho.

"He's inside," Anzu said to her, but then noticed the what are the doors made of. "Uhmm, how do we get through that metal door?"

"Should I kick it?" Murakami asked to Miho.

"Nah, I got something better than that," Miho then motioned her hand to behind her, her right hand was on her rifle's trigger.

Victor only nodded back in silent and moved pass Miho to the door. He let his rifle hanging loosely on his front as he pulled out a breaching charge and planted it onto the door before opens up the folded part of the charge to spread it on the door. He then pulled out two small tubes of breaching charge and planted above and under the square breaching charge. Victor then moved back to behind Miho with his rifle raised at the door while Miho already pulled out a 9-banger out in her hand.

"Do it," Miho ordered, and Victor pressed the his detonator.

*BLUAAARR*

Miho then threw in the 9-banger.

*BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR*

Anzu quickly went inside as the world around her became slow. There were around 6 hostiles inside, including Tasaki himself. He was about to run to her right until Anzu quickly shot him in the leg, making him tumble down into a chair in front of his desk. Anzu then changed her aim into the 5 hostiles in the room and aimed the one on her very left. She shot the first in the head and then shot the second in his chest where his heart would be. The third was killed with 2 bullets into his chest as he almost pulled the trigger on her while the fourth got shot in the head when he got a fixed aimed to her. The last and fifth mobster however, got himself shot through the neck. In an instant, the world quickly turns to normal motion as all hostiles protecting Tasaki fell abruptly to the ground dead.

Tasaki was already quickly correcting himself to seat in a comfortable position in the chair, when he saw who just gone through. "You?! Anzu?!"

"Yeah, I'm back for what you've done, Tasaki," Anzu said, not sure what to do with him.

"Really?" Tasaki asked as he groaned the pain on his left leg, it was right in his knee. "And… who the hell are you!?"

Miho, Murakami and Victor quickly entered the room with their weapons hanging on their front except Victor. Murakami walked up to him and proceeded to kick his left shoulder, making him along with the chair facing fully into the 141s. Tasaki exclaimed from the kick he got as Murakami walked away from him and still facing at him.

Everyone stares down at Tasaki, until Miho gave an odd order for them except for Victor. "Gas masks, on."

Despite that Anzu and Murakami were confused of her order, they both obeyed her and all of them wear their gas masks they brought. Leaving only Tasaki without the gas mask because he's going to get interrogated, Miho pulled out a grenade. Thought, Anzu thought that was the smoke grenade at first because Miho didn't tell her and Murakami on why did she want them to bring in the gas masks. But then, something tells Anzu wasn't a smoke grenade.

Tasaki grinned at the stupidity the 141 made. "Really, then you covered your face after I saw your faces? You're not good at hiding you face."

Miho ignored him as she pulled the pin of the grenade and threw it to the corner left of the room. After it pops, it slowly produced fog in the room. But to her surprise it wasn't in the color of usual smoke, instead it was green smoke. A few seconds after the grenade pops with smokes coming out, Anzu and Murakami have noticed that Tasaki was starting to cough in pain after he inhale the smoke.

That's when she realized that was the poisonous gas Miho was using.

"Wha-what is this smoke?!" Tasaki asked as he groaned pain in his throat.

"A chemical gas compound that killed more than 10.000 people across Europe," Miho replied coldly, which had Anzu and Murakami horrified to hear that.

"What…?" Anzu said lowly to herself.

"What the hell!? You're crazy!" Tasaki retorted as he coughed in pain, couldn't even think twice of what Miho said.

Miho then pulled out another gas mask from the back of her belt and showed him in front of his face. "Tell me where are the hostages, and it's yours."

Tasaki was about to take it but Miho quickly backed away from him that he couldn't get the gas mask. "Nice try, now start talking."

"I won't tell where they are," Tasaki exclaimed back in denial and with winced eyes.

Miho nodded Victor, which signaled him to walked up to Tasaki. And stepped on his wounded knee very hard. Tasaki screamed in pain as he still stepping on his legs. Despite how Victor gave the pain to Tasaki, Anzu and Murakami grinned angrily to him for what he had done to Ogin

"Time's running out, чувак. Where are the hostages?" Victor asked as he got his foot off his wounded knee.

"The hostages are on the north side of this factory, they're in the warehouse not far from here! That's the only place where all of those hostages are locked up!" Tasaki shouted as he gasped for breath.

Anzu then walked up to him and pressed his wounded knee very hard that it made him scream. "Is Ogin in that warehouse?"

"Yes, she's in that warehouse!" Anzu quickly backed off from him and then turned around to Miho.

Miho then put her two fingers on her ear and radioed. "Bravo and Rhino teams, this is Echo 1-1. The hostages are in a warehouse north of this location. I repeat north of this location. Move up north and find the warehouse, over."

"Rhino 1, we copy, heading there now," Maho replied in the radio.

"Affirmative," Miho then looked back at Tasaki and took a step forward to him, before she threw the gas mask to him. "Alright then."

Anzu, Murakami and Victor was about to left the room after Miho turned around. But then they noticed that Miho just pulled out her M9 from her chest holster. Anzu had realized she won't let him live.

"This one is for Flint," Miho then hastily turned around and aimed her gun at Tasaki.

"NOOOO-*BANG*"

With that, Tasaki drop his head against his chair. Leaving blood all over the chair and the desk behind the chair he was sitting in. Murakami and Anzu were both frozen to watch that, even though they both understand he was an enemy. Miho then holstered her pistol as she and Victor had noticed the frozen girls next to them.

"Hey, you're okay?" Miho asked, which make them break their frozen stance.

"I thought you let him live," Anzu replied to her question as she looked at Miho, rubbed her forehead covered-gas mask.

"I said I'll give him the gas mask if he talks," Miho said to her flatly. "I didn't say I'll let him live."

"I see…" Murakami then glanced back at the corpse on the chair, decided not to ask if it was necessary to kill him.

Miho looked at the dead Tasaki before she and Murakami looked each other. "I know what you're thinking now. But he got what's coming for him. Are you good to go?"

"Yeah, I'm good…" Murakami replied with a nod, the tone of little doubt was heard within Anzu's ears.

"Let's move," Miho said as she and Victor walked out the room first, Anzu and Murakami stood a moment to looked at the corpse of Tasaki before heading out the room in upset.

Anzu and Murakami then catches up with her team that was waiting at the windows with Echo 2 to their right as they took off their gas masks, in which Miho noticed their expression. "I know you both are upset about what I did back there."

"Actually, it's also about what we're doing right now," Anzu added with a honest nod. "I didn't think we'll be ended up killing people instead of putting him along with his organization on trial."

"There's no choice, like I said before, the police isn't going to help us on this," Miho replied as she reloads her AK. "That's why I asked you before we're doing this mission. If you want to back out, it's alright. You don't have to get yourself in trouble saving her."

"We're not leaving Ogin, Miho," Murakami answered sternly, Anzu silently agreed to that. "We're not going anywhere until we saved her."

"Good to hear then," Miho replied with a nod after they noticed Echo 2 had just rappelled down the building. "Come on, hook up."

(06 Romanian Wind - Hans Zimmer - Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows Score)

Anzu's team quickly headed over to the windows which already have ropes to rappel down the building. Miho had taught them on how to hook up on the rappelling rope. Anzu locked in the hook on her belt to the rope, before she climbed out the window followed up by her team. All four of them then rappel down the building in quick pace before landing onto the ground. They could hear those gunfire from the moment they were still in the building until now from the north. Anzu reloads her AKS-74u and headed north with her teammates, following down the dirt road.

They ran to the north for more than 30 seconds until they reached the tanks and the men ahead that are already on site within the area. There, about 200 meters ahead, there was the only warehouse in the factory main ground area. Though, the tanks and Bravo teams were are under fire by the enemies despite the fact that they didn't get shot by the enemies' bullet. Anzu's team run over to the convoy and quickly put themselves in between Echo 2 and Kay's tank.

The gunner of the Abrams is putting her rounds forward into the open where enemies are shooting from. As if those enemies never learn to not just stand in the open like idiots, they all quickly mowed down as some of them were thrown backward from the power of the minigun. Murakami grinned to the sight, but felt a little disappointed that she can't get a kill from those in the open. Anzu marched forward from the cover they're in and took cover right aside the tank's front. Something that Anzu shouldn't do.

*BUAR* *SIIIIIIIIING*

"Aaaarghh," Anzu groaned to herself from listening that blast too close. "Need to remind myself about that."

The tanks advance forward as two hostiles from the building on their were about to shoot rockets to the tanks. Anzu spotted one and aimed her rifle to the third floor window, killing a bastard as he fell off the window and landed to the ground face first. The other one managed to pull the trigger, after got shot by Maho since she had noticed that and turned her minigun to behind her, his aim was a miss and shot the building across him.

They moving forward as the tanks firing their shells onto the buildings on their left, right and forward. Leaving a lot of chaos in that factory hideout. Many of the building passed were destroyed because of the tanks, but there are some of the building were burning. Including one building that Leopard 2 shot on their front left, a second story building. After a shell goes through, the whole building exploded and has been set aflame as mobsters who were taking cover in the building were all running out there only to die from burning and dropped to the ground.

Anzu had guessed they turn this factory into a goddamn battlefield.

Anzu kept marching forward with Murakami on her back, with her hand placing on Anzu's shoulder as her machine gun aiming to their left. Echo 2 were guarding the rear with Bravo 1 to cover Abrams rear while Miho and Victor covers the front tank with Bravo 2. They kept marching forward, until they found the target they've been looking forward. The warehouse was right in front of them, they just need to cross the open.

The warehouse was big as a second story building. The front of door of the warehouse was like the garage when Anzu and Murakami first came in to 141's temporary hideout. However, there were no windows on the warehouse, isolating whoever inside the big warehouse. All they need to do was to knock the front door. But after they cross into the open.

The tanks moved forward as Anzu and her team was right beside Maho's tank while on the other tank did the same along with Echo 2. Bravo 1 and 2 crouched in the open and slowly sidestepped toward the tank as they returned fire into the enemies from their west and east. Despite the fact that they no covers in the open except for the tanks, none of them got shot except Vicek and Chemo who get shot in the chest and the stomach. The mobsters' were like the African militias, except these guys were much more easier enemies to kill than the militias. The African militias nearly have good aim while these mobsters were around average.

Anzu threw a frag 'nade into the enemies on their left taking cover behind the bags of sands, apparently it was a leftover of a cancelled renovation. The grenade blew behind the enemies cover and killing them. Anzu had noticed that the mobsters also have a grenade as one of them already threw one to Anzu. But Vicek had quickly reacted to this by running up to her and then he holds his weapon by the firing barrel and swing his rifle to the grenade in the air like he was playing baseball. *PANG* The grenade got sent back to the sender right in front of his face and blew, killing another 7 that were with the bastard.

"Woah, NANI?!" Murakami shouted in dumbfounded and amazement as she kept returning fire.

"Home run, baby!" Vicek shouted cheerily before returned fire as they cross the field.

"I have no comment about that," they heard Maho in the radio, she was sounded disbelieve of what she just saw.

"That's why we called as the 141," Miho said in the radio. "Because we're bloody crazy."

*BOOM-BOOM*

After two shots of tank shells rang out, the big blast killed a lot of hostiles on their left and right and they instantly destroyed. Leaving a crater of tank shell on each side while dead mobsters were littered around the field. Anzu quickly reloaded her carbine AK as Murakami did the same to her MG. Bravo and Rhino teams are all set up perimeter in the open, making a half circle formation between themselves and the front of the warehouse with tanks parked in the middle of the half-circle. Though, the tanks' cannons were both aiming at the front door while Maho and Kay aimed their miniguns to their surrounding.

"Area clear!"

"Perimeter secured!"

"Make sure there's no one coming up for us!"

Echo 1 and Echo 2 quickly stacked up at the warehouse gate, Echo 1 was on the left side and Echo 2 was on the right side. Miho was on the very front with Anzu behind her, and then Murakami and Victor. While on the other side Ghost was at very front with Vicek, Chemo and Chrome behind him. Miho planted her ear onto the wall as Anzu did the same. They were curious about what's going on inside the warehouse. But then they heard enough of what were they hearing.

The mobsters inside the warehouse were confused on what to do if they're going into the warehouse.

"Sate nani o shiyou ka?!"

"Hōhō wa arimasen!"

Until Anzu and Miho heard something they didn't like.

"Get that girl out of that chair and use her!"

"Son of a-! Rhino 1, shoot the gate!" Miho ordered quickly.

Maho startled to hear that. "What- are you-?"

"Just shoot the bloody gate!"

"Standby, Gunner! FEUER!"

*BOOM-BLAAAAAAR*

The Echo teams quickly shielded themselves with their own arms and looked away from the blast. The blast was huge and left a lot of fog in the air. They then looked back at the gate just to see a large hole in the gate.

"Tawagoto…" Murakami commented as she didn't expect that to happen.

The Echo teams just went inside the warehouse without any questions about Miho's order as Kay contacted the Ocelots back in the entrance of the factory. "Spectre 3-1 and 3-2, this is Rhino 2. We found the warehouse filled with hostages. Head up north of this factory and meet us here. Marking our location with flare."

*PWUUSH*

"3-1, Roger that, Rhino 2," 3-1 replied in the radio. "We see your flare. We're moving up now, ETA 30 seconds."

"Roger that, wilco."

The Echo teams marched slowly through the warehouse and quickly killed the remaining 6 mobs inside the warehouse. They then advanced through the warehouse slowly as they aimed their rifles around the warehouse. But… the sight they saw inside had made them to lower their rifles in pity. There were hostages inside the warehouse, either tied in chains at the walls, caged behind bars, tied with ropes on the floor or nearby pillars. They are all scared. They were glad to see all of those people who get kidnapped are all alive, all 15 people who were missing according to the exact numbers that Ami has given to them.

But from all 15 people, they spotted one of whom they were looking for as they turned their heads forward.

The girl they are looking at was on a chair. Her arms were both tied with ropes on the back of her chair whilst her legs were tied to the legs of the chair. The tall girl has long black ahoge hair, and has the most flamboyant looking to see from a girl, with her black long coat, black pirate boots, red bow tied on her hair. Her front hair was done to cover her right eye in the same manner of a pirate's eye patch. The sailor's hat decorated with red feathers was on the floor next to the tied girl, and her toy pipe was inside her black coat. Anzu, Murakami, Miho and Victor approached the poor girl to see her face and discovered her face was bruised.

They found her, it was Ogin.

"Ogin?" Murakami called softly as she runs up to her. "Ogin!"

The rest followed up as Echo 2 were starting to free the hostages from their restrains. "Ogin, Ogin! Are you okay?" Anzu asked as they try to wake her up by shaking her.

"Huh-? Wha-what?" Ogin said almost weakly as she raised her face up. "Leave… leave me alone!"

Ogin quickly shook her body of them, until Murakami grabbed her to control her. "Ogin, Ogin! Look! It's me!"

Ogin stop shaking herself as she angrily glares at her, but then her expression changed into a surprised one. "Nani…? Murakami…? Is this… is this a dream?"

"No, it's not," Anzu replied as Ogin turned her head to her, though she was angry to see her. "Look, we're getting you out of here."

"Why did you sold me out?!" Ogin shouted at as she jerked her head to her, Anzu quickly steps back. "I trusted you!"

"Ogin, I'm sorry, I-" Anzu then quickly cuts off by Ogin.

"Don't you even say that after what you've done to me!" Ogin shouted back as Miho and Victor pitied of this situation. "You goddamn lying-"

"Ogin, that's enough!" Murakami cuts her off aloud, she holds her shoulder. "She didn't have a choice, alright? Just give her a chance."

Ogin looked up to Murakami for a moment, before looking back to Anzu slowly. "Alright… I give you a chance… just… cut me off these ropes."

Murakami looked over to Miho, who nodded, before pulling out her knife and walked behind the tied Ogin. As Murakami cuts the rope off her, Miho stood in front of her with her rifle pointing to the ground. Ogin looked up to her and then found something out of the ordinary when she saw what she was wearing. Ogin only stayed silent as she stares at Miho who only gave a cold but worried face as her hands were free of ropes before Murakami cuts the ropes on her legs.

As Murakami was about to finish cutting the ropes, Ogin had noticed what Anzu and Murakami were wearing was the same one the short red headed girl with boonie hat had wore. "Anzu, Murakami… what are you wearing?"

"Combat uniforms," Anzu replied, which made Ogin confused.

"Combat uniforms?" Ogin asked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"We have to kill a lot of mobsters to get you out of here," Miho coldly replied as Murakami helped Ogin stood up from her chair.

"Wait, you what?" Ogin then looked back at Anzu and Murakami, only to notice they both already have their weapons out.

"Yeah, we had to do that," Murakami honestly replied with a frowned nod. "We can't leave you to those mobsters forever."

Ogin then looked back at the boonie hat girl. "And… who are you?"

"My name is Miho Nishizumi," Miho replied, which made Ogin taken back of the name. "Second daughter of Shiho Nishizumi."

"Nani?! Didn't you die back in that bridge incident?" Ogin asked as she widen her eyes in disbelieve. "I heard my friends from Ooarai even witnessed that."

"I survived that incident actually," Miho replied, but then looked away for a moment.

"And why are you wearing those uniforms… and weapons?" Ogin asked as she was astonished of what they're wearing.

Miho now need for Ogin to keep this information classified. "Ogin, you maybe know my age and I should be in a high school. But… I'm actually a soldier."

"A soldier?" Ogin asked as she winced her eyes to her. "Did Ami made you signed up to JGSDF or something?"

"No, I signed up as a soldier," Miho replied with a shook. "Now, you are talking directly to the commanding officer of Task Force 141."

Ogin raised her eyebrows and left her jaw open in disbelieve. "Are you kidding me?"

"No, she's not," Anzu replied as Ogin turned her head to her. "And we all have killed a lot of those mobsters to save you."

Ogin horrified of what they said, but then relieved they were here for her. "It's good to hear that."

"Captain!" a voice said from behind the operatives, they turned their heads to Ghost coming up to them, Ogin was nearly intimidated of his mask. "We got the hostages inside the Foxhounds. We're ready to exfil out of here."

"Copy, tell everyone to get on the vehicles," Miho replied back with a shout. "We're getting out of here."

"Roger," Ghost then headed back out the warehouse as Victor caught up with him. Leaving the operative and the girls with Ogin.

"Ghost? His name is Ghost?" Ogin asked.

"Yeah, come on," Miho replied as she pointed her head to the blown up gate. "We're buggin' out from here."

They began to jog to the blown up gate, before pacing to run. Anzu had noticed that Ogin's legs looked sore, but she said she's fine with it. Once they're out, Anzu could noticed the disbelieved face Ogin make after she saw the convoy, especially on the tanks. She just stood behind as Anzu's team climbed up the Abrams tank.

"Are those tanks?!" Ogin asked aloud with her head jerked forward.

"Yeah! Ogin, it's good to see you!" Kay shouted as she and Maho open up their headgears to reveal their face.

"Kay?! Maho?!" Ogin asked aloud in disbelieve and shock as she walked towards the Abrams. "What are you doing here?!"

"We're breaking you out of here," Maho replied aloud as Ogin climbed up Kay's tank with Miho's help.

After Ogin took her position next to Anzu near the turret and Kay, Miho radioed everyone. "Alright, we're all onboard. Go!"

"Roger that, we're bugging out from here," the driver of Abrams said before the convoy moved up from the warehouse to the east.

"Roger that, Rhino 2, get ready for anything," Rhino 1 driver replied. "They'll be coming for us in any minute."

"Hang on, Ogin!" Miho said to Ogin quickly. "This is going to get rough."

"Alright, hit the gas," the Spectre 1 driver said in the radio, before the convoy speeds up to a fast speed.

(call of duty 4 (not in OST)music: sniper escape)

The convoy went throughout the factory by following the dirt road on the east. Anzu held her hands tightly on the turret with her rifle hangs loosely on her front as Ogin didn't expect the ride is going to be this rough. As they zig-zag throughout the factory, they began to take shots which caught Ogin off-guard and startled. Ogin ducked her head down as Miho used her rifle and Anzu pulled out her pistol to those who are shooting at the convoy. Even the gunners of the tanks and the Ocelot/Foxhound armored cars shoots back at the mobsters running up to them with ease.

"You're crazy!" Ogin shouted as she still ducked down from the incoming bullets as they convoy sped up.

"That's why we're called the 141!" Miho replied back with a shout. "Just keep your heads down!"

"Here take this," Miho gave Ogin a pistol, who was surprised of that. "And shoot those bastards."

Ogin doubtedly aimed the M9 pistol at the enemies, she can't even aim straight to the enemies. But then she pulled the trigger, then again, then again. Ogin managed to shot 4 of those bastards as the convoy run through the factory under enemy fire. Though despite that, the convoy had already inflicted a lot of casualties to the enemies because they got mowed down by Echo teams, machine guns and miniguns quickly

10 seconds later, they found a wall ahead of Maho's tank to which Miho gave an order. "Rhino 1, put a hole in that fucking wall."

"Roger that," Maho replied calmly. "Gunner, FEUER!"

*BOOM-BUAR*

The convoy quickly went through the blown up wall and they are out of enemy territory. They still sped up as hell from the factory and drive into the trees ahead. Anzu was glad they got out from that one alive along with her friends and the soldiers, didn't think she will live for another day. But after they reached the trees the tanks stopped right at the edge of the trees as the Foxhounds were the only ones to left the scene as they disappeared into the woods and their sounds faded away.

"Spectres, dropped those people off in the city and tell them to report to the police of this hideout," Miho ordered in the radio. "After that, you are to return to base, over."

"Roger that, Echo 1," Spectre 1 replied. "Spectre 1 out."

"Miho, why are we stopping?" Ogin asked in concern. "They're going to cut us down if we don't keep moving."

"Don't worry about that, I got a surprise for those bastards," Miho replied as she stood up on the tanks, everyone from her own team and Echo 2 glare at her including Ogin and the tank gunners.

"Miho, you didn't tell us about what surprise you're talking about," Kay said with a raised brow.

Though, when Anzu looked over to Victor and Echo 2, they were smirking. "Wait, Miho, did you just told the surprise to only men?"

"Yeah, figured I don't want to ruin it for you," Miho replied to her, She only gave her flat face.

"So… what's this surprise we're talking about here?" Maho asked curiously, who's tank was already next to Kay's.

"Yeah, aside from standing here and waiting for those Rogue Foxes' mobsters to come to us," Ogin added with a little sarcasm.

"One moment," Miho then put her fingers on her wireless radio in the ear and radioed. "Warhammer, this is Echo 1, over."

 _"Warhammer?"_ all the girls thought as they didn't remember who was Warhammer, in Ogin's case she didn't know who is that.

"Echo 1, this is Warhammer, we hear you 5 by 5, setting up scan range and adjusting elevation scan on the established AO, over," Warhammer replied, to everyone's amazement including Ogin who overheard it through Anzu's radio and except the men with them.

"Roger that, Warhammer, be advise all 141 personnel are already in a very safe zone," Miho replied in the radio with a slight joyful tone. "You are authorized to burn the whole compound to the ground. Make sure all of the buildings are destroyed and do not leave any enemy survivor alive."

"Roger that, with pleasure," Warhammer replied happily. "Crew, you are cleared to fire on the enemy compound. Don't leave any survivor and don't leave any building standing."

They waited for a moment, until they heard a shout in the radio. "Shot out!"

They then heard a loud voice booming from they sky, and there it was.

*FWUUUUUSH-BUAAARRRRRR*

"Holy shit!" – Kay

"Woah!" – Maho

"What the hell!?" – Murakami

"Damn, that's big!" – Anzu

"Yeah!" – Chemo

"URRAAA!" – Victor

"Take that, fuckers!" – Vicek

"That's bloody outrageous, mate!" – Ghost

"Sorry for dropping bombs on ya'!" – Chrome

"Nighty night, ye' bastards." – Miho

"Hoooah!" – the tank crews

"SHOT OUT!"

*FWUUSH-BUAAAR* *BAM-BAM-BAM -BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM* *BBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT*

Now, they are watching the factory compound was getting destroyed by the rain of hell from the sky. The explosion was so big, as if that explosive was a sign to commit another war. Not to mention might have attracted the people of Shizuoka if they heard of watched this explosion. Honestly, the exploding annihilation of the factory compound was the best explosion was the best for them to see so far.

Until something hit Kay's mind. "Don't tell me that was an AC-130."

"Yep, you got that right," Miho replied with a flat smile, earning a happy face Kay.

"Awesome!" Kay replied cheerily aloud. "This is best thing that I ever seen in my life!"

"Didn't think just one plane could do a lot of damage," Maho said as they watched the explosions.

"Yeah, that is a good firework display right there," Miho replied with a nod of consent.

"This is a good way to give a new years eve on terrorists," Ghost joked, which caused everyone to laughed, except Miho who just smirked.

"Ha, ha, ha, I like that joke," Murakami commented happily, then she looked over to Ogin. "Ogin, that's- Ogin, you okay?"

Everyone then looks back at Ogin, only to found that she was holding her wound on her right shoulder. "Kuso, didn't think I'll get shot on my shoulder."

"I'm glad you're still doing alright now," Miho added as she crouched down to Ogin and tend her wend, then Anzu continued. "We'll treat that wound when we got back."

"To where?" Ogin asked.

"To our base," Kay replied, they then looked back at the fireworks display.

They watched for a few moments until the compound has turned into a field of ash, before the tanks rolled out from there and returned to base.

* * *

TF 141 Headquarters. 20:00 PM.

.

They all have returned to the base safely and quickly after that raid in Shizuoka. Maho was treating Ogin's wound and bruise in the infirmary as Kay, Miho, Murakami and Anzu were with her to talk. Ogin didn't like it on how Maho had to pull out a bullet off her shoulder, but she had to do that to tend up that wound. Aside that, they explained on how the hell they have to ended up raiding the hideout with Miho's men instead of the police.

When they explained that the bastards bribed the cops to not look on Rogue Foxes case, Ogin was pretty angry to hear that. At least she understands the difference between true cops and corrupt cops. And was glad to know that all of Ooarai students have trusted Miho on saving Ogin, which was already true. But the idea of bring Anzu and Murakami, along with Kay and Maho was pretty unexpected for her.

"So, did this… Task Force was built by the Japanese government?" Ogin asked as she was curious about it.

"No, but would you believe this Task Force was once built in the future?" Miho replied and asked back, Ogin only glares at her in disbelieve.

"In the future?" Ogin asked as she raised her eyebrow and Maho taking care her bruise on her face. "You're joking."

"No, do you ever think if the tanks like we used back there exist now?" Maho asked. "Publicly?"

Now that Ogin thought about it, Ogin recoiled in surprise to that question. "Oh… no.. not at all."

"Good," Miho replied with a nod.

"So… how's the future looked like?" Ogin asked curiously. "How's the Sensha-Do going up in the future."

"I forgot to tell you it was an alternate-future universe," Miho replied flatly as she scratched her head.

"Alternate-future universe? Really?" Ogin asked as she scoffed about it. "What's the difference with the future one?"

"There's no such thing as Sensha-Do in the alternate-future universe," Kay replied, which made Ogin's jerked forward in shock. "And the reason why was because of international security reasons unlike the Sensha-Do in this world."

"I… didn't see that coming…" Ogin then thought of another question. "But how did you got turned up in that alternate universe, Miho?"

"There was an anomaly in the alternate universe, about a portal that somehow uncontained," Miho replied as she checked her watch. "The portal had ended up right below me when I fell to the river along with the bridge."

"I see…" Ogin replied with a stern nod. "But… after that you became a soldier. How did that happened first?"

Miho looked away as she was irritated to that question. "Classified."

"Miho, could you just tell me-?" Ogin asked back, but then met with Miho's cold gaze. "Alright, I won't ask that."

Miho looked away again as everyone in the room looked over to her, as Maho already finished tending up Ogin's bruise and wound. "Alright, it's done."

"Thanks, Maho," Ogin said with a smile as Maho sat down next to her. "Say, you and Kay are both soldiers?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Kay replied with an awkward nod. "I signed up because I want to do anything I can to protect people. And Maho…"

"Well… I failed her once," Maho added as she looked at the looking back Miho with a frown. "I signed up as a soldier because I just don't want to fail her again as a sister."

"I understand," Ogin replied with a nod. "But that doesn't mean you're out from school, right?"

"Yep, except for Miho because she didn't join any school," Murakami replied as she crossed her arms. "She much more focused on taking care of this Task Force."

"Murakami, Anzu, you signed up with the Task Force as well?" Ogin asked with a raised brow.

"No… we didn't actually," Anzu replied with a shook. "We just wanted to help getting you back alive. But first, we didn't expect to know that Miho, Maho and Kay were the 141 soldiers that are infamous across Japan."

Ogin knew about the rumors since a month ago, so she wasn't surprise. "I see, and I could tell that you 141s want to keep this a secret."

"Yeah, we don't want everyone knows that we are the 141 operatives," Miho replied with a frown. "I just don't want them to be scared or panicked if they found out who we are. So… can you keep this between us? I can't afford to have any leaked information about ourselves."

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me," Ogin replied with a smile. "I have to thank you for saving me."

"No, don't thank me," Miho shook her head and raised a palm to her. "Thank Murakami and Anzu for that."

"And Ogin?" Anzu called, as she was a little scared of how Ogin will react. "I'm so sorry about what I did to you. I… don't have a choice that time. They would kill me if I don't sell you out. So… I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Ogin replied back with a sigh. "I'm sorry too for yelling to you about it earlier."

"Ok… now what are we doing now?" Murakami asked with her hands waved to her sides widely.

"We all should take a rest," Miho suggested, then looked back at Ogin. "Ogin, you don't mind if you want to stay here overnight? We can get you back to Ooarai in the morning, or tonight if you want."

"You know? I'm pretty tired after all of that," Ogin replied with a shook. "I'll stay, Miho. I just hoped you got a place for me to sleep."

"Don't worry about it, I'll sort it out," Miho then looked back at the rest of the girls. "What about you lads?"

"Fine by me," Anzu replied with a consent nod.

"Me too," Murakami added.

"We both don't mind," Maho replied. "But, I should tell mother first."

"Alright," Miho said with a satisfied sigh.

But then Ogin reminded of something else, which made her anger. "Maho, you do know how I don't like the Kuromorimines, right?"

Maho, Miho and Kay had sighed to hear that, Murakami and Anzu just frowned to hear that. Maho turned her head to her and said. "I know, Ogin. But don't worry about it, Miho had made both of our schools to have truce. There will be no fight until now. And besides, she's right. How… how bad I am along with my school to treat you and your friends like nobody."

Ogin was rather surprised to hear that from the overall commander of Kuromorimine herself. "Nani? I didn't expect to hear that from you."

"I know, but I had to follow the flow for the sake of my school," Maho replied softly to her. "So… forgive us about it. We were also worried to hear that you were kidnapped by those mobsters."

Ogin was now shocked, it was for a long time to hear that Kuromorimine students even worried about her, who is a student of Ooarai. "Wow, that's… I don't know what to say."

"I know about that," Miho replied with a small smile, before she patted Ogin's shoulder. "And also, I got something for you, and also for Anzu and Murakami."

The said girls were curious, as Anzu and Murakami walked up to Miho and Ogin as Kay stood behind Miho and Maho still sitting next to Ogin. "What is it?" Anzu asked with a raised brow.

Miho then pulled out something from her pocket, but they couldn't what was in her hand because she didn't show it with her fist hiding the object. Anzu reached out her open palm to her and Miho gives the object to her by putting it on her hand. After that, Miho had revealed what she gave her. They rather surprised about what she just gave them.

It was three patches of TF 141 logos.

"Wha- why are you giving us these patches?" Anzu asked as she was concerned of Miho's gift.

"I just want to tell you that," Miho paused, she then smiles. "You three are officially members of 141."

They were surprised for the revelation, but Murakami asked. "Isn't it suppose to be 'unofficially'?"

"Well, it should be," Miho replied with a nod. "But I just don't like that word."

Miho then turned around and headed out for the exit of the infirmary. "See you lads in the morning. And welcome to the 141."

They only watched her leave, as Anzu the patches to Murakami and Ogin one each. Anzu looked back to her own patch and observed the patch. Anzu couldn't believe that Miho would let them to be a part of 141 just like that. Must be because of their help of getting Ogin out and swore for secrecy of this Task Force.

Anzu just smiled to herself. "Thank you, Miho."


	37. Chapter 35 - Old Mans' Story

**CHEMICAL ATTACKS THROUGHOUT EUROPE**

Chemical weapons used in coordinated attacks across Europe

.

Miho's heart stopped. They were chemical weapons that were shipped into Europe, one of the packages that the three of them failed to secure. Because they failed to secure the cargo, this is the result.

.

 **CHEMICAL ATTACKS IN WESTMINISTER**

A "Dirty Bomb" Explodes in London

.

This was bad. Her home, the place where she called home, was in flames. The attacks killed more people, the attacks brought more deaths to the men, women, and children. She remembered seeing those people who she failed to save that day, now she was being forced to suffer the consequences of her actions. They died because she couldn't protect them.

.

British Male News Reporter: At 6:22 Greenwich Mean Time, chemical attacks were triggered across Europe.

.

Miho read the reports incoming into her laptop. Having special access to the military intelligence network, she was the only Task Force 141 member who was able to communicate with the British government and grab intel of current events, thanks to McMillan. He gave her special access, as long as she promised not to let anyone else know that she was in the know. It looks like McMillan was worried about her, and actually liked her as a close friend. He would be willing to give her clearance to military intel, even if he wasn't supposed to.

.

"I repeat: Downing Street is within the contamination radius, over!" Wallcroft shouted in his microphone. Hearing this, Miho was tracking his location. All over Europe, the entire continent was covered by the chemical weapon snuck into Europe.

.

In central London, the contamination field was in a 4-mile radius, with people in that region dead, or dying.

.

"British Female News Reporter: It's been called the worst terror event in history."

.

One of the news channels were playing the news. Miho was listening to this as she saw all of the major defenses and intelligence hubs go offline due to the attacks.

Finding a live distress call, she clicked on it. It was from the France GIGN stationed in Paris.

"This is GIGN HQ. My men are dead or dying! Ghhouch, I've been exposed!" The GIGN Commander was frantically saying as he was coughing badly.

Closing that channel, she saw another one just pop up. It was a communication channel between Overlord and Ramstein AFB.

"This is Ramstein! We're under attack!" Ramstein AFB was shouting.

"Roger. We are aware of the gas attack and are sending decon units your way." Overlord replied.

"Not the gas! We're under attack by Russian ground forces!" That person told Overlord.

"Say again, Ramstein. What Russian forces?" Overlord asked.

"The entire Russian army! Request immediate assistance!" The man frantically shouted.

Miho looked at the tactical map that was showing live location of the area. It showed the Russian forces moving into Europe. Refreshing the news website, she saw the new headline.

.

 **RUSSIAN TROOPS PRESENT IN PARIS**

Reports of tanks on the Champs Elysees

.

This made Miho get mad. The chemical weapons were a diversion for the Russian army to invade. They killed innocent people in Europe, killed the people in her homeland, just to invade it. Why? Those bastards.

She wanted to find and choke Makarov and the Russian president. The Russian president must have worked with Makarov to sacrifice civilians to invade Europe. They will pay for every single person they killed in London, and the entire Europe.

.

 **CHEMICAL DEVICE EXPLODES IN WARSAW**

 **ATTACKS IN BRUSSELS**

 **CHEMICAL DEVICE EXPLODES IN ROME**

 **TERRORIST ATTACKS IN GERMANY'S CAPITAL CITY**

 **CHEMICAL BOMB EXPLODES IN PRAGUE**

 **PEACE DELEGATION ATTACKED IN HAMBURG**

.

These news titles continued, showing the situation in Europe. The last one, however, was different. Reading it again, she saw that this one was different.

"Sir, we've lost contact with the delegation in Hamburg." The Battle Captain spoke to Overlord.

"Metal 0-1, this is Overlord actual. You are being re-routed for Hamburg. We've got a principal level hostage rescue."

"Who is it?" This time, it was Sandman, someone she knew long ago.

"The Vice President." Overlord replied.

Closing the channel, she was shocked to hear about the vice president of the US being taken hostage. It looks like a lot happened while she was on the run.

Logging out of the intelligence network, she shut down the computer. She was angry, and depressed. Angry that Makarov was able to attack the population, depressed because she couldn't stop or reduce it from happening. Price informed her that he contacted the British Mi5 about the packages arriving into Europe, but they couldn't stop it. What they got was a decoy, empty containers. She couldn't blame the SAS in the area, even if they were informed about the cargo. She could, but then if She got to the package in time, she could have done something.

She knows there were multiple trucks, so if they were able to secure all of them, maybe none of them would have attacked all of the major cities in Europe. The cargo all came from Sierra Leone, so if they only had gotten there before any of the chemicals were even able to be shipped off….

Miho was frustrated. While walking to the mess hall to get breakfast, she bumped into Yuri, who saw her.

"Hey, Miho. Did you sleep well last night?" Yuri asked.

"I guess it was fine. I am guessing you got my clothes off?" Miho asked.

"Yes. I believe you might be unable to sleep or suffocate, especially if you slept with the uniform on while drunk."

"I figured. Thank you." Miho replied. If she was a normal girl, she would have gotten angry and shocked, but after months of fighting and experiencing the military, she doesn't even care anymore. Besides, it's possible to have problems if you sleep while wearing an extremely hot uniform on before sleeping, which might raise body temperature.

"I'm surprised you're already up." Yuri told her.

"I guess months of drinking alcohol. I cannot hold like 5 vodkas though." Miho admitted.

"That's still a lot. If you do, then you will join us Russians." Yuri replied.

"Yeah…" Miho told her.

* * *

Five minutes Later

Miho walked to the cafeteria, where Soap and Price was having a meal. They were enjoying Shepherd's pie, a British meal. Apparently it was the special on the menu. Ironically, it reminded her of a certain individual.

"Morning Miho. Guess what we're having for breakfast." Soap asked.

"Shepherd's pie. Food that shares the name of a traitor."

"Let's not think 'bout that. We don't want to lose our appetite." Price told her as the two continued eating. Miho sighed as Yuri and she went to the chef to get their meal. Getting it, she went to grab a seat beside Soap, Yuri grabbing a seat beside Price.

"Ittadakimasu." Miho whispered as she did her traditional Japanese praise for the food before eating. It's been a while since she did that, ever since she joined the 141.

"Long time since you did that." Soap muttered as he continued eating.

"I know."

The group ate in silence, as they were the only ones up at the time, most of the Loyalists we're asleep from working last night, so they were still asleep.

Finishing the meal, Miho remembered something. She wanted to ask about the day Price and Soap had to stop a missile that could have potentially killed millions.

"Soap. Can you tell me about how you and Price stopped two missiles that were heading for the Eastern seaboard of the US?" Miho asked Soap.

"I'm guessing you were looking through the Intel you grabbed from Shepherd's base."

"Yeah..." Miho said as she blushed.

"Don't worry. It's a long story. Price and I remember that day. It was a joint operation between the US Marine Corps and us, the Special Air Service. Our mission was to stop a mad man from killing millions."

"I read up to the point where you reported two missiles we're launched." Miho told the two.

"I would like to know about it too." Yuri told Price and Soap.

"Listen up, lads. We'll tell you about the rough journey we had to go through to stop a dangerous plan that looked like an evil plan of HYDRA to attack the US with their giant flying wing bomber. However, this would have resulted in the Eastern Seaboard becoming the Capital Wasteland in 4D, as well as the bloody Commonwealth in other places.

"I am guessing you two were Captain America and Bucky right?" Miho asked.

"Yup. Exactly like that. Except ours were more serious. HYDRA's bomber would have dropped atomic bombs, which is way less threatening than Zakhaev's nuclear missiles. This would have killed way more people than atomic bombs in reality. While both would have long term consequences, Zakhaev's would be more dangerous than HYDRA's plan to devastate the US with their atomic bombs. This is what made Shepherd act in the first place." Price told her.

"How'd-"

"You're not the only person who read the confisticated reports from the base."

Miho guesses that Price knew she was interested in that day.

"So can you tell me?" Miho asked.

"Depends on where you are. So exactly what point do you mean? Price inquired.

I stopped reading the point you reported the second was launched."

Price was impressed. Miho actually read quite a bit to know what was happening.

"Let's go to the office. Get some tea or something to drink, and some biscuits. It's going to be a long one." Price is formed her.

15 minutes later

Miho was carrying a tray with Earl grey, a kettle full. Yuri was carrying a tray with the biscuits. Carrying 4 cups with the kettle, Miho entered Price's office. Soap and Price was sitting on the bench.

"Now you two are here, sit down. Let's start the story." Price said as he began.

* * *

Mission Briefing

S.A.S/U.S.M.C Joint Operation

.

 **Altay Mountains, Russia**

 **Nuclear launch detected**

 **Analyzing...**

 **RT2UTTH missiles x2**

 **Topol-M Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM)**

 **Internal components, warheads: 6 x Nuclear 550kT MIRV**

 **.**

 **Analysing trajectory, Simulated: United States of America, East**

 **Analysing Casualty Projections:**

 **Boston, MA: 4,411,835**

 **Hartford, CT: 1,188,241**

 **New York, NY: 18,818,536**

 **Philadelphia, PA: 5,823,233**

 **Baltimore, MD: 2,639,213**

 **Washington, D.C: 5,290,400**

 **Richmond, VA: 1,175,750**

 **Norfolk, VA: 1,749,541**

 **Total Projected Casualties: 41,096,749**

* * *

"All In"

Day 6 - 07:16:13

Altay Mountains, Russia

Sgt, Soap Mctavish, John Price

22nd SAS Regiment

(Price)

[Soap]

.

(Soap and I had to enter the base. While we did help the Americans enter the base, they went in advance. We went in later.)

"Bravo Six, we're still working with the Russians to get the launch codes. We should have them shortly. Keep moving. Out."

"Go! Go! Go!" Price shouted as Soap followed.

"If we miss this, we're going to be responsible for whoever dies due to Zakhaev's madness." Soap shouted as he followed Price.

"No shit, Soap!"

(The bloody place was filled with ultranationalists everywhere, with that bloody chopper approaching us, we could have died if that fellow SAS guy didn't shoot it down.)

The Mi-24 was about to fire on the group, but before it could kill Soap, Price, and Griggs, a member of the SAS was in the area with an RPG. He shot it down, saving their lives.

(Never got his name. However, we still owe our lives, or we could have been killed, due to Griggs carrying heavy equipment, and without him, we would have been filled with holes.)

When the group reached the fence, Sniper Team Two radioed in.

"Bravo Six, Sniper Team Two is now in position. We'll give ya sniper cover and recon from where we are, over."

"Copy! Keep us posted! Out!" Price replied.

[Those snipers were like Deadshot. They never missed a single shot taking out the bloody Ultranationalists who were trying to kill us.]

Entering the compound, the group was immediately assaulted by Ultranationalists who wanted them dead. Hiding behind some containers, Soap used his grenade launcher on his gun to blow them up, killing them in two shots.

"This is Sniper Team Two. You've got hostiles and light armor coming to you from the north. Suggest you get some C4 out there or find some heavy weapons, over." Sniper Team Two informed them.

"Thanks for the info, wanker!"

Soap sarcastically replied. The sound of heavy APCs moving on the road were obvious, even before they told him.

[The Snipers were also spotters, but sometimes, they were just plain useless when reminding us of things that we already know.]

Pulling out his smoke grenades and a couple C4s, Soap pulled the safety pin on the smoke grenade and threw it near the APC. This made the APC stop, as the driver had limited vision and couldn't see anything, afraid that he would run over his own comrades. Slapping on a C4, Soap got out the detonator and made a run into a safe distance.

Blowing it up, the sound of an exploding APC meant one APC was out of the picture.

[I was already used to getting rid of vehicles like that, so it wasn't a challenge.]

At that moment, Command radioed in.

"Bravo Six, this is command, gimme a sit-rep over."

"We're inside the perimenter, approaching the gates to the silos! Out!" Price told command.

"I'm doing all the dirty work, Price. I hope you do your part!" Soap complained.

(Soap wasn't too happy with me just doing some killings while he had to deal with the APCs, I actually took one out myself.)

[I didn't see you take one out, old man. You probably were eating Burger King while hiding in a building for all I know.]

The group reached the northeast gate, but found it closed and blocked.

"The northeast gate is blocked! We gotta cut to the right!" A SAS soldier informed them.

Turning around, the group had to fight back more men who were loyal to Zakhaev. Endless amount of men was just pouring out of the base.

They were slowly being pushed back from the area, so they had no choice but to hide in cover.

"We're gonna need some more ground support sir!" Griggs informed them. This couldn't get any worse.

[It didn't thank god. That bloke who was a member of the SAS was the one who was the demolition expert. He was the one who was going to blow the gate.]

"Cover me! I'm gonna blow the gate!" The SAS operative shouted as he got near the gate. Everyone provided him cover as he began to get to work.

"Already got it covered, Griggs!" Price informed Griggs.

(Griggs thought we needed more support. I mean we didn't need to ask command for more men and end up with more paperwork.)

[Didn't you find paperwork fun, old man?]

(Shut up ye'r trap, Soap.)

The SAS soldier had the charges set and ready to blow the gate.

"Charges set! Get back get back!" The SAS bloke shouted. Everyone got to a safe distance.

"Fire in the hole!" shouted the bloke. He pressed the detonator.

*BOOM*

(The gate was open. We were ready to enter the base.)

"Through the gate! Let's go!" Shouted Price. Everyone rushed through the gate that just blew up.

(The men who worked with Zakhaev got rich somehow, even with the failed transaction of the nuclear fuel rods that McMillan and I unintentionally stopped. Our job was to kill that old man, but he escaped with his head and body intact. I wondered where these ultranationalists were able to gain access to Russian military hardware, either the black market, or through back dealing with illegal groups.)

"More BMPs! Take cover!" Griggs shouted.

"Soap! Griggs! Knock 'em out, Go!" Price ordered.

"You do it, old man!" Soap replied in annoyance, tired for himself to do all the anti-vehicle work.

"I'm finding a way into the base!" Was the reply.

[You're lucky that there was only two. If there was three, I would have had you do all my paperwork when we got back to base.]

Soap picked up a rocket launcher and got into a safe position.

"Keep your eyes open for RPGs! We can use 'em to take out the armor from long range!" Griggs told Soap. Unfortunately, Soap already had one with him.

"Only one thing, I already found one!" Soap shouted back with a smile, and sarcastically.

Shooting at the BMP, Soap blew it up. Sadly, he only had 3 rockets, and he used two of it.

"That BMP's history. Nice shot." A SAS operative who was an observer informed them.

Moving into the place where the other BMP was, Soap got into position and pointed the RPG. He shot it, but it didn't blow it up completely.

"That's a hit! One more oughta do it!" Griggs informed Soap.

"No more rockets man!" Soap replied.

"Damn!"

[I had no choice but to use C4s to blow it up, since I couldn't find any more C4s. It looks like Zakhaev's men didn't want their tools used against them.]

Finding cover, Soap took a breath and got his smoke grenade and C4 out. Killing men in front of him, He got to the APC and put the explosive. While he did that, The SAS took out the remaining Ultranationalists.

Going to a safe distance, he blew it up. It was destroyed.

(I did find a way into the bunker. We brought the saws to cut through the mesh originally, but I was trying to find the air vents to use these saws. While Soap and Griggs, well let's say its Soap, since Griggs didn't do nothing. It was Soap who did everything.)

[Thanks for the complement, old man.]

Soap found where everyone was approaching. It was the air vents.

"Bravo Six, this is Strike Team Three inserting from the northwest. Repeat, we're movin' in from the northwest. Check your targets and confirm, over." Team three radioed them.

"Copy Team Three! We'll meet you at the north end of the tarmac near the vent shafts, out!" Price replied. As soon as Price said that, Soap saw a black hawk land, and several SAS men and USMC personnel get out.

"Team, give us few seconds to cut through the vents." Team Three asked them as they started to cut through the vents. They were cutting the other vent.

"All units. It is imperative you hurry up and enter the base, or get out of there. Two Hinds were spotted flying into the area." Command advised. This was important, as the black hawk in the area was deploying men.

As soon as the men entered the base, the black hawks flew away immediately.

"Squad, hook up!" Price shouted as soon as the air vent was cut open, the panel dropping into the ground. Soap hooked up to the cable. He followed Griggs and Price into the air vent.

"Okay, we're in."

(That was what happened when we entered the base. Soap was the one who did everything, so I guess I owe him for it. Not like the Americans would treat one of theirs to do all the dirty work, eh?)

* * *

Present

"So, that is what happened when you assaulted the base to enter right?" Miho asked.

"Yes. It was a long fight, but we managed to finish everything." Price told her.

"Bloody hell. It looks like you almost got killed a lot."

Miho was now seeing how Soap and Price had to do everything to save a country that they're not even citizens of.

"I'm guessing you're not considered heroes, right?" Miho asked.

"Nope." Was the reply from both Soap and Price.

"Figures."

Miho wanted Price and Soap to continue the story. Hearing from the two of them what happened rather than reports were more interesting.

"By the way, how many died during the assault to the base?" Miho asked. She wanted to know.

"Four men died in the assault to the base. The deaths in the base were even higher. Luckily, Both Sniper Team Two members survived and saw further service for a few more years. They eventually retired back in 2015." Price told her.

"I guess they didn't join the assault but take the black hawk that left as soon as it deployed the USMC." Miho guessed.

"Correct. The Black Hawk waited for the two to come, as they radioed command that they are done with their mission. They left with the helicopter before the two Hinds arrived." Soap informed Miho.

"So what happened when the Hinds arrived?" Miho asked.

"I'm guessing they just waited for reinforcement. We're not that part of the story yet. I'll tell you later." Price told her.

Miho wanted to know. This was getting interesting.

"Let's get some lunch first." Price suggested. It has been 4 hours, so about lunch time.

"Sure. So what's for lunch?" Miho asked.

"Apparently we're having some pizza. The chef wanted to make some food other than British, and a lot of men got tired of eating British meals for an entire week." Soap informed her.

"Okay…"

Everyone was at the cafeteria. The pizza that everyone was eating was Hawaiian, Soap's favorite.

"Long time since I had pizza this good." Soap said as he munched on the pizza.

"Yeah. Always going on missions makes me miss proper food," Price added in agreement as he took a slice of it.

While eating, Miho was thinking something. Just what happened inside the bunker? She was curious to know about the story that she forgot to grab a slice.

"Have a slice, Miho." Price said as he got another one. Miho got back to the real world and immediately got herself a slice.

"So what is on your mind?" Soap asked.

"Just about the bunker." Miho replied.

"We'll tell you as soon as we finish lunch."

Everyone finished lunch and got back to Price's office. They were sitting in the same spots, with Price about to tell the story.

"We got into the bunker safely…"

* * *

Mission Briefing

S.A.S/U.S.M.C Joint Operation

.

 **Nuclear missiles currently moving to target,**

 **Warheads have separated from stage 2 rockets.**

 **Estimated Time to prevent casualties: 00:15:34:01**

Gaz: Team One moving in

Marine: Team two heading for base security.

SAS: Team Three has entered the base.

.

 **Nuclear warheads have re-entered the atmosphere, heat shielding has been separated**

 **.**

 **Launch facility's map is shown.**

 **Remaining time: 00:15:21:22**

Command: Bravo Team, we got good news and bad news. Launch control is located southwest of your position, less than half a click away.

 **Underground 3d blueprints: current location: Ventilation System**

Command: That's where you'll need to upload the abort codes to destroy the missiles in flight.

 **Locations passing by: Barracks**

Captain Price: Gaz, go with the Yanks and hit the security station. Soap, Griggs, and I will head for launch control.

 **Next location: Storage Areas**

Gaz: Roger. Command, what's the bad news?

 **Final Location: Launch Silos**

Command: Uh… the bad news is we're still trying to get those abort codes, over.

 **Obstacle detected: Heavy Blast Door**

 **Remaining time: 00:14:55:15**

 **Target: Launch Control Room**

Captain Price: The hell with it. We'll give it our best shot. Out.

* * *

(So we had only 15 minutes to intercept the missiles before we won't be able to avoid casualties in the eastern seaboard. Soap and I had to start moving fast because Time was short, and the blast radius was huge.)

.

' **No Fighting in the War Room'**

 **Day 6 – 07:35:21**

 **Altay Mountains, Russia**

 **Sgt. 'Soap' MacTavish**

 **22nd SAS Regiment**

.

"Alright, Let's move." Price told his fellow soldier and the two started to move through the ventilation shaft.

[Unlike Price who is used to tight places and is a bit smaller, I had a small amount of problems when we were in the ventilation shaft.]

"Captain Price, this is Five-Delta Six, we're clearing the east wing heading for base security, over." The Marine known as Five-Delta Six Informed Price. The group was moving through the ventilation, and there was a chance that the marines would end up shooting Price and the others.

Captain Price: Roger, Delta Six, we're right above you in the vents, watch your fire. Price replied.

"Copy that sir." Came a reply.

(While were were going through the ventilation, there were sounds of gunfire. It looked like them ultranationalists were doing everything to defend the place.)

[You know, We WERE invading their territory where their boss was, Price. I mean, Zakhaev was in the base.]

(Right.)

The group kept moving in the ventilation shaft. With the amount of gunfire, Soap began to worry about the men who were fighting.

"Captain Price, Two-Yankee six reporting in. We're meeting with heavy resistance in the south wing. They've locked down our access point over here, over." Two-Yankee Six reported in.

Jumping down the vent into the bathroom, Price replied to Yankee-Six, the Marine division.

"Roger Yankee Six. Regroup with Team Two and help them gain control of base security, over."

Moving through the bathroom, Price and Soap found a lot of…

(There were dead bodies everywhere. Must have been our men who died infiltrating the place.)

"Roger that sir. We're pulling back to regroup with Team Two. Yankee Six out."

Exiting the bathroom, the group moved into the locker rooms.

"Captain Price, we're sending your team the abort codes you'll need to auto-destruct the missiles in flight. You have 9 minutes before those missiles reach the eastern seaboard, over." The guy in Command told Price as the abort codes for the missiles were suddenly sent to Price's PDA.

"Copy that." Price replied.

[The place had a loud speaker speaking in Russian. At that time, I couldn't speak or understand anything in Russian.]

Clearing the corridor, Price and Soap kept moving. Through the corridor, there were many Russians blocking their way.

"We need to keep moving." Price told Soap as the two kept moving through the corridor. Using his grenade launcher on his rifle, Soap shot at the men in front of him. It took out the men quickly.

[These Ultranationalists were everywhere. I ended up using all of my grenades right at the beginning.]

The two moved through the path, and ended up in wide open place. Suddenly, Price shouted.

"Watch out!" An Ultranationalist was hiding behind a crate and just immediately got out to shoot Soap. Soap almost died by a head shot, but Price shot him first, saving Soap's life.

"Thanks, old man." Soap told Price.

"Watch out for yourself, Soap." Was the reply.

Passing the room with crates, Griggs met up together with the team.

"We have to move. Follow me!" Price told Soap and Griggs. The two nodded as they followed him down the stairs.

Going into the path leading into the storage area, there were Ultranationalists shooting at them from all angles.

"Go around. We're going to get killed going straight." Soap advised.

"See you at the end." Price said as Griggs followed Soap.

(There were countless that we really had to go around. Those crates were blocking our aim, and those Ultranationalists were shooting at us like turkeys.)

[What are you talking about Price? There were only like a hundred men, not countless thousands of men. We did have to go around because the Ultranationalists were creating a nuisance, old man.]

Shooting through his way, Soap killed the men who were hiding behind the wooden boxes. They were also trying to kill him behind cover.

Finally killing all of them, the group managed to make it through. They finally ended up in a single corridor, which was leading to the launch silos. Suddenly, the speakers came to life and some Russian speaking was heard.

"Запуск оставшихся ракет на базе."

This surprised Griggs, so he asked someone.

"Sir what's goin' on? What are they sayin'?" Griggs asked his superior.

(Zakhaev launched the last remaining missiles in the silo that day. He was a mad man, and he tried to kill us using the blast.)

"They've started a bloody countdown! Zakhaev's going to launch the remaining missiles! Keep moving." Price shouted as everyone kept moving.

20\. Двадцать, 19. девятнадцать, 18. восемнадцать, 17. семнадцать

[You know, there was a real blockade there. We had to go around through the missiles itself to go around the blockade created by the ultranationalists.]

"Spread out! We can't go through straight!" Soap shouted as everyone moved around. Due to the countdown, everyone began to move as fast as they could.

They could hear the countdown go down slowly. It was in Russian, but they could feel like they have to move fast. No time to kill the Ultranationalists. Soap shot them all quickly, killing them all in one shot each, with headshots.

Passing by the dead bodies, He could hear the countdown go lower.

11\. одиннадцать, 10. десять, 9. девять

The countdown became lower. He ran as fast as he can. Price met up with him from the side.

"Go go go! Move! Move!" Price shouted as the three ran.

5\. пять.

Price and Soap started to run.

4\. четыре.

They were almost there.

3\. три.

The group arrived in the blast door. Entering it, they sealed it.

2\. два, 1. один.

[The blast could have killed us if we didn't move fast enough. At least we were able to safely make it to the room before we almost died.]

Price closed the blast door just as the flames flew toward them. They breathed heavily, because they almost died.

Facing the blast door, the group were ready to assault the place.

"Captain Price, this is Gaz. We've taken over base security. What's your status, over?" Gaz radioed in, asking Price of his location.

"Gaz, we're in position. Open the outer door to launch control." Price replied to Gaz's inquiry.

"Roger, we're on it. Standby. Almost there. Got it. Doors coming online now." Gaz informed them as he worked on the doors.

Everyone was waiting patiently as the doors whirled. The sound was loud, and it finally started to move.

(Damn doors were so slow that I thought We were going to be too late to stop the missiles.)

[You're not the only one, old man. Griggs was pissed off too that time.]

"Oh, you gotta be shittin' me." Gaz complained as the doors opened.

"Gaz, can't you make it open faster?" Price asked. He also was impatient.

"Negative sir. But you can try pulling it if it'll make you feel better." Gaz replied. The group sighed as they waited.

"Cheeky bastard…" Price replied.

Soap saw an opening and got an idea. He tossed grenades as soon as there was enough room to toss grenades

Bullets were seen to bounce in as soon as there was space as well. With men dead due to the grenades, Soap and the guys went in as soon as there was room.

There were men who survived and started shooting at them, in which Soap shot and killed them. He only had a clip left.

"I'm almost out of ammo." Soap informed Price.

"Then pick up a gun from a corpse Soap!" Price told Soap. Soap sighed as he did. Apparently Price also was carrying an AK47 by now. Due to the raid, they all had limited ammo, except for Griggs, who had plenty. About two magazines left.

Going downstairs, the group was in front of a wall. It was going to have to be breached to enter the control room, as it was locked down from the main entry way.

"Team Three, what's your status, over?" Price asked on the radio as he got into position.

"Team Three in position, at the southeast side of the launch control room. Standing by. Are you at the far wall over?" Team Three asked Price in return.

"Affirmative. Preparing to breach. Soap - plant the explosives, go!" Price told Soap, who was carrying the explosives.

Planting the explosives, Soap got away.

"Fire in the hole!" He shouted as everyone blocked their ears. The explosion was loud.

Making a hole, everyone entered the Control room. The men inside were protecting the area, so Soap, Price, and Griggs had to kill everyone. At the same time, other marines entered the place and started to kill the men, which ensured that the Control Room had no more ultranationalists alive.

"Clear!" Griggs informed everyone."

"Captain Price, We have received two different abort codes. For safety reasons, two people are needed to launch and blow up the nuclear warheads. You only have 2 minutes to enter them before potential casualties start pouring in." Command informed him.

"Fine." Price said as he sent Soap a file that had the abort codes.

"Soap. Enter the Abort Codes on that terminal. I will enter the other one here." Price told Soap.

"Sure, Price. Finally, you do something for a change." Soap said as he got into position, the left terminal.

"Sir. Please enter the codes. The Marines and I will watch out for reinforcements." Griggs said as Price got to work.

Entering the codes, the two got ready to press the enter key. Seing each other, they nodded and pressed the key.

* * *

"So you two pressed the key to destroy the missiles before they were too close to be destroyed without causing casualties… What happened after that?" Miho asked the two.

"It's a secret. We'll tell you later. For now, Soap and I have to do something." Price told Miho as he got up. Soap follzowed suit.

"Where exactly are you going? Miho asked as she got up to follow the two.

"Price contacted a friend recently. We're going to move out again." Soap informed her.

"I hope it's not going back to Africa." Miho told Soap.

"Why? Didn't you like there?" Soap asked jokingly. Miho frowned.

"It isn't funny. That place gives me nightmares."

"Don't worry. We're not going back there anytime soon. Anyway, we don't know much yet. Price is the one who is in charge of this mission." The two finally reached the room where Price was in.

Entering the room, Soap and Miho found themselves with Chemo and Vicek. They were talking with Price.

"We're going to go on a job soon. So far, you're the only guys that we have for this mission. We don't have many men, and you guys are one of the few 141 members here. Can you two work with me on this mission?" Price asked the two.

"I guess I can be of help. Vicek here also was being bored of sitting down and doing nothing. We actually wanted to know why you didn't invite us to Sierra Leone. I mean when we heard what happened…."

"What happened already happened. We cannot worry about the past and should worry about the future." Price told Chemo.

"Anyway, we'll help. We don't want something bad happening again, and you guys will seriously need backup." Vicek told Price.

"Miho would love to work with you two again." Price told the two.

"I am. So you guys will volunteer?" Miho asked.

"Yes. Don't worry about us. We were worried when you got back last time. You were like really stressed after coming back from Sierra Leone." Vicek told Miho.

"I know. I'm fine for now. We'll worry about things later."

Price's phone rang. Answering it, he was shocked to hear whatever he was told.

"Looks like the waiting game is over. Baseplate is finally available for contacting." Price told Yuri. Miho didn't know who Baseplate was, but she knew one thing: He was a friend of Price.

"We'll need your help. Be prepared to move out soon." Price told the two, who nodded.

"To the Command Center?" Miho asked.

"To the Command Center." Was the reply from both Price and Soap as the three headed for the command center.


	38. Chapter 36 - Valentine's Day

A few days later. Nishizumi Residence. 08:00 AM

It's been a few days after rescuing Ogin from the hands of those notorious mobsters. Miho was relaxing in the living room as she reads her catholic bible peacefully on the sofa. With Maho and her mother sitting beside her as they watched the TV. It was just an entertainment show that Miho wasn't bother to watch. Miho was much more like sticking to read her bible than that. They awkwardly, spend their time in the living room with silence.

Ogin was pretty happy back then when she was able to be reunited with her friends again. Miho, Maho and the girls who involved in that case haev had also explained to them how did the rescue mission go. They did explain this to everyone in Ooarai, but they were very surprised to found out that the 141 got ahead of them first to save Ogin along with the hostages in the factory. Of course that was a lie, but they buy it real serious. Ooarai also had thanked Miho for taking on the case to save Ogin.

Miho was wearing her grey long-sleeve buttoned shirt and sand-colored pants. She didn't wear anything on her head for the moment. She had her wristwatch she bought long ago on her left hand. She has wore her belt where there are 4 pouches on her left waist and a drop bag was installed on her right waist. The 2 pouches contains ammo for her M9 pistol with other two contains her cigar and lighter while the bag has her hidden gun and knife. While Maho was wearing her KMM school uniform, Shiho was wearing a light blue short-sleeve buttoned shirt with black jodphurs.

Maho occasionally leans over to Miho, wondering what is she reading. Maho had asked about what is she reading in that bible. Turns out, Miho was reading the bible in the middle of The Gospel of Matius chapter. Shiho had also wondered if she could borrow that bible from her, and Miho replied with a nod. But after if she decides to call a day for reading her bible.

After a moment of silence, Shiho begins the conversation. "So, Miho, why Catholic?"

"Pardon me?" Miho asked as she didn't hear her question.

"Why did you choose Catholic?" Shiho asked again. "I mean, you used to be a Shintoist. Why did you change to catholic?"

"Well… I just… I just felt Shinto religion did not fit well with me," Miho replied as she closed her bible. "Especially after I got turned up in London."

"Could you explain what you mean by that?" Maho asked as she wondered of it.

"Well, little," Miho replied with a shrug. "The religion I'm believing right now, is giving me a faith. Something that the Shintoist don't have, and something that is very important for me. And being Catholic, means that you'll have a relationship with The God Himself. Not to seek and experience any mystical event from The Kami."

Maho and Shiho paused for a moment to process what she said. "I see, Shinto religion is pretty much different with Catholic," Maho added with a nod

"But at least they both are still religions," Miho added as she looked at her. "And though, that's why I changed religion."

"I think you made a good choice, my young girl," Shiho replied with a smile. "I guess it fits you well."

"Thanks, mother," Miho replied with a smile, before turning to a cold smile.

"Say… what's up with you?" Shiho asked, concerned of Miho's expression.

Miho sighed in admittance before answering. "It's about Anzu, Murakami and Ogin, mother."

They paused in silence before Shiho. "About letting them to be a part of 141?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a shrug. "I'm just afraid if they could leaked the information about the 141."

"But they swore for secrecy, Imouto-san," Maho assured her with her hand holding her sister's right shoulder. "They couldn't do something like that."

"I know, but I also worried on what I'm putting them into," Miho replied, she then looked down forward and shrugged. "Anzu and Murakami risked their lives to save Ogin and Ogin also survived a shot."

"Miho, you worried too much," Maho assured her as she hugged her. "They'll be alright, Miho. I'm sure of it."

"I know, sister," Miho replied with a nod as Maho is still hugging. "I guess I worried to much."

Maho lets her go but not after a pat on her shoulder, before they watched back to the TV. Turns out, it was already a news channel. There's a news about the 141 again, but it was the news about the 141 involvement in destroying Rogue Foxes hideout. There was a man in the TV with behind him is the landscape of the remains of that hideout, what's left of it.

"Those soldiers made a hell back in there when I was held hostage along with other 14 people in there," the man former hostage explained. "The 141 soldiers went in that place in force just for getting us out. I saw they even brought about 2 tanks into the hideout and killed off everyone in that hideout. I didn't even know if they wanted to rescue us, and also burned that cursed place to the ground. I will say thank you 141, because you made us know that those mobsters have made the police corrupt by bribery."

Shiho was really surprised if Miho along with her sister had to burn the compound to the ground. "Wait, why did you burn the whole place to the ground?"

"Ami's friend, Major Akashi had asked us to do a favor to burn the whole place down," Miho replied lazily. "I found it impressed that the Rogue Foxes were able to harass the JGSDF long ago before I stepped in."

"Oh, why didn't Ami told me about that?" Shiho wondered as she rolled her eyes to Miho.

"I guess it was something personal for the JGSDF," Maho replied to her question. "I really understand that."

"Huh, makes me wonder why didn't they come with you instead of doing the dirty work for them," Shiho replied, somehow sounded disagreed on that.

"Ami and Akashi couldn't come with us because they were busy with the Exhibition preparations," Miho replied. "They gave us a good reward for doing a favor for them."

"Interesting," Shiho replied with a smirk. "Something that benefits your Task Force?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Give us funds and materials to make our own vehicles and weapons."

"So… you got your own designs on weapons and vehicles?" Shiho asked curiously.

"Yeah, but it's all the designs we got from my time in the alternate-future," Miho replied with a nod. "We probably make our own design one day."

"Yeah, maybe," Maho in a consent tone.

Miho then looked over to her watch and then looked back at them both again. "Say, you lads have any plans for today?"

"Well… I'll be working in Sensha-Do department for some time and then hanging out with Mrs. Shimada," Shiho replied as she looked to her upper right. "What about you?"

"I'll be walking out with Erika in the afternoon," Maho replied, then she and her mother looked at Miho. "How about you?"

"Well, I don't have any plans for today," Miho replied with a shrug. "So, I thought if I could spend a time with both of you."

Shiho and Maho just gazed her in silence as they awkwardly surprised in their hearts. "Did I miss anything?" Miho asked as she looks back at them.

"Miho, don't you know what day is today?" Maho asked as they slowly changed their faces into a cringed one.

"Umm… no?" Miho replied with a hint of doubt and awkwardness.

"You… don't know what day is today?" Shiho asked with a raised brow, while Maho cringed.

"No…? What is it?" Miho replied in doubt as she was starting to feel suspicious of her question.

They all just paused in silence as Shiho and Maho weren't sure on what to say to Miho, until Miho breaks it up again. "Well? Just tell me."

They all still in silent, before Shiho able to answer, awkwardly. "Do you know this is Valentine's Day?"

…

…

…

Valentine's Day.

…

…

The only day which is always the day of romance and romantic love. And the date of today was 14 February. She hasn't got the time to check on the calendar after she was dealing with her job and the case. For someone to remind her of the Valentine's Day, which is happening right today, this kinda took Miho very off-guard.

Miho just stared them both with eyes widen. "Bloody hell."

"Yeah… I thought you knew," Maho said slowly as she winced her eyes,

"I lost my track of time, mate," Miho replied with a raised hand.

"Now you know," Shiho replied as she leans against the sofa. "Do you have someone you know to spend your Valentine with?"

Miho had a thought for a moment, before replying with a shook. "No… I don't have anyone for that."

"What about your friends from Ooarai?" Maho asked.

"Nah, I don't think it's wise for me to go with them," Miho replied with a shook. "I just don't like it."

Maho and Shiho looked away from her for a moment, before looking back at her. "What about Anchovy?"

That took Miho off-guard as hell. She had visited Anchovy a few times a few days ago after the hideout raid. And Miho could tell that Anchovy was interested with Miho. But what the hell? To think Anchovy would want to walk with Miho to spend the Valentine's Day was… weird and awkward for her.

"I… don't know," Miho replied slowly in doubt. "And why would you say that?"

"Well... in all honesty, she seems pretty interested with you when you go off to meet her," Shiho replied as she rolled her eyes away from her. "And frankly we both even saw you were smiling a little when you got back."

Everyone fell silent the moment Shiho said that. Though, something struck Miho's mind.

"Mother," Miho called, she and mother looked at each other. "You don't think what I'm thinking now, right?"

Shiho and Maho were both felt stupefied of the question, but Shiho replied immediately. "We're thinking about that actually."

"Jesus Christ," Miho scoffed with annoyance. "I'm not even sure if I wanted to date with her."

"You actually happy to spend your time with her," Maho added. "And didn't you said you really liked her?"

"Yes, I did," Miho replied. "But I don't even know if she wanted a date with me."

"Come on, Miho," Maho added as she bumped her with her left elbow. "It's Valentine's Day, you can't be alone."

"Maho, I-"

(Remove Kebab Loop)

What was saying was cut off by her phone buzzing. Everyone was practically surprised to know someone called her in this morning. Miho just pulled out her phone off her pocket and looked at the phone. She was very surprised on who's calling her.

It was Anchovy.

Miho answers her phone straight like that without even asking her sister or her mother for it. "Hello?"

"Hi, Miho. It's Anchovy," Anchovy replied in the phone. "I hope I didn't bother you by calling you this early."

"No, no, it's alright," Miho replied softly with a smile. "It's fine, I was about to start my day here. But I'm not sure how I will start my day."

"Oh, good then," Anchovy replied with a tone of relieve. "By the way, I'm happy to talk with you again, Miho-san."

"Me too, my lady," Miho replied with a tone of pleasure, Maho and Shiho grinned to hear that. "Why did you call me?"

"Well, you know this is Valentine's Day, right?" Anchovy asked shyly.

"Yeah, I just found out now after I asked my sister," Miho replied softly. "Why?"

"Well… I wanted to spend the day with you," Anchovy replied awkwardly. "Um.. actually I want to have a… umm… well…"

"A date?" Miho asked straight, Maho and Shiho jumped to hear that while Anchovy gasped in the phone.

"Y-yeah, a date," Anchovy awkwardly replied as she was shy to answer back. "Well… do you think you could come with me?"

"Where to?" Miho asked flatly with a raised brow.

"You know the Sakura Park in Kameoka City?" Anchovy asked.

"That one?" Miho asked. "You want me to meet you there?"

"Yeah," Anchovy replied. "About… 5 O'clock in the evening. So…?"

"Sakura Park it is," Miho replied with a smile. "I'll be there for you, my dear. It's a date then."

"Y-yeah, a date!" Anchovy awkwardly replied. "Okay, thank you, Miho-san. I'll see you there."

"I'll see you, my lady," Miho replied, before Anchovy closed the phone call.

Miho then puts back her phone into her pocket before looking over to her mother and sister, who were smirking at her. Miho just changed her smile into an irritated one to see that. Miho was really mean it on the date. But that doesn't mean that she won't be annoyed if anyone mentioned about this.

"Really, lads?" Miho asked in annoyance.

"Oh well, yeah," Maho replied as she snickered a little. "My little sister is going out in a date soon."

"I know," Miho replied coldly. "Just remember who's the one that keeping tabs on giving the money for you work."

"Okay, Shisutā," Maho replied with a raised open palm. "I'll remember."

"I'm not against you about dating someone," Shiho added. "Even though it was a girl you're dating with instead of a boy, I'm still fine about it. But make sure you're ready for the date."

"Hmm…" Miho paused in thoughts for herself, before replying. "Don't worry about it, I'm sure I'm ready for a date."

"Sounds good, Miho," Maho replied with a nod. "I hope there's nothing concerns you."

"I just hoped nothing bad happened while we're on date," Miho replied with a concern tone. "That's all."

"Don't worry, Miho. I'm sure everything will be as smooth as we expected," Shiho assured her as she stood up and leans her waist to the sofa.

"So, where you'll be meeting her?" Maho asked curiously. "She did say where she wants to meet you right?"

"Yes, she did," Miho replied with a nod. "Sakura Park in Kameoka City."

"That Sakura Park?" Shiho asked with a smile. "Honestly, that's a good spot for Valentine."

"Good to know then," Miho replied with a small smile and a shrug. "Things got much better than expected."

"Sure it is," Maho replied in consent. "I'm sure you'll have a good date."

"Just try to be discreet with Anchovy alright?" Shiho asked with her eyes closed.

"And probably you get a kiss from her," Maho added with a smile.

Only to earn Miho's glare. "5 Seconds?"

"Oh… sorry," Maho apologized quickly, she doesn't want to get that unlucky event again.

* * *

Task Force 141 Headquarters, 09:00 AM

Ghost was in his office. He was enjoying his time working on his bloody paperwork, with a side of a cup of tea on his side. Despite that however, he's still wearing his mask on. A lot of soldiers kinda confused on how Ghost could even drink a tea like that. To which everyone in the 141 had implied that Ghost used to drink his tea through his mask. Which found the JGSDF weird to know that.

He was also glad to not see Miho working on this paperwork. Ghost really didn't like it to see how frustrated she was on doing her paperwork, saw her accidentally burned a report she had to write once. Thought, Miho was right about one thing, about Macmillan. Yeah, Macmillan actually enjoyed writing paperwork on his desk and he was a fast writer, but that doesn't mean he lost his combat skills.

Now to think about that, he was hoping that Miho could join him to have a drink of tea.

He has finished his paperwork for now. He stacked up the paperwork into one pile and put it in a shelf in his cabinet. Making sure everything is settled, he finished up his tea and headed out his office. He walked down the hallway and decided to check up on the calendar that matches the time in this year 1960. Ghost looked over to the calendar and check what date is today. But soon he regretted a little on what date it was.

14 February, of course it was Valentine's Day.

He just grunted at that thought, and moved on down the hallway before walking downstairs. He then took a turn to the left and headed straight to the exit of the building. He then walked over to the hangars to see how's the men are doing for now. And noting the fact that Ami and Yuko were both also in here in this base. The reason they are here was that they helped Ghost on organizing this base.

When he reached the hangars, he could everyone is still doing their daily jobs there. A couple of 141 technicians were checking on an F15 jet fighter. Some of the 141s who are Russians were checking on the missiles and parts in the back of the hangars. An Australian soldier and a Somalian soldier were both testing another jet for a basic control test. And some of them in groups were chatting, 4 Japanese 141 soldiers who are women were with them.

He was about to go to someplace else, when he heard someone called him. "Ghost?"

Ghost turned around again to see who called him, turns out there it was Ami along with Yuko following up behind her. "It's a good timing to see you here."

"Well, it's good to see you too, Ami," Ghost replied with a smile under his mask. "How's your morning?"

"Pretty great actually," Ami replied with a smile with her hands clasping each other behind her, in which she actually holds something behind her.

"And nothing could be better than that," Yuko added as she looked at Ami.

"By the way, thanks for helping me organizing this base further, mate," Ghost said to them with a nod and waved his hand around to the surrounding of the hangar.

"No problem, Ghost," Ami replied with a nod. "Now you don't have to worry about where you stash the materials you people need."

"And happy to see there are some renovations in our base," Ghost added as he puts his hands on his hip.

"But, I guess this isn't enough for you, isn't it?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"Well, seeing we got more potential recruits especially those outside this country," Ghost added with his arms waved wide to his sides. "I guess we could use a new base."

"We'll sort that one out later," Ami replied lazily. "Need a drink?"

"No thanks," Ghost replied with a shook and an open palm. "I already had drink my black tea When I was doing my paperwork."

"Do you even ever drink coffee at all?" Yuko asked curiously with her crossed arms. "I mean, I know British people like to drink that but do you ever drink coffee before?"

"Ever drink coffee before," Ghost replied. "But I'm not a coffee-drinker kind of gentleman. The worst coffee I ever had was the one back in my days in SAS."

"How bad was it?" Ami asked, comparing the coffee he meant with the coffee she got in JGSDF.

"Bad as if the coffee was taken from an animal's bottom."

Whelp, that was disgusting.

"Right… that was pretty uncomfortable to hear," Ami commented awkwardly and in disgust as she winced her eyes. "At least our coffee didn't taste that bad."

"Really, mate?" Ghost asked with a raised brow. "So, when you're leaving?"

"Don't know," Yuko replied. "But do you need any help for today?"

Ghost looked around him again to see the men and everything in the hangars, before looking back at her. "Maybe, and I need to eat something in all honesty."

"Wait, I thought you eat something back in your office," Ami stated as she leans her head back and raised a brow.

"I did drink the tea," Ghost replied as he waved his hand behind him. "But I didn't eat anything."

"Why don't you go to the cafeteria now?" Yuko asked in concern.

"I'm still not hungry a little actually," Ghost replied. "So I decided to check up on my men."

"Well, everyone in here are doing their job fine here," Ami replied as she looked around them, her hands are still behind her whilst tiptoeing once. "Umm… not sure about Bazarov though."

Ghost only glanced at her, raising his right eyebrow underneath his sunglasses. "Let me guess. He did that again."

Ami and Yuko sighed in defeat. "Eeeeeyup, he blew his dorm again."

"What did he tried to make now?" Ghost asked as he crossed his arms in dissatisfaction.

"He said he was trying to make his own rocket," Ami replied in discomfort. "About mixing corrosive and nitrogen into one rocket."

Ghost just sighed to hear that as he looked down. "Sometimes I wonder when he would stop inventing stuffs like that."

"He must be a troublesome when it comes to funds," Yuko guess as she tilted her head.

"He sure is, mate," Ghost replied with a nod. "He ever made us had a budget loss for around 10 million dollars for what he did."

"Wow, that's something surprising to hear," Ami commented as she and Yuko widen their eyes in little surprise. "Did he even get punishment for that?"

"It was rather a 'special service' than a punishment," Ghost replied in irritation. "We had to make a deal with him if he cleared up the 10 million dollars loss from his own hands in return he will get his own laboratory."

"I see," Yuko replied with a nod. "You soldiers have a lab, right?"

"Yes, we have one," Ghost replied with a nod and a shrug. "It was build specifically for him. But it seems he got no time to get himself to the lab for his own experiment. Which is ironic."

"Huh, I could say he was in a hurry," Ami added curiously.

"Nah, he wasn't in a hurry," Ghost replied with a shook. "He's a complete insane chemist of Russia so he does stuffs like that. But we all were also wondering how the hell he survived all that."

"Ever think about asking him yourself?" Ami asked curiously.

"Nah, maybe later," Ghost replied with an open palm. "I'm not going to go ask him when he's around any chemical compounds."

"Heh, agreed," Ami added with a smile.

"Hey, LT!" a voice shouted from Ghost's left.

They turned to that direction and saw Mouse walking up to them. "How are you doing, mate?"

"I'm doing fine, Mouse," Ghost replied as Mouse reached them. "What do you want?"

"Just giving you the report you asked on our armory and funds," Mouse replied before looking over to the JGSDF ladies. "Morning, ladies."

"Konnichiwa," Ami replied to him as she and Yuko bowed to him.

"Alright, it's all nice to see here," Ghost commented, before looking back to Mouse. "So, what's on the menu in the cafeteria?"

"I heard there will be Fish and Chips, Burgers, Grilled Bacons, a Somalian dish called Surbiyaan Hilib Adhi, Spaghetti," Mouse then paused for a moment. "Umm… Czech salad called Sopsky and Kebab."

"Now that makes me starving," Ghost replied. "Thanks for telling me."

"Your welcome, sir," Mouse replied with a smile. "I should go now. Ladies…"

Mouse then turned around and headed elsewhere from the hangars. Just to hear what Mouse said about what the cafeteria served today, it was enough to make nearly everyone in the base hungry. Ghost actually felt a little hungry, along with Ami and Yuko. Though, Ami and Yuko had wondered on some foods that aren't familiar with her.

"Those are some interesting foods you people have here," Ami commented as she tilted her head.

"It's a good thing actually to be a multinational Task Force," Ghost replied with a smile. "You can taste every food from every soldier's country."

They three smiled to each other, but then Ghost noticed Ami. "Ami, why are your hands are still behind you?"

Yuko then looked over to Ami as she did the same, which Ghost noticed Ami was a little embarrassed on telling him. "Well, Ghost… Do you know what day is today?"

Ghost sighed to that, he knows where is this going. "This is Valentine's Day, isn't it?"

"Aww, we were wishing you didn't know," Ami replied as she and Yuko showed their disappointment.

"Well, I already know after I checked the calendar," Ghost replied with a snicker. "So what are you holding behind your back?"

Ami only glanced at him to the question. Yuko actually felt unnerved to see them both like this. In all honesty, Ami hasn't had a boyfriend for once. But to know Ami was interested to this one odd particular soldier was somehow… inconvenient. They all still silent as Ami and Ghost are staring each other as if they are doing a staring contest.

"Well?" Ghost asked as he was confused by her stare. "What you got behind you?"

Ami quickly breaks her stare and jerked her head back. "Uhh, I wanted to give this to you."

Ami then slowly moved her hands along with the item to her front. At first, Ghost thought it was a box of chocolate gifted for him. But then, Ghost was surprised that Ami was actually carrying a wisp of Blue Cornflower. In which that kind of flower was Ghost's favorite back in London.

Ami and Yuko were both surprised to notice that Ghost had widen his eyes through his sunglasses. Ami and Yuko were both don't know why would a soldier like him would be surprised to see Ami will give him the flowers like that. A ghost like him supposed to not react that way. Ami and Yuko wondered why would he surprised of Ami's gift.

"Ghost?" Ami called in concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm… I'm fine," Ghost stuttered. "Where did you get those flowers?"

"Umm, somewhere," Ami replied as she slowly rolled her eyes to behind her before looking back at him. "Why?"

"Those… Cornflowers are my favorite," Ghost replied as he pointed to the flowers Ami's holding. "It's been a long time since I have any flowers especially my favorite one."

Ami and Yuko left their mouths open to hear that, before Ghost continued. "This is rather a great gift for me, Captain Ami."

Ghost then slowly takes the flowers off Ami's hands as Ami commented. "That's… that's great to hear from you."

"I know," Ghost replied with a nod as he sniffed the flowers through his mask. "Thank you, Ami. This brings back my old memories of London."

Ami and Yuko only smiled to hear that. "Your welcome, Ghost."

Yuko then put her hand on Ami's shoulder who looked at her. "Also, happy Valentine's Day."

Ghost smiled back as he held the flowers in front of his chest. "Happy Valentine's Day, Ami."

Ami then nodded to Yuko, and they both proceeded to turn around and left. Ghost only watched them left as he looked over to his gift. He always wanted flowers like this for a long time after he joined the military. These flowers that Ami gave him, was the only thing that could give him peace. Peace to his mind and to his self-control of his body.

He turned around and was about to go back to his office. But then he was met up with a few men in front of him. Chemo, Royce, Dioxide and Chrome were there and had watch the whole scene. And they just only give their best flat faces they have. Ghost wasn't surprise, but he was cringed to see them there.

"What are you doing here, mates?" Ghost asked as the flowers he holds never went off his chest.

"Oh nothing," Chemo replied with a shrug. "We just watch Captain Ami just gave you those flowers for Valentine's Day."

"And Ахмад Ami has a good taste on picking flowers," Dioxide added with his eyebrows raised.

"She sure has that," Ghost replied in agreement, smiling underneath his balaclava. "She picked my favorites."

"It's good to see you're smiling, Ghost," Royce replied as he smiled. "I've been wondering when you will smiling like that."

"Now, you're seeing it now, Royce," Ghost replied.

Then Chrome asks. "So, when you're going to date with her?"

Everyone then glared at him in silence, giving the 'really' look. "Sorry, shouldn't have ask that."

Everyone then looks away from him as Ghost asks. "You boys heading for the cafeteria?"

"Yeah, bro," Chemo replied, giving a two finger salute lazily. "Just hearing the menu the cafeteria had for today makes me hungry as hell."

"Alright, you boys go ahead," Ghost replied with a nod. "I'll catch up later."

Ghost then walks pass them as Royce asked. "Where are you going?"

Without bothering to look back and kept walking, he replied aloud. "Putting the flowers in my vase."

Ghost then headed back for the building in front of him and entered with the flowers in his left hand. He was heading back for his office to put down his flowers. After he went back upstairs, he walks forward for a moment until he reached his door on his right and entered. Ghost looked around in his cabinets and found a small empty vase inside.

He then puts down the vase on his desk, before putting in the Cornflowers. He then filled the vase with water from a bottle. He glances at it for moments with a smile. Before he took off and exit his office. He then went to the cafeteria to eat.

Great Day for a Ghost.

* * *

Sakura Park, Kameoka City, Kyoto Prefecture.

.

"This is the Sakura Park she meant? This is clearly a beautiful spot she picked."

Miho was right now waiting in front of the entrance of the Sakura Park. A lot of people were either passed the park, waiting at the entrance elsewhere like her, or heading in the park. It was in the evening, 5 o'clock on time. The atmosphere from the evening sun gives the most comfortable and fresh moment for Valentine's Day.

Aside from the evening sun, the weather was very wonderful. The clouds were scarce in the sky and the sun shone it's light to the earth from the west. Birds, and I mean a lot of birds are all flying and chirping in the air as if today was their mating season. Miho could noticed the birds that are flying in the sky was the Japanese Accentor kind of bird, along with some Larks.

The entrance of the park was composed of opened black fenced-like gates. Its' gates along with its' black fences around the park were decorated with hearts and roses. She could see the Sakura trees beyond that gate. Aside from that, when looking around aside the park entrance, She could noticed how scarce the cars on the road in front of the park. It seems Valentine's Day was a very big day for them.

With people crowding a little at the entrance, Miho makes sure that she looked around her as careful as she can. She also kept an eye on her wristwatch when she waits for Anchovy. She also has a wisp of Daisies in her hand, she wanted to give these flowers to Anchovy. The reason? It was Anchovy's favorite.

For what Miho wore for the Valentine's Day. Miho was wearing her dark blue long-sleeve buttoned long-sleeve shirt along with her black pants. She wears a pair of black cloth gloves. She also wears her usual belt with 4 pouches on her left side, it still contains ammo and some small tools. Drop bag was on her usual right thigh, hiding her M9 Berretta and her knife. She didn't wear anything on her head for now.

She kept waiting and waiting and waiting. Until she caught something in the corner of her eye to her left. There she was, Anchovy was here, but she was not alone. There was Éclair, Naomi and Pekoe with her in their casual outfits. Miho was pretty surprised to see them here.

"Miho-san~!" Anchovy shouted cheerily, with a spice of tease in her tone.

"Hello there, Ms. Anchovy," Miho greeted as they reached her and Miho hid the flowers behind her back. "Ms. Éclair, Ms. Naomi and Ms. Pekoe. I didn't know you'll be coming here."

"I know, Ms. Nishizumi," Pekoe replied with a nod. "We also wanted to come here as well."

"Umm, sorry, Miho," Anchovy apologized awkwardly whilst scratching her head. "I forgot to tell you about them."

"It's alright, milady," Miho replied with a smile. "You ladies want to celebrate Valentine's Day here as well?"

"Yes, Miho-san," Éclair replied with a nod. "And also it's good to see you without your hat."

"And why would you said that?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"You always look so intimidating with that hat around," Naomi replied. "Like that time back in the tea party."

Miho just snickered, then asks. "How do I look now?"

"I don't know how to…" Anchovy then looked over to Pekoe. "Pekoe?"

"You looked like a gentleman," Pekoe replied as she clasped her hands underneath her stomach. "Or, more like a gentlelady."

"It's nice to hear that," Miho replied with a nod. "By the way, I got something for you, Anchovy."

Miho then gives Anchovy the flowers, to which she was surprised as she took them. "Daisies?! They're my favorite! How did you know?"

Everyone else was rather surprised as well as Miho replied. "Asked some friends."

"I see," Anchovy replied with a nod, she then sniff the flowers. "Ah, how fragrant its smell."

"Nice touch you made there, Miho," Naomi commented with a smirk, impressed.

"Thanks for the compliment," Miho replied with a nod.

"Where did you get these?" Anchovy asked curiously.

"I picked on my way here," Miho replied, it was true though, she had to go all the way here and pick some flowers in a few stops.

"That must be tiring," Pekoe commented in concern of her physique.

"Nah, mate," Miho replied with a shook. "It's a walk in the park."

"Oh come on, Miho," Anchovy joked as she leans her head back with everyone smiling. "I know it's that hard. Why bother doing that than buying me one?"

"I just… don't really like it," Miho replied with a slow shook. "I also don't want to waste money."

"I see," Éclair replied, but then frowned on something. "And Miho?"

"Yes, Éclair?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"Don't you feel bothered…" Éclair paused, uncomfortable on how to say it. "You know, about having that scar around?"

Everyone then changed their expressions into a frown one. Miho slowly reached out her hand to touch her own scar on her right eye. When Éclair mentioned her scar, her memories came back again. Ferrchristsake, she hates it to remember that again. But at least, she didn't show emotions about it and gave an emotionless face. Miho then lowered her hand back to her side to look back at them.

"Are you alright?" Naomi asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Miho replied stoically. "I'm fine, Naomi."

"Forgive me if I mentioned that," Éclair quickly apologized with her fist on her chest. "I didn't mean to-"

"I understand, it's alright," Miho replied with a nod and closed eyes. "Besides, I'm doing alright with this scar around."

"Glad to hear that, Ms. Nishizumi," Pekoe replied with a smile as everyone sighed in joy.

"So… are we going in the park?" Miho asked as she waved her hand to the entrance.

"Sure, why not?" Anchovy replied back excitedly. "Come on, girls!"

Everyone went quickly not as expected since Anchovy was one quick girl. She just quickly ran in, excited to see the insides of the park. Thankfully, Miho managed to stop her from running and told her to calm her jigs down softly. Though, everyone chuckles at Anchovy's excitement and found her cute for it. Her face quickly went to irritated one when Naomi commented her cute, which found Miho laughable.

As they ventured on, they could noticed there are a lot of couples in the park. Though, they noticed that most of them are couples between a man and a woman, including teenagers. There were also families present in the park along with their own children. Frankly to say, there are a lot of people here to celebrate the Valentine's Day. Where Miho found that calming and peaceful, helping her to get her mind off her fights and reliving her memories of London.

They could feel the romance soared through the air along with the nice fragrants producing from the Sakura trees. How could you describe this? The falling gracious pink leaves falling onto them were as beautiful as snowflakes in winter. The atmosphere of romance could be seen from the couples who are doing their romantic episodes. But if you asked how does it feel to feel the atmosphere of romance now, I'll say it's like when you were awed to see the Aurora Borealis and imagining someone who could be married soon.

The people that attends the park could be seeing exchanging gifts with each other. Whether it be a box heart of chocolate, flowers, items, etc. The people there is also taking pictures there of themselves or their own family. It was fairly nice sight to see for Miho.

As they ventured the path where Sakura Trees stood in between and leaves acting like snowflakes in the air. Miho looked at Anchovy, who was standing next to her with Naomi, Éclair and Pekoe behind them. Anchovy was happy was an understatement, she was smiling joyfully as she looked around the park with astonishment. Miho found that rather cute as Anchovy was sniffing back to her flowers.

Miho then looked over to her eyes and found it beautiful. Her gleaming eyes was very pretty as a shiny diamond. It was really cute to see, but Miho didn't and never get herself a nosebleed to see that. Not sure why Miho couldn't bleed event though she's actually a Japanese. Though, Éclair, Naomi and Pekoe could have bleed from seeing Anchovy like that. Miho only smiled to that and looked back forward again.

They only kept marching forward following down the path, until someone holds Miho shoulder to signal them to stop. "Yeah?"

"Miho, just want to let you know that we three wanted to go somewhere," Pekoe said to her with her thumb pointing to behind her.

"Wait, where are you going?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow.

"Well… somewhere…" Naomi replied with a shrug and her both hands raised.

"That's quiet unconvincing," Miho replied with very little suspicion.

"We wanted to check if there's someplace interesting in the park," Éclair replied. "You both okay about this?"

Anchovy sparked a smile before replying. "Yeah, sure! Don't wait up for us!"

Everyone then turned to look at her blankly, except Miho who confused of her reaction. "Erm, what?" Pekoe asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Well, you heard me," Anchovy replied as she leans her head to them sideways.

"Umm, okay," Éclair replied awkwardly. "Alright, we'll be heading off."

"We'll see you later then," Pekoe added as the three girls began to go on their own way.

"And I hope you two lovebirds have a good time," Naomi said aloud as they left, making Anchovy and Miho stare at the walking away girls blankly.

After they were out of view, Miho and Anchovy then looked back at each other. "What did she said?" Anchovy asked.

"I think Naomi just called both of us lovebirds," Miho replied who didn't blush at the thought.

But for Anchovy, she was embarrassed and her face turned red like an apple. "W-what?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod flatly. "But… really?"

"I don't really think so," Anchovy replied shyly whilst shook her head furiously. "Can we just… move on?"

"Alright, alright, milady," Miho replied to calm her down. "Let's just go."

"Ok, Miho-san," Anchovy replied with a nod, before they both then turned back forward and follow down the road.

As they walk, Miho had held Anchovy with an arm by her shoulders. Anchovy had found it pretty comfortable to let Miho hugged her like that on the walk. Anchovy smiled as she sniffs her flowers again. She would bring these flowers home and put them in the vase. Miho also smiled too when Anchovy looked at her. Miho then booped her nose, which made Anchovy recoiled shyly and tell her to not do that again softly.

As they kept walking and looking around, Anchovy had thought of something about Miho. She was today very polite and respectable and not a charming teaser like Naomi back there. Anchovy also wondered on why did she decided to not wear her usual boonie hat. More than that, she was pretty warm to Anchovy like the days before when she met her a couple of times. But she also pretty embarrassed when Miho kept saying that she's cute.

While Anchovy herself was cute, Miho was different. She was rather stoic, prepared, sharp, and the only person who acted like a true gentleman (or gentlelady in this case). Even her scarred eye was something of discomfort for her, Anchovy feels so… protected with her. She understands she's a hard girl, but there was something more about her. Something that made her interested in Miho.

Perhaps she really loved her?

Then, they found a bench ahead of them and agreed to sit there. It seems that the bench they sat on was facing to a lake in the park. They could see there are small boats rowing around the lake. Each of those boats were filled with the couples who wanted to spend their romantic time here. Miho and Anchovy both sat close as they watched the view. But then without realization, Miho's hand slowly gripped Anchovy's hand that was on the bench aside her.

Anchovy felt that and looked to her left, then blushed a bit. "Umm… Miho?"

"Hmm?" Miho looked back at her and took notice at what's she looking at.

But then she was surprised to see she was holding her hand and then quickly retracts her hand. "Oh, forgive me. I didn't mean to."

"No, no! I mean-" Anchovy quickly replied shyly with a blush, but then paused before continuing again. "You-you can hold my hand, for long as you like."

Miho then raised her eyebrows to that. "Are you alright, Anchovy?"

"I'm… fine, Miho," Anchovy replied with a doubtful nod. "It's just… it's just…"

"Your date for the first time, right?" Miho asked straight, to which Anchovy glanced at her for a moment.

"Err, yeah, it's my first time," Anchovy replied with a nod. "I'm sorry if I'm being awkward… and all that."

"Nah, don't worry about it, dear girl," Miho replied with a smile. "It's my first time as well."

Anchovy then just stared at her, surprised. "But how come you're so… calm about this? Not even looking nervous?"

"Self-control," she simply replied.

"Self-control?" Anchovy asked. "You mean like how Darjeeling does that to not be angry?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "But my reason for self-control was not that I have anger issues."

Anchovy thought for a moment about it, before replying. "To keep yourself from becoming enrage?"

"Correct," Miho replied emotionlessly, but then lowly in guilty. "Like that time I did to… Momo…"

Anchovy stared her for a moment as Miho looked down, then Anchovy hugged her by her shoulder. "It's not your fault, Miho."

"I know you would say that," Miho replied with a smile. "I'll be fine."

"I know you would, Miho-san," Anchovy continued to hug her, then lands her head down on her right shoulder. "I'm happy to be with you"

"I'm happy to be with you too, Ms. Anzai," Miho replies back with her head tilted closer to hers with a smile. "Wish I could bring you to London to spend our time near the Buckingham Palace."

"Awww~, you~," Anchovy replied shyly with peach face, as she booped her nose. "You don't have to do that for me."

"Oh, I will," Miho replied with a nod. "One day, Anchovy. One day."

"You're so hopeful," Anchovy replied with a smirk.

"You're very interesting to me," Miho shot back with a high tone. "I liked you so much, 'Chovy."

"Me too, Miho," Anchovy replied, before looking back to the lake in front of them.

They looked over to the boats in front of them. The boats they have noticed were those the ones small boats a lot of people used. The wooden rowing boats. May it looked old, but it's also brings back the memories of the classic times here. Though, there are boats that resembles a big duck there.

"Huh, I thought there was a big duck there," Anchovy commented after she took a clear look on the duck.

"Well, that's actually intriguing," Miho responded. "You want to get one, Ms. Anzai?"

"Umm, no," Anchovy replied with a shook. "I don't like to get my feet wet for today."

"Fair point," Miho added in agreement. "Getting a spare clothes after that is the hard part."

"And will be pretty embarrassing," Anchovy added in agreement as well.

Miho then looked over to her left again, she was expecting to see someone. She was waiting for the girls that went parted from them to come back. But they're not coming back now, which was bothering her so much. She had wondered where they had gone, remembering they wanted to go somewhere in the park. She felt a poke on her right shoulder and looked back at Anchovy who was giving a concern look.

"Is everything alright, Miho?" Anchovy asked as she stopped hugging her by her shoulders.

"I'm just wondering where are those three ladies have gone," Miho replied, before looking back to other direction to look for them.

"I'm sure they'll be back, Miho," Anchovy assured her as she held her shoulder.

"Despite that," Miho replied as she looked at her. "It's still unnerved me about it."

"I see," Anchovy replied with a nod. "Let's go find them then."

"Alright then," Miho responded, they both then stood up and headed to their right.

They followed the path they're on, which leads them to nearly at one of the corner of the park in distant. From there, they could saw a small café there. Tables and chairs are in the outdoors and lined up the front porch of the café and across the front café. Small fences were made around that café as Valentines decoration were all on the wooden fence and the wooden café. There was a grand piano at a corner of the outdoor café area, which was on a wooden platform.

When they reached there, the café was already filled with the couples there. Families were also in present as they talked with themselves about their experiences they have for the day. They strolled around for a moment as they looked for them. In a minute later, they found the three girls seating at a table with a lamplight on the middle of the table. They both then headed there and greeted them.

Surprised was an understatement for these girls. They were rather not expecting to see them here. Miho had also took note that they didn't do anything weird when they parted with them both. And honestly, this place was actually a very good place, and also beautiful for her. Really fits her type of cafeteria along with Anchovy's type of café.

"Anchovy, Miho?" Pekoe asked. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, we're looking for you," Miho responded as she waved her hand to the girls. "What are you doing here?"

"We're actually having together for ourselves here," Naomi replied. "Besides, it's better if left you both alone. Seeing how you two were happy with each other."

"Pardon me?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow, then put her hands on her hips. "So you're implying…?"

"We left you both so you both could have a good date together," Éclair replied.

Miho and anchovy were both didn't expect to hear that. How did they know they were dating? Miho was eventually surprised but it was inside her heart, she physically didn't show her expression to the answer. Anchovy on the other hand, blushed red that would put the red colors of Valentine into shame. The girls just chuckled to see Anchovy reacted that way. And Anchovy had pouted for them to answer that.

"How did you know that?!" Anchovy exclaimed shyly. "I didn't even told you about it!"

"Well, Éclair told us how you and Miho both liked each other," Pekoe replied as she pointed to Éclair. "So when you told us that Miho will be waiting back there, we three already know that you were planning a date with her."

"You are one sly ladies," Miho commented with a smirk. "I'll give ya' that."

They then confused to see Miho's stoic reaction. "That's odd. We're expecting to see you blush like Anchovy there. But you didn't," Pekoe stated as they raised eyebrows to her including Anchovy.

"I've seen a lot of things, lass," Miho replied with a slow shook. "I've seen a lot that I don't even give a bloody thing about it."

"Wait, for real?" Naomi asked in disbelieve with a tilted head.

"Yeah, for real," Miho replied with a nod. "And to be honest, it give me headaches sometimes."

"I think I can see what you mean in that way," Anchovy added with her arms crossed.

"And to think about it in the wrong way, I don't know what to say," Éclair added in agreement.

Miho then looked away from the girls again only to look over to the only piano present in the area. That grand piano was really looked like that old class look ones from America and UK. Maybe she able to play instruments based on strings-type of instruments. She actually could play a piano before and people and soldiers commented that she was awesome playing it. More than that, she knew sets of songs for the piano.

"Something interests you?" Anchovy asked as Miho quickly snapped and looked at her.

"Yeah, I guess so," Miho replied, before looking back to the piano.

The three girls then stood off their table and stood next to them both. "You're good at playing piano?" Pekoe asked curiously.

"You could say that," Miho replied with her eyes darted at her, before looking back to the piano again.

Naomi who was right aside Miho asks. "Do you mind if you play a song?"

Miho only looked over her in doubt. "I'm… not sure if I want that."

"Come on, Miho," Anchovy requested as she elbowed her softly. "Do it for me. Please…"

Miho only sighed for 5 seconds, before looking back at her with a smirk. "Alright, my dear. I'll try."

Miho then walked forward towards the piano as her friends and possible lover watched her moving there. Miho stepped onto the wooden platform and walked over to the piano. She observed the piano first in detail, the sight, the texture, and the feelings of classics. Before she then gently sat down on the provided black wooden long chair. She then observed the keyboard on the piano.

She then sighed with her eyes closed. Then, she began to play it.

(All of Me - John Legend) ((Cover By Jasmine Thompson)(Lyrics)) (Better girls' version is suggested)

It was… relaxing, beautiful and romantic. Everyone in the café then began to look at Miho playing. Anchovy and her friends deadpanned to watch her play. Then Miho began to sing.

.

What would I do without your smart mouth

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out?

You've got my head spinning, no kidding

I can't pin you down

.

What's going on in that beautiful mind?

I'm on your magical mystery ride

And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me

But I'll be alright

.

My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy, and I'm out of my mind

.

'Cause all of me loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose, I'm winning

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh

.

How many times do I have to tell you

Even when you're crying, you're beautiful too?

The world is beating you down

I'm around through every mood

.

You're my downfall, you're my muse

My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues

I can't stop singing, it's ringing in my head for you

.

My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy, and I'm out of my mind

.

'Cause all of me loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you~

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose, I'm winning

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh

.

Give me all of you

Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts

Risking it all, though it's hard

.

'Cause all of me~ loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you

You're my end and my beginning

Even when I lose, I'm winning

'Cause I give you all of me

And you give me all of you

.

I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh…

.

After Miho ended her song, everyone then applauses her aloud with cheers and compliments. Anchovy could only stood there in awe and astonishment. Pekoe and Éclair felt her singing was so beautiful that they both had give their compliments by putting their hands on their chest. Naomi clapped her hands to applause Miho, she has made a perfect impression for today.

Miho thanks to everyone who applauded her and walked over to her lover and her friends. Miho just gives an open palm to them for a greet. Everyone smiled to her with high hearts and high level of happiness. Anchovy just quickly ran forward and hugged her.

"Woah, easy there, my lady," Miho said to which then Anchovy stops hugging her. "So, how well I did it?"

"It's awesome!" Anchovy cheered out. "This is the best day ever!"

Anchovy kissed her cheek, to which Miho only blushed a little. "Uhh, I didn't expect that. But thanks."

"No, thanks for doing that for me," Anchovy responded happily. "Come on, there's still more for us to do."

"Okay," Miho replied with a chuckle. "Whatever you say, young lady."

They spend the rest of their day in the park. Miho and Anchovy could be said that they both were having a best date on their first time. Naomi, Éclair and Pekoe were felt so adorable to see them both like that. But still, there bothers Miho on one thing. Which is their knowledge of not knowing Miho was a 141 soldier.

Maybe they didn't know, but sooner or later they will know. Miho had a bothered feeling for Anchovy herself. She may be pure innocent, a best friend, a lover in her heart. Miho just worried if anything bad happens to her just because of Miho's secret.

But she thought she just overprotective, and she will always hoped Anchovy will be alright.


	39. Chapter 37 - Return To Sender

Task Force 141-Disavowed

Mission Briefing

.

SAS Headquarters, UK

SAS Intel Officer: O.C., We've got a caller with a lead on the chemical attacks. Says he'll only speak to you.

.

 _Establishing connection, standby…_

 _Connection established._

 _._

Baseplate: Identify yourself.

Price: Mac. It's John.

 _Caller confirmed, John Price. Showing Profile._

.

 _Tracking Russian military forces movement In Europe._

 _Result: Currently Inconclusive._

 _._

Captain Macmillan/Baseplate: *Sigh* We put a lot of names on the clocktower this week, lad.

 _Casualties of SAS operatives listed._

 _Rate of Military Casualty: High._

 _Rate of Civilians casualty: Critical._

.

Price: It was Makarov. The bastard slipped through my fingers in Sierra Leone. What does MI6 know?

 _._

 _CIA Most Wanted: Makarov, V.A_

 _Code name: Kingfish_

 _Name: Makarov Vladmir_

 _Location: Unknown_

 _Notes: Considered to be armed and extremely dangerous_

 _Footage: Zakhaev International Airport massacre_

 _._

Baseplate: You're on everyone's shit-list, John. There's no way I could get you clearance.

Price: Don't give me that! You still owe me for Prypiat. I'm calling it in.

 _Loading mission profile_

 _Prypiat, Ukraine_

Baseplate: Easy, son.

 _Closing intel_

Baseplate: Alright. We've traced the delivery freighter to an outfit in Bosaso, Somalia.

It's run by a nasty piece of work named Waraabe. I'm only telling you this because I owe you and because Miho would want me to tell you.

Price: Seriously?

Baseplate: Yeah.

.

 _Tracking… Standby…_

 _Target located._

 _Freighter cargo traced to Bosaso, Somalia_

.

 _Standby… Viewing Target Profile_

 _Intel: Waraabe, War criminal_

 _Multiple war crimes._

 _Note: Extremely armed and dangerous_

 _._

Baseplate: My hands are full with the bleeding at home, so you're on your own. Good hunting. And tell Miho I said hi.

 _Call End_

Soap: What's the security look like?

Price: Strictly second division. Local triggermen guard the compound.

Miho: Not only are we going back to Africa, we are going to raid another stronghold. This is just bullshit. I thought you said we aren't going back.

Price: Yeah… Sorry about that. Looks like we are going back to that cursed land.

Soap: I thought you loved Africa, Miho.

Miho: Shut up, Soap.

Price: Cut it, you two. Let's try to find a way in.

Soap: We'll stick out like bollocks on a bulldog. Stealth's not an option.

 _Images of compound, militia men. Entry point, only one way available_

Price: Then we'll just have to kick in the front door. Tell Nikolai to ready his men.

Soap: How about the guys who agreed to work with us?

Price: They will be with us as part of the Evac team. We're going to need them to be ready.

Soap: I'll inform them.

Yuri: Alright, let's get this show on the road.

* * *

" **Return to Sender"**

 **October 8th – 09:30:20**

 **1** **st** **Lt. Miho Nishizumi**

 **Task Force 141 - Disavowed**

 **Bosaso, Somalia**

 **.**

"Damn you, Price!" Miho shouted as the Jeep Wrangler drove in the beach. It was being followed by a second Jeep Wrangler, with the group driving towards in the general direction of the sandstorm as they drive by the beach.

"Sorry Miho! We promised you no more Africa, but we have to go back there again!" Soap shouted back as the other Wrangler passed them by.

"Just move quickly and we can snag Waraabe before he bolts." Price told the three who were the passengers as he looked behind them.

"Yeah, yeah." Miho replied, still pissed off.

"The sandstorm's moving in fast! We only have one shot at this." Soap told Miho and Yuri, who was in the back seat.

"I hope we won't have to come back to this country. It was already bad enough that we had to come here again. What am I going to get, malaria?" Miho asked.

"Let's hope not. None of us are vaccinated." Price informed her.

Miho suddenly annoyed of his response. "IF we were even prepared, we would not be uneasy for getting sick, you bastard!"

"I gotta agree with her," Yuri commented, giving a flat face to everyone.

They were even closer to the target. They could a few houses lined up next to the road. One man on Bravo Team's back of the jeep then slowly stood up with his right hand holding his rifle upward. The jeeps driving by the beach toward the road as sprinkles of waters flying in the air produced by the jeeps' wheels and incoming wave of water to the beach.

"Bravo Team, take point through the gate!" Price ordered the other Jeep, who was Bravo team.

"Roger that!" The group followed his orders.

They drive the jeeps up the ramp of sand and landed on the road right next to the small houses on their right. Miho and Yuri hold onto the jeep's frame as they did that, and both of the jeeps nearly flipped. They then headed for the gate to the compound ahead of them 200 meters away.

Seeing how there were too many people, Price knew having Nikolai there was a good thing. Soap stood up from his seat and looked behind them as Miho and Yuri did the same. Nikolai is flying a Russian Hind right next to them. Soap waved his hand at Nikolai to give him the signal.

"Nikolai, soften 'em up!" He asked.

"Missiles away." Was the reply as missiles were launched from the MI-24 as it killed some of the men in front of the gate and the men on the rooftops. *WHIZZ-BUAR-DUAR* Apparently, some men were still alive.

"Targets ahead. Engage! Engage!" Price shouted. Yuri, Miho, and Soap immediately got out their assault rifles and began to shoot. They were able to kill mostly everyone, but it didn't matter, as Price and Bravo team rammed the ones in front of the gate, killing them with the gates flown off into the compound.

The Jeeps stopped in the compound as the Somalian Militias nearby were recoiled in fear and quickly back off from the attacking 141s. Everyone jumped off the jeeps, and immediately attack nearby militiamen. Price got out his service revolver, shooting at the militiamen in front of him. Miho and Yuri jumped off the back jeep and cocked their rifles and opened fire at the militiamen.

With the alarms shouting the whole, everyone began to move. Their priority was to catch Waraabe before he could escape. They quickly take cover behind the nearby cover of crates and small walls nearby.

"Slot these bastards fast!" Soap shouted as he returned fire.

"I hope we can successfully finish this mission! You know what happened, Price!" Miho shouted.

"I know! I assure you we will." Price replied as everyone began shooting.

"Bravo Team!" Yuri shouted, who was taking cover next to Miho. "Hostiles on your 1 o'clock!"

"Acknowledge!" Bravo Team leader replied, he and his men who was on the right side of Miho's team returned fire at the enemies who were shooting from the second floor building.

The alarms were blazing all over, with men coming towards the 4 men who entered the area. Nikolai was in the air ready to help out. However, due to the sandstorm, he had to stay away. Despite that, the teams were making progress on advancing into the compound. Miho and Yuri sprinted forward and took cover at a small crate near the port that's facing towards the compound. She and Yuri managed to kill 5 hostiles hiding behind the bridges ahead of them in a distance below.

*BOOM-BOOM*

"They're targeting us with mortars!" Price shouted. Suddenly, everyone was alert, making sure that none of the hit them.

"Well, that sums things up," Miho added sarcastically as they moved out from their cover and headed to the port below, killing 3 Somalians who blocked their way.

*BOOM*

And a mortar landed right next to them.

"Shite!" Miho shouted, then looked at a shelter. "Get in that container!"

"What!?" Yuri asked aloud.

"Just get in!" Miho shouted back, and then they ran inside the container.

After they got in, they lean their back against the interior of the container then looked at each other. "I'm not sure if this thing could protect us," Yuri commented, which Miho ignored him.

"Nikolai, we need air support!" Price shouted as he kept firing on the militia himself.

"Moving into position now." Nikolai replied as he got the helicopter closer to the docks. The guns and rockets were armed, ready to attack.

Miho got the tablet out and turned it on. The system immediately connected to the gunship, with her getting controls of the guns. The systems on the tablet were booting as the systems on the helicopter doing the same.

"Waraabe's compound is at the end of the road! Move!" Price ordered as he began to move closer into the compound. With that, Nikolai's helicopter neared the docks.

"Miho, you've got control. Light 'em up!" Soap told her as she used the helicopter's guns to shoot at the men. The militia was everywhere, with some on the roof where they couldn't even properly aim.

Shooting at the men with the miniguns, each men died quickly. Miho had mainly took care of the hostiles on the rooftops of three buildings that were firing mortars, and they all died with a large explosion on their mortars. While Nikolai was flying around to let Miho keep shooting, there were rockets periodically coming toward them. Nikolai deployed flares to throw them off. Miho killed more than half of them, but Nikolai had to fly back.

"I'll fly back for another pass." Nikolai told them as he left. Miho and Yuri reload their guns and began to shoot at the remaining men from the container.

"Don't get pinned down! Waraabe's just ahead!" Price shouted.

"Let's hope we succeed, Price!" Miho replied in the radio.

Waraabe's men were still alive. Miho and Yuri in cover, shot at the remaining ones, killing a few at a time. She and Yuri then went off the port to their north into the compound by under the bridges. She and Yuri went beside Soap who was taking cover under the second inland bridge, she killed another one Soap was trying to kill inside a scrapped freighter ship in front of them. Soap went right from the bridge as Miho and Yuri decided to go through the scrapped ship.

"Technicals coming in from the North!" Soap shouted as suddenly Technicals arrived and blocked the road to the compound.

"Let's go! We have to get Waraabe!" Price informed everyone as the group proceeded to move.

Miho and Yuri both quickly climbed up the stairs to the porch, only to see that the teams able to quickly shooting at the technical and somehow blast them up to scrap. They were able to thin down the amount of Waraabe's men to proceed at that moment. Under mortar fire, the group kept moving. They went through the area when suddenly Nikolai informed them.

"Additional forces moving in!"

Entering the building they're at, Miho and Yuri spilt up there. Miho takes care the bastards on the ground floor while Yuri deal the second floor. As Yuri went upstairs, Miho went right and found two militias with one of them handing an AK to his friend in a room ahead. Miho shot at the two men quickly, and then another one who just popped out the room in front of her that she just cleared out. Miho entered the room and looked through the window on her right, didn't like to see that they were surrounded from the roofs and the turning-road to the right ahead.

"Price, the remote gun is online." Nikolai informed Price. Since everyone was on the same channel, Miho went to a safe spot by ducking out from the window and got the tablet out, then got ahold of the guns of the hind via remote.

"That's a lot of men." Miho told herself as she shot at the men. She kept shooting, killing several who were using the mortars back on the roof.

"Keep putting rounds down." Soap told Miho as she shot at the men all over the area. An RPG was launched nearby, but Nikolai was able to avoid it.

"That almost hit me!" He shouted angrily.

"Five down." Soap ignored the comment as Miho killed five men. Miho killed several more as Nikolai was busy dodging rockets from the militia all over the area.

"I hope my luck holds out!" Nikolai stated as Miho still putting rounds on the battlefield.

*BRRRRRRRRRTTTT*

"Nice shooting, Miho. Keep it coming." Nikolai commented as Miho shot at several while Nikolai retreated.

"At least 3 kills confirmed." Soap told her as Nikolai was out of range,

"Multiple kills." Nikolai confirmed as he flew away.

"Nice shooting, Miho!" Price complemented Miho.

"They're thinning up!" Yuri replied happily in the radio.

"Coming back for another strafing run." Nikolai informed Miho.

Going outside the building and headed for the road ahead of her, Miho saw that some men were in the building adjacent to the place where she was. The building was on the left side of the end of the road, second story building and it was like a villa. Though there were buildings ahead of her and her right adjacent to the previous building full of hostiles. She got her assault rifle and shot at the windows, killing them with ease with a couple of headshots. With them dead, Miho, Price, Soap, and Yuri who jumped down from the second floor started to move up.

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"Bloody hell, those MGs are tearing us apart!" Soap cursed as he and everyone got into cover by a small wall.

Miho saw Yuri slowly peaked out from cover a little far from her. Yuri was in the right position, he aimed his rifle precisely to the MG gunner on the second floor balcony of that villa. He paused for a moment and ignored the MG bullets, before he pulled the trigger. *BANG* And shot the bastard in the head, killing him.

"Bravo Team, secure the perimeter. Yuri, Soap, Miho, let's find this bastard." Price ordered everyone as the 4 141s operatives went for the front door.

"Right/Roger." Everyone else replied who heard it, as they 4 entered the building with rifles aimed forward.

"Nikolai, prep for exfil. Echo team is standing by." The leader of Team Two informed everyone as they entered the building. They were cautious, making sure that they got everyone.

"Clear left," Price said as he checked their left side, which was a relaxing room.

"Clear right," Soap stated the team.

"Watch those corners," Price informed Miho as she was the one in front. She nodded as she followed his advice with Yuri behind her.

"Moving upstairs," Yuri stated as they walked up the stairs, making a U-turn before reaching the second floor.

"Contact front!" Price immediately shouted as Miho entered the floor.

She saw the men suddenly appear before her on the balcony ahead, they were running away. But she shot one of the militias who stopped and opened fire at her. They marched toward the balcony ahead before turning right, following where the militias had run. As they almost reach the big doors on their right which one of them was at the end of the balcony, the radio went live.

"Possible visual on Waraabe. 2nd floor balcony." Nikolai informed the group as he was flying overhead.

"Copy that. Possible on Waraabe, 2nd floor." The leader of Team Two relayed Nikolai's info.

"Bravo one, get in position. Price ordered everyone.

"Flanking now. Multiple hostile entering second floor room," Bravo one replied.

Everyone nodded as they made sure to be cautious, looking around everywhere. Miho and Soap stacked up at the first door while Yuri and Price stacked up at the other door across the first one. Some gunfire coming in from the inside due to the space between the two doors only had interior fence. They load up their guns for a moment.

"Waraabe's office is just ahead." With that info, Miho followed Soap, who entered the door right beside him.

She immediately saw the militia shooting at the two of them, so the two returned fire. They were able to kill the men without having any serious problems. On the other side Price and Yuri are shooting at the militias that were hiding behind the pillars ahead of them. When Miho and Soap advanced to shoot those militias, a militia charged in from their right and attacked Soap up close. Fortunately, Soap intercepted the attack by dodging the bastards attack and threw against the stone fence and Sparta-kicked him off the second floor. They reached Waraabe's office before Price, who took the long way.

"That's the door to his office." He informed them.

"Finally. I am tired of being in Africa." Miho muttered as she reloaded her gun. Everyone else did also.

"I understand. We don't like to be here as much as you do, Miho." Soap replied to her complaint.

"All right, weapons tight. We need him alive." Price informed everyone as he got into place for a breach.

Miho looked at Price and give him a nod, which he nodded back. Miho plants the breaching charge to the door and quickly stepped back. *BUAAAR*. Miho then went in quickly followed by Price with Soap next to her followed up by Yuri.

As the explosion occurred and they're in, time slowed down. Seeing how the militia was there with Waraabe, Miho, Price, Yuri, and Soap immediately shot at the militia, while Waraabe try to flee by shoving away one of his men towards the operatives. The 4 operatives killed all of them with headshots, with one get shot in the groin by Miho (Yuri: Ouch). Yuri also managed to put a bullet on Waraabe's left thigh which sends him tumbling and crashed onto the weapon crates. Time quickly went back to normal, as Waraabe was trying to get up with his shot-leg.

"Gasmasks on." Price informed everyone as Price walks up to Waraabe and kicked him on his torso, forcing him to sit on the weapon crates.

They then put on the gasmasks they brought with them. They carried this for this mission specifically, to threaten him if they needed to threaten him for info. After Price kicked him and wear on his mask, he then pulled out something out from his pouch. It was looked like a smoke grenade but the contents in it was different. He then showed the grenade-like canister in front of Waraabe's face as he looked up to him painfully.

"Look familiar?" Price asked Waraabe ask he opened the grenade-like canister.

Waraabe recognized the gas that was used in Europe and knew what it was.

"No! No! Please!" He begged as he quickly reached for the grenade, but it was useless and Price throws it to the corner of the room, filling the room with the gas.

"Where's Makarov? Tell me and it's yours." Price told Waraabe as he held a mask in front of Waraabe. He tried to reach for it, but Price got it away from him.

"Our contact was a man named Volk! We never met Makarov!" Waraabe replied while in panic.

He needed the mask, and he knew that the gas will kill him. He didn't know that he was not going to be able to use it anyway. Soap stepped on Waraabe wounded thigh to make him scream in agony. They want to know more on the target's name.

"Where's this Volk? Time's running out, mate." Soap informed Waraabe. Waraabe was struggling to breathe, as the gas was slowly taking Waraabe's life. "Nooo!" He shouted fearfully, as he was struggling to breathe.

"Paris! He oversaw the delivery in Paris!" Waraabe replied, which made Soap and Price looked each other while Miho and Yuri still eyeing on the bastard. Price then threw the gasmask to Waraabe in satisfaction.

Price then turned around and in front of Waraabe, before pulling out his pistol and inspected it.

"Right, then. This is for the boys at Hereford." Price replied as he got his pistol ready to shoot Waraabe and aimed it at his head.

"Wait!" Waraabe tried to beg. However, Price shot Waraabe in the head, killing him. With the intel they need, the group exited the building.

"Nikolai! Waraabe broke! We have what we need. Ready for exfil," Price informed Nikolai as everyone exited the building.

"Almost there. The LZ looks clear but that sand storm is moving in fast," Nikolai informed the group as he was approaching them. Walking down the stairs and everyone took off their masks.

"We see it. Meet you in 20 seconds." Price replied as they kept moving through a gate and followed down the road.

"Waraabe deserved it." Miho muttered as they moved near the sandstorm.

"That storm is massive," Soap said in awe when looked at it as everyone approached it.

The sandstorm was as twice as the tsunami's height. But they don't need to worry about the sandstorm killing them. They need to worry about their evac via air would be fucked. The sandstorm won't do harm if it hits the men on the ground, but would decrease their visibility of the area.

"The last thing we need is to get caught in that. Let's move." Price replied hastily as they moved.

They then met up with Bravo team ahead of them and heading for the LZ. It was in the open with its surrounding are small second-story houses. Good thing was that there were no hostiles on site for now.

"So you think Waraabe was telling the truth about Volk?" Soap asked Price, almost reaching the LZ.

"He was telling the truth. I'd bet Makarov's life on it." Was the response.

"Hopefully, Price," Miho added with doubt.

"We'll start…" Price started to say.

*BAR*

As soon as the group arrived in the LZ, a sniper shot at them. One man of Bravo's team got shot in the head right in the open of the LZ. This took everyone off-guard including Nikolai in the hind. They didn't really see that coming.

"HOLY SHITE!" Miho shouted in shock.

"Чёрт!" Yuri cursed in surprise.

"Sniper! Ambush!" Soap shouted. They had to avoid it as they jumped into the nearest buildings and small walls. Nikolai immediately took off.

"Nikolai, get out of there!" Price ordered with his hand waved to the hind quickly. As soon as he said that, militia men immediately flooded the area, forcing the hind to leave and everyone to duck their heads down.

"Take cover!" Price shouted as everyone got into cover, shooting at the militia men, killing them.

"Dammit! This is why I hate this continent!" Miho shouted as she blind-shoot the enemies in the open from inside the building by the window, killing 2 in the process.

"Sorry Miho! I hope we won't have to come back to Africa!" Soap apologized to Miho, who was right in the open.

"It's okay! I hope we don't, Soap!" was the reply.

"Can we talk about this when we're off the compound?" Yuri asked, who was right next to Miho. "This is not the right time."

"Contact right! Contact right!" Price informed everyone as they focused on the right. A lot of militia men were coming from there.

"Spread out!" Soap ordered, making the whole operatives to split up to different directions from their previous covers.

"Get outta the open!" Price ordered, one man of Bravo team was still in the open and he went behind a wall, narrowly avoiding the RPG that almost hit him.

"On the rooftops!" Soap informed them where the rocket came from.

Miho immediately found the man with the rocket and shot him, killing him and make him shot the rocket onto his own allies on the ground below. They knew that they had no choice but to change to the secondary LZ. Miho and Yuri advanced from the building and headed out into the open, killing hostiles ahead of them with blowing up the cars and killing 6 hostiles coming up from their right.

"Nikolai, change of plan! Head to the secondary LZ!" Price informed Nikolai as he, Soap and remaining Bravo team linked up with the two at the only path forward on their right.

"That sandstorm is coming in fast. I won't be able to touchdown once it hits." Nikolai informed Price worriedly.

"Just be there." Price assured him.

The group started to fight their way to the secondary LZ. And honestly it was pain in the ass.

"We've got to push through to the secondary LZ before the storm hits. Let's move!" Price told everyone.

"It's Brazil all over again!" Miho scoffed angrily as she shoots incoming militias ahead, making the Russians with her wonder about that.

"What happened in Brazil?" one of Bravo team member asked.

"Clusterfuck," Soap replied, scoffed on why Miho mentioned that.

With the militia in their way, they had to get there before the sandstorm makes it impossible for Nikolai to help the leave the area. The militia however was trying to prevent them from making it to the place. When they almost reached a second-story building ahead, they were surprised by a technical magically popped out from their right and firing its machine gun at Miho and the teams and drives away. They were fortunate that they could avoid the incoming MG bullets as the technical was out of sight.

Killing the guys on the rooftops, Miho got more and more pissed off being in Somalia. Being in Africa in general to be exact. Last time, they failed to secure a package that affected Europe. Now, they are about to be stranded in Somalia. They just kept moving on as Miho and Yuri fragged the whole second-story building ahead of them 'till they only had two frag grenades.

"Damn these Arses! I will never come here again!" Miho shouted as she made a headshot to every militia. She was on adrenaline now.

"Miho's pissed." Soap muttered as Price, Soap, and Yuri started to fire on the militia, killing a few of them. However, Miho killed more than them which cleared the whole area and passed that building.

"Price, the winds are getting stronger." Nikolai informed them. He was getting worried, as the Hind cannot handle being in a sandstorm, like most helicopters.

"Just hold on, Nikolai. We're on the way." Soap saw a car moving toward them, and it was on fire.

"Contact front! Look out!" Soap told the group, as they avoided the burning car and exploded in front of them and followed up by engaging contact with the militias on their left.

"Multiple enemies are closing in." Nikolai informed them. At that same time, some of Team Two arrived, providing support.

"Copy, keep moving!" Miho responded as she, Yuri along with Team Two members taking cover

"Go, I'll cover!" Yuri ordered at Team Two and Bravo Team, he returned fire on a building past a second-story and a small storage building ahead.

They marched forward and running and gunning at the enemies. Price took cover at a rock in front of the storage building, whilst killing a militia who happened to be on the roof of the storage. Yuri and Soap take cover at a corner of that second story building and opened fire at the hostiles in the connected second story buildings ahead, full of MGs. The rest of Bravo and Team Two soldiers were covering behind a small wall right behind Yuri and Soap.

"More of them on the roof!" Price informed them, as they all focused on the roof.

"I'll flank them!" Miho shouted and ran to their left and then turning right.

Miho raised her ACR up and shot two militias in their heads who had RPGs in their hands. Miho then took cover at the corner of the building on her right, which was the stairwell and peeked out. She killed two militias who were suppressing her teams before moving towards the building ahead of her and headed right. Reaching the front side of the hostile's building, Miho pulled out her last two grenades and threw them through the windows.

*BLAAR-BAAM*

"Keep pushing through!" Price ordered, as everyone kept moving.

Yuri and Soap dealt with the bastards on the roof above Miho, before Yuri threw his remaining grenades to the roof. *BLAR-BAM*, to make sure the hostiles inside were eradicated.

"Why are there so many of these arses?" Miho shouted as she linked up with her teams.

"Obviously they don't like us! We killed their leader!" Soap replied to Miho's question.

Price checked on the path before moving up"The LZ is close. Keep moving!" Price informed them.

"Roger that!" most of the men replied in the radio.

"10-4," Miho replied.

They then ran to the right and turn-corner to the left and went up a few steps of stairs. The sandstorm was already with them, so it was hard to see. The majority was not far, but a little was already affecting them. And the LZ was right in front of them, it's possibly a four-story building that was incomplete and under construction. Their LZ was on top of that construction building.

"Nikolai, the LZ is in sight." Price contacted Nikolai. Suddenly, the nearly wall collapsed as a couple of militias was about to run from it.

"The wall! Watch out!" Soap frantically shouted. The wall eventually fell and crushed the running away militias.

*BBRAAK*

"Bloody hell!" Miho commented in discomfort with her eyes winced. "That's a bad way to die."

"Me too," Yuri replied, he also didn't like that kind of dead.

"Move fast. I don't know how much I can fly in this storm." Nikolai informed Price.

"We need to push to the top floor. Let's move," Price said to everyone as they headed for the building.

When they entered the building, Shooting occurred through the building on the ground floor. they cleared the floors. Miho even had to throw in a Flashbang into the enemies covering behind the barrels near the stairs. The hostiles all quickly stunned and stood out the barrels and Miho and the teams managed to shoot them down. Yuri on the other hand, killed the bastards that were firing from the left side of Miho and the teams.

"First floor clear! Move!" Price told everyone.

They started to go up. The sand storm pushed some of the barrels away nearby.

"Watch it!" Price shouted as they could felt the sandstorm pushing them a little.

They were nearly to the LZ.

"Starting my approach to the LZ," Nikolai told the group.

"We'll meet you at the top, Nikolai." Price told Nikolai as they started to shoot at the militia who were in the building.

The hostiles were even easy targets for them. Especially Miho, who pulled out her M9 and shot two militias in the head in one hand and out of cover. The militias were mowed down quickly and they advanced forward to the stairs.

"Second floor clear! Keep moving!" Soap shouted, with that they went to the third floor.

The third floor was thankfully clear of hostiles. They then headed for the stairs on their right from the previous stairs and headed upstairs. Miho, Yuri, Soap and Price had reached the top floor of the construction building. The 4 operatives step forward from the stairs and stood near the small wall and a big crate in front of them.

"Nikolai, We're at the LZ. Where are you?" Price asked Nikolai as he immediately used the communicator and shields his face with his hand.

"Almost there." Was the response.

The sand storm was approaching them, but they waited. Then they could saw that Nikolai's hind over the horizon ahead. However, the militia immediately saw the helicopter and started to fire on it. Even some stray bullets hits the small wall in front of the team, which caught Yuri off-guard.

"The site is too hot! I can't land!" Nikolai informed the group. Price knew this was a problem. He then thought of an idea.

"Miho, get on the remote turret and thin them out." He asked Miho.

"Roger that." She said as she got the tablet out and immediately connected to the heli's guns.

Seeing the enemies, she shot at the men. They died easily. However, a militia soldier with a rocket shot at the heli, almost hitting the Hind.

"That almost hit me!" Nikolai complained.

Miho ignored the complaint and kept shooting at the men, killing more of them. Several rockets were being fired on the helicopter, but Nikolai was able to dodge all of them while Miho wiped them out.

"I hope my luck holds out!" Nikolai muttered as Miho killed more of the men with the rockets. Suddenly, another one flew by. Nikolai was able to avoid that.

"That was too close." Nikolai told himself. Unfortunately, the next rocket will hit.

*BOOM*

Making the helicopter crash.

"I'm hit! I'm hit!" Nikolai shouted as the helicopter started to spin and fall.

Miho disconnected the tablet and quickly looked up at the hind. His hind was circling around in the air from that blast. But it's not only that Nikolai could've die from that crash. The hind was spinning and was heading towards the team.

"Laaads?" Miho asked worriedly as they looked at the hind.

"He's out of control." Price told everyone as the helicopter started to crash land towards the building they are on. "We've gotta get off this roof!"

"Damnation!" Miho shouted as she falls back to behind her with her team.

"Come on!" Yuri shouted to Miho as they ran to the opposite site of the roof, away from the crashing bird.

"Go! Use the ropes!" Price shouted as he and Yuri jumped onto the ropes at the edge of the roof, Soap used the other rope next to the previous one.

Miho ran to the rope and jumps at it. She quickly held onto it as she rappels down quickly as she saw the chopper crashed above and flew past the operatives. They then landed onto the very ground out the building, safe and sound. They barely survived the crashed chopper. But then again, they were quickly engulfed by the sandstorm which turned their visibility to their surroundings onto zero.

"Nikolai?" Price tried to check if Nikolai was okay. There was no response. "Nikolai, do you copy?" Price tried again. Again, there was no response.

"What the bloody hell are we going to do now?" Soap complained.

"We need to get to Nikolai!" Miho answered to him, Yuri agreed with a nod.

"Echo Team, Nikolai's bird is down and the sandstorm is on top of us! We need emergency exfil!" Price contacted Echo Team.

"Roger. We'll contact you when we get a fix on Nikolai." It was the voice of Chemo on the communicator. The sound of gunfire could be heard.

"Are you okay?" Price asked as Soap shot the lock pad of the gate and move down the road. The exfil could be delayed if they were stuck with the militia was there.

"Damn militia is everywhere! We're driving in blind, and these bastards are blocking the road with their technicals! We'll be there for you guys, but we might be delayed a bit. However, we were able to see where the Hind flew. We are nearby the Hind and will get you the fix." Vicek informed them.

"Make sure to find him fast! We need to get to him before the damn militia!" Price told them.

"We know!" was the reply. The group started to move towards where they saw the helicopter crash.

"C'mon, lads! We've got to reach Nikolai before Waraabe's men do!" Price shouted as it was hard to hear in the sandstorm. As they went through in the sand storm, they saw a vehicle. It was hard to tell what vehicle it was.

"Vehicle coming through! Stay low and keep moving!" With that order, they made sure to stay and lay low, to make sure not to be spotted.

"I can't see two feet in front of me." Soap complained as they took a turn to their right.

"I agree. I can't see anything in this sandstorm. How did I agree to come here again?" Miho complained.

"Yeah… I'll get you anything you want when this mess is over." Soap told Miho.

"Fine."

The group kept moving, but then they saw a fire ahead in the middle of the three intersection.

"Hostile dead ahead." Soap informed them. They prepared their guns.

"Take 'em out!" Price shouted as they about to open fire at the militias, if not for Yuri used his grenade launcher and blew the whole militias.

"Cheeky bastard," Miho commented, she forgot Yuri has that.

"Echo Team, what's your status?" Price contacted Echo Team.

"We've located Nikolai's chopper. It's a half click south of your position." Vicek told them this time.

"We are still having a hard time approaching you, but nearly there! We just rammed these technicals away, didn't know that you reinforced the cars!" Chemo complemented.

"We will be there shortly. Rescue Nikolai and we'll meet up with you later." Vicek replied.

The group heard gunfire and had to avoid the gunfire.

"Get down!"

They crouched down, and saw a full gang of militias just ran past them to their left. Their AKs were at the ready with flashlights to see through the sandstorm. Until they were out from sight, the team followed where the militias went with their rifles raise.

"They must have found Nikolai." Soap was worried.

"Move out." Price told the group as they kept moving. Apparently at that time, Team Two arrived where Nikolai was.

"Price, we've reached Nikolai, but we're under heavy fire!" The leader of Team Two complained as they were trying to stay alive.

"Hang on! We're almost there!" Price assured them as the group as they moved towards where Team Two was. They heard some of Waarabe's men were approaching the area.

"Looks like they're heading for Nikolai." Soap whispered.

"Drop 'em!" As soon as Price said that, Miho, using her grenade launcher, shot at them, killing nearly all of them. Only two survived. Miho did a couple of headshots, killing all of them.

"We're clear." Soap informed Miho.

"There's Nikolai's chopper!" The Hind was visible, with its large size amid the sandstorm.

"Echo Team's pinned down! Let's move!" Price shouted. He knew that, since he kept hearing gunfire when he contacted Echo Team.

"Echo Team, we're approaching your position from the South!" Price contacted Vicek, who answered. Gunfire still could be heard, along with the car moving.

"Copy that!" Vicek replied.

"I understand why Miho hates this damn country! I will never come back to Somalia or Africa in general again! Even for vacation!" Chemo replied.

"Yeah, Yeah." Vicek told Chemo, who was beside him. You could hear the two talking, as they were all on the same channel.

When they reached the crash site, they spotted three militias were opening fire at the crash site. Yuri sent a grenade from his launcher and blows the militias off that flank from their backs. They went down onto the crash site and took cover with the Team Two members and returned at the enemies on their right. Nikolai was outside the chopper, injured. He was still conscious, but not able to move easily.

"Good to see you, mates! Where's the convoy?" Price asked.

"We've got two vehicles 50 meters to the northwest!"

"All right! Miho, grab Nikolai! Everyone else, Suppress and fall back!" Price commanded. Everyone nodded as Miho picked up Nikolai. She trained her body so she was able to pick up people heavier than her.

"Echo-2, we've got Nikolai! We're heading to the exfil point!" Price informed them.

"Okay! We don't want to be here longer!" Chemo complained.

"Move out!" Everyone immediately.

"Echo-2, we're approaching the exfil point!" Chemo informed them. He wanted to get out of there.

"Come on, Miho!" The group ignored the militia, just running towards the cars waiting for them.

"There's Echo team!" Soap informed the group. The cars were visible.

"Let's go! They're just past the ridge!" an Echo Team with them informed them.

"Miho, this way!" Miho nodded as she followed Price's orders.

"We have to keep moving." Soap said as the group slid down the slope. Miho had Nikolai on her back. She let go of Nikolai, making Nikolai slip down the slope himself.

"Let's go! Come on!" Everyone approached the cars waiting for them. Miho got on the car where Chemo and Vicek was. Apparently the car was riddled with holes and bullet damage, with the windshield having cracks all over. Yuri followed her, with some members of Echo team and Team Two getting on the car. The rest got on the other car.

"We gotta move." Price said as the cars started to move.

"Move out." Price ordered as the cars immediately accelerated, making them leave the area.

"Glad you made it!" Echo One's leader told everyone. The car was still being shot at, with the gunner shooting at the militia. With everyone on the same channel, Miho could hear Price talking.

"So if Volk's in Paris, how are we getting there in the middle of a bloody war?" Soap asked.

"Miho, I understand why you hate Africa so much! Damn Militia almost killed us the whole time!" Chemo agreed with Miho, who hated the area. "It's just like Brazil all over again!"

"I know! We're never coming here again!" Miho replied in agreement and anger.

* * *

Omake: Why Miho knows so many languages

Miho was having language tutorials on her own in the Task Force 141 base. She requested some languages books for her to study, so she can speak in different languages. This includes Russian, Japanese, English, Portuguese, Italian, African, German, Arab, and several other languages. It would be useful in missions after all. And sometimes she asked some tutor to teach her on speaking different languages or check on internet to know how to speak the particular language. She was reading the books she got and solving questions which was given by some of the tutors for homework. While she was doing that in her free time, Soap came into the barracks where she had several books open.

"So Miho, you skipped lunch again." Soap was worried that Miho was skipping meals, doing these lesson. It would make her malnourished at this rate.

"I'm busy, Soap. I will get some later," apparently, what she didn't know was that Soap was carrying a tray with some of her favorite food.

"Look. You should get some food. I brought some lunch for now. If this keeps up, I might as well order you as your superior to get some food before you die of starvation." Soap told Miho, who was still reading and solving the questions in African. It was the hardest ones, trying to solve the questions in Ge'ez and Somalian.

"Fine. I will have lunch starting tomorrow," was the reply from Miho.

"Also dinner. You only have been eating one meal a day. You need at least two." Soap told her.

"Fine. I will have three meals a day, alright?" Miho asked. She wanted to go back to finishing this homework as these were due next week.

"Yes. Please try and worry about your health more. I know you focus on your combat and skills, but you are missing meals at this rate. If you keep doing this, you will be malnourished. I don't want a good friend who won't live long, because she didn't have enough meals. You are not in a country that is starving. You need to focus on eating more." Soap told her, worried.

"Okay, Soap." Miho replied as she stopped reading the book and started to eat. Soap smiled as he left.


	40. Chapter 38 - One More Favor For Ooarai

Nishizumi Residence. 08:00 AM.

.

Miho, Maho and Shiho was currently having a breakfast. Along with their servant, Kikuyo, who just finished making the breakfast for the family. They were also sharing their stories of their previous days, including Kikuyo who worked with the Department too. It was a pretty heartwarming day for the family. As the light of sun shone to their house and the birds singing outside the house there, with their dog having a fun in the gardens.

Miho was wearing her dark brown T-shirt with a flag of UK on the whole front in a vertical position. The UK flag was made to look old-time style seeing from how small pieces from the flag looks empty as if it survived a burning. She also wears her black jacket which was the hooded one with a pair of khaki pants. She was wearing a black beanie for today on her head. Her pistol was hidden underneath her jacket along with the ammo, her cigars and lighter were on the pocket of her jacket.

Maho was in her Kuromorimine attire, the usual school uniform one. While Shiho was only wearing her white long-sleeved buttoned shirt and a pair of black jodphurs. Kikuyo, as a servant, was wearing her usual green kimono. Shiho was about to go to the department later while Maho continuing her daily school as usual. For Miho, she might've take a stroll around the schoolship.

They were still having a conversation among themselves. Especially talking about the Valentine's Day about a day ago. Maho tells her trip with Erika yesterday around Osaka. Frankly, Miho found it adorable somehow to know Erika had given her sister a box of her own homemade chocolate. But Miho could sense Erika was a little afraid to be with Miho.

Shiho actually had celebrated the Valentine's Day with Mrs. Chiyo along with the staff back in the Department. It was a good time for her mother to get her mind off the Exhibition. But Shiho had expressed that she didn't enjoy the Valentine's Day a little. She was only stating that she just wanted… a different mood for the Valentine's Day.

Kikuyo, however, was really had an enjoyable day yesterday. She said she had spent her time with her own family outside of Osaka. It was good to say, her family missed her pretty much. Miho congratulate her on that.

Though, it was Miho's turn to tell about her Valentine's Day. All eyes trained on her while Miho rolled her eyes back in annoyance with a sigh. Shiho only curious on how did the date go, seeing from how the mother raised her both eyebrows. Maho actually snickered to see her younger sister just had a date right in Valentine's Day. Kikuyo, only smiled to Miho with her eyes closed.

"It's my turn, isn't it?" Miho asked with her tone was sounded like she was old.

"Yep," everyone replied quickly, still staring at her.

Miho just sighed as she took a drink of her tea. "Alright, I'll tell you."

"So how did the date back in Sakura Park?" Maho asked straightly, Shiho just looked at her with her irritated face.

"There were some things that was…" Miho paused. "Unexpected."

"Unexpected?" Shiho asked in confusion.

"I wasn't alone with her that time," Miho replied with a raised hand. "Anchovy have brought Pekoe, Éclair and Naomi to the park."

"Huh?" Kikuyo asked with everyone surprised of the answer. "They also wanted to visit the park?"

"Yeah, frankly," Miho replied with a nod. "They have spoiled our moment."

"Spoiled?" Maho asked.

"Yeah, they somehow knew we were dating for the first time," Miho replied, giving a discomfort expression. "When they left us both, Naomi just called us lovebirds."

Everyone quickly recoiled with a small blush except for Miho herself. "Oh, that escalated quickly," Shiho commented.

"You and Anchovy didn't tell them right?" Maho asked curiously.

"We didn't tell them," Miho replied with her both hands raised quickly to her chest. "They just know that."

"Maybe it's because you've a very good relationship with Anchovy-san," Kikuyo guessed. "I don't think that kind of thing won't go unheard of. Ain't that right, Shiho Nishizumi-sama?"

"I agree," Shiho replied with a smile. "Probably everyone around the town already know of your relationship with her, so…"

"Alright, alright," Miho replied in defeat. "You got a point on that."

"So Miho," Maho called as Miho looked at her. "Did you get a kiss from her?"

"Well, she kissed my cheek with her lips," Miho replied, Maho and Shiho snickered to that.

"Aw, why didn't she kiss your lips?" Maho teased interrogatively, Shiho and Kikuyo shook their heads to the question. "It's the best part of the Valentine."

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Miho shot back emotionlessly. "I don't want to go far to that."

"But it's not that bad actually," Shiho replied in agreement. "A kiss on a cheek means she loved you."

"What charms you used to get her heart?" Maho asked, to which everyone glared at her. "Just… wondering, you know?"

"I gave her flowers," Miho simply replied. "A favorite one."

"Is there anything else?" Shiho asked curiously.

"You all know I'm not a teasing type of girl," Miho stated with an open palm. "But I kept my respect and manners to her. A perk of being a polite Englishwoman."

"That's sounds pretty gentle," Kikuyo stated. "Is there anything else you did?"

"Well…" Miho paused in thoughts, before continuing. "I sang a song for her while in the same time I played the piano."

"Wait, what?!" Maho asked in disbelieve, Shiho and Kikuyo were both surprised. "You did?!"

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod and a flat tone. "Of course, it was Anchovy who encouraged me to sing a song for her."

"That sounds awesome," Shiho commented as everyone smiled to her. "What song did you sing for her?"

"Well… it was a song back in the alternate-future," Miho replied with her head leaned back. "The song was called All Of Me, by John Legend. A love song, I guess."

"Really?" Maho asked. "I wish I could hear you singing. Someone should have recorded you for doing it, right?

"Of course, it was Pekoe," Miho replied with a nod. "But I didn't get the recording from her. Maybe you could ask her about it."

"Huh? Why not Anchovy record that?" Shiho asked in confusion, wondering why Anchovy didn't record that knowing that the date was their first time.

"She'll rather memorize it than recording it," Miho replied, remembering she did ask that to her lover. "She said that she was quiet discomfort about having a record on her phone. Makes me wonder if she ever had something bad from that."

"Come on, Miho," Maho said to her as she softly pushed her shoulder. "I'm sure it's not that bad."

"Now you make me worried about her," Miho replied in annoyance and concern.

"What makes you say that?" Maho asked with a smirk.

"When you say 'it's not that bad', I know something was getting off," Miho replied rather coldly.

Though, that did catch her mother off guard by the tone she made. "Please don't shoot your own sister, please."

"Heh, I was tempted to shoot her," Miho replied with a scoff, that made Maho and Kikuyo freaked out a little. "Alright, mother. I won't shoot my sister."

"Wait, you were tempted to?!" Kikuyo exclaimed in discomfort.

"Yeah, I got my pistol here under my jacket," Miho replied as she drinks.

Right, that one statement left everyone sweating their foreheads in fear.

"Miho, what's going on in your mind now?" Shiho asked awkwardly and a little in fear.

"Dunno," Miho replied with a shrug. "Probably I'm lacking of tea here, or my mind is still stuck to what I always do when I was marked as a war criminal."

Right, they could say Miho was starting to get insane by now. Unless someone gets her another tea.

"Umm, you want another tea, Miho-san?" Kikuyo asked curiously and in concern.

"Yes please, that would be appreciated," Miho replied with a nod.

"Alright, excuse me, Nishizumi-Dono," Kikuyo then stood up and headed for the kitchen to get the tea.

After Kikuyo left, Shiho and Maho then look back to Miho. "I hope that calm your nerves down."

"It will, mother," Miho replied with a nod. "It will."

"So… about Anchovy…" Shiho said to her. "Is there something worried you about her?"

Miho just sighed to the question, and then replied. "I'm… just worried if she found out who I am. Afraid if… if what I do will bring the bad things to her."

Shiho and Maho both had understand her worries. Knowing she was a soldier, she has a chance to bring anything bad to someone she loved. But they both knew it was nothing. Thinking she was just so protective about it. But they can be sincere about the worries she had.

"She'll be alright, Miho," Shiho assured her with a smile. "You won't bring anything bad to her, Miho."

"Are you sure, mother?" Miho asked in doubt. "I mean, are you sure I won't bring anything bad to her?"

"I'm sure of it," Shiho replied, to which Maho agreed with a nod. "I just want you to take it easy. That's all. Nothing should make you worried about it."

"Alright, whatever you say then, mother," Miho replied with a relieved sigh as Kikuyo was back with the tea Miho asked. "Thank you."

"Your welcome," Kikuyo replied with a nod before sitting back down.

They were about to begin another conversation, when…

(Remove Kebab Loop)

Miho's phone was ringing again in the morning. Miho then pulled out her phone out of her pocket. She had hoped that was Anchovy. But her hope was faded away when she saw it was Anzu who was calling her.

"Who is it?" Maho asked.

"It's Anzu," Miho replied. "I wonder what that lad wants."

Miho immediately answered the phone and put it on her ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, Miho. You there?" Anzu replied back in her happy tone.

"Yeah, I'm here, mate," Miho replied with a nod. "Why did you call me this early?"

"Well, I wonder if you could come to our school today," Anzu replied with a tone of wonder. "Could you come over like, at least in the early afternoon?"

"Hmm, seeing I got nothing to do in the afternoon," Miho stated as she checked her wristwatch. "I think I could. Let's say about 11 o'clock."

"Good to know then," Anzu replied happily in the phone.

"I know," Miho replied in a consent tone. "Why did you want me to come over?"

"I wanted to ask for your help, but…" Anzu paused for a moment. "Let's say it's something I can't explain through the phone right now. I'll tell you when you got here, I'll be busy dealing with the school soon."

Well she's the Student Council after all, it was quiet sincere to know. "Alright, I'll be heading over to your school later. I'll be meeting you in your office."

"Alright, Miho-san," Anzu replied cheerily. "I'll be seeing you in the office."

"Okay, see ya', mate," Miho replied with a nod.

"See ya'!"

Miho then closed the phone call and puts it back in her pocket, while Shiho asked. "What was that about?"

"I don't know," Miho replied with a shrug. "She said she can't explain it now through the phone. Seeing how busy she was with her school."

"Do you think she wanted to talk about that raid?" Maho asked curiously.

"Nah, I think she's already happy enough about it," Miho replied with a shook and doubt. "I think that's not it."

"Then what is it?" Kikuyo asked curiously.

"Not sure," Miho replied as she looked at her. "But whatever it is, it sounds like she has a trouble about it. I will help her out as best as I can."

"I wonder what's up now."

* * *

Pravda Girls High School. 10:00 AM.

.

"Nonna, can you help me?"

"What is it, Командир Katyusha?"

"I have trouble writing this schoolwork. Can you help me?"

"Sure, why don't we find Klara first?

"Really, Nonna?"

"Yes, really. Why?"

"I still don't understand why you always talk to her in Russian every time I want to know about what you're talking about."

"He he he, it's just our habit, Командир Katyusha. That's all."

Katyusha's class was already over with a trouble of working on her new schoolwork. The schoolwork was a little headache for her since it was a biology schoolwork. That's why she asked Nonna for help since she understood finely on that subject. But of course, don't forget about Klara. Despite her habit of speaking Russian, she could help Katyusha in anyway.

They looked around in the main lobby of Pravda where some students are setting up papers on the wall magazine. They found Klara there, she was setting up a paper or two on the wall magazine. Nonna asked her if she could come along and she said yes. Klara brings her schoolwork with her friends and they headed for the library.

It was a pretty long walk to the library, knowing how huge the Pravda school was. And with this huge school, a lot of Pravda students all around the halls. And the students seem excited about the upcoming Exhibition Match, knowing it's gonna be 3 vs 3 school teams. Katyusha grinned to that because she's going to train her teams later. They need to work on their schoolwork before doing that.

Once they reached the library full of Pravda banners, they looked around to find a table. They found a table near the window and sat down there. Nonna then looked around for books that could help them working on their schoolwork. Nonna and Katyusha were both dealing with Biology schoolwork. But Klara, she was working on her history schoolwork which was her favorite.

A few minutes have passed and they finished up their schoolwork. And from then on they decided to read the books they just took off the shelves to spend their time a bit. Nonna was reading a novel that was available in the library. She then looked over to Katyusha to see what she was reading. Though, that wonder has vanished after she saw her face became an upset one.

Nonna then asks her. "Katyusha, is there something wrong?"

Katyusha quickly snapped from the book and answers back. "Oh, um, no, there's nothing wrong. I'm fine."

"Are you sure, Katyusha?" Klara asked, she noticed this after Nonna called their commander. "You looked upset."

"I'm sure, Klara," Katyusha replied lowly in denial. "There's nothing wrong here."

"Katyusha, I know there's something bothers you," Nonna responded softly as she landed her left elbow on the table. "Could you tell us?"

Katyusha didn't really want to bother them about what Katyusha was thinking. But a few seconds of thoughts later, she had decided to tell them so they won't bother her about what's bothering her.

"Alright, I just can't get my mind off about the soldiers who raided our school a month ago," Katyusha replied in defeat as she closed her eyes.

Klara and Nonna immediately upset to the answer. "Did you have nightmares about those 141 soldiers?" Klara asked in concern.

"Well… no, apparently," Katyusha replied, which relieved her vice commanders. "I did have nightmares but none of them are troublesome for me."

"Рад это слышать," Klara replied with a warm smile. "Why would you be bothered of those soldiers?"

"I don't know, maybe I'm just curious on how did they know Akaboshi was here," Katyusha replied reluctantly. "And how they could raid this school that well."

"They are pretty elite, Katyusha," Nonna replied as she closed her book. "More than that, they're much more operated well than the Russian Spetsnaz or the JGSDF."

"I agree, Nonna," Klara added with a nod. "No such elite soldiers on this earth would used a lot of tranquilizers to put down a lot of our students. It's like they were easily dealing with the riots."

"But that would cost a lot to be honest," Katyusha exclaimed in disbelieve. "How many students were shot with tranquilizers that time?"

"Last time I count, more than 30," Klara replied, she can vaguely remembered about it. "And the tranquilizers they used were no ordinary tranquilizer."

They looked at each other for a moment, before Katyusha interrupts. "I wonder who were those soldiers behind those masks."

"Now that you bring it up," Nonna said as they both glanced at her. "I found it odd that the soldiers who raid our school were all women."

Klara and Katyusha suddenly remembered at that claim. "Oh yeah, Nina did say those soldiers were all women before one of them knock her out," Katyusha recalled quickly.

"Do you think Ms. Ami could be involved about it?" Klara suggested with a raised brow. "Since she had warned us on not kidnapping students again and didn't even ask us about it."

"That's just impossible, Klara," Nonna dejected. "She did ask Akaboshi about what happened and also confirm the story with the proof about our phone call with Maho Nishizumi. Ami had no idea about who are these 141s and how did they obtain the information."

"What about Miho?" Katyusha asked. "She did say we'll got something bad in return and the raid happened. Do you think she could be connected with the 141?"

They looked at each other seriously, before Klara replies. "I may have little… suspicion about Miho. But I don't see how she could be involved with the 141."

"I'll say the same," Nonna replied with a consent nod. "She's maybe a hard girl from how we see it, and she was pretty wise. But I don't recall she would do something like that. I don't even remember if Shiho Nishizumi-sama would buy some firearms instead of tanks. And Miho couldn't have been a soldier since she was actually does volunteer jobs. If Miho indeed was the one who would dare to raid this school along with other two people, she supposed to be a madwoman about it."

* * *

Nishizumi Residence. Same time.

.

She was reading her bible to spend her time with Kikuyo next to her. Miho was calmingly reading her bible, until she suddenly stopped reading and puts down her down bible. Kikuyo noticed this and saw Miho was giving a rather annoyed look. Kikuyo was confused about it.

"What's wrong, Miho-san?" Kikuyo asked.

"I got a feeling that someone was talking about me," Miho replied, which made Kikuyo tilted her head in surprise.

"Why would you say that?" Kikuyo asked curiously.

Miho then looks over to her. "When I stopped reading my bible and I suddenly looked annoyed, it means someone just called me a madwoman from somewhere."

* * *

"Huh, I guess you're right about it," Katyusha replied with a nod and a scratch on her head. "There's no way Miho would do that."

"But we should keep a good eye on her if we met her by any chance," Nonna immediately added, took Klara and Katyusha off guard.

"Do you think there's something up about her?" Katyusha asked in concern.

"Maybe, just maybe," Nonna replied in doubt. "I just want to make sure there's nothing else she hides. Because she was being honest back in the tea party, not forget to mention about her incredible rage."

"О Боже," Klara responded in discomfort and agitation with her eyes winced. "Don't remind me about her rage. I never seen a girl would harm Kawashima-san like that."

"Yeah, that creeps me out," Katyusha added in agreement in little discomfort. "I may have been so confident and all. But that Nishizumi really freaks me out."

"At least we know what's her limit," Nonna added with a raised open palm. "We should watch ourselves a bit if she's around."

"I agree, Nonna," Klara replied with a nod before decided to read back to their books.

After a moment of silence reading, Nonna begins. "So, it was a quiet good Valentine's Day for us yesterday."

Katyusha smirked and looked over to her vice-commander. "Really, Nonna?"

"Yes, really," Nonna replied with a nod. "Why you ask?"

"That time when you wanted to give chocolate to me," Katyusha recalled. "You were playing with me to see if I can reach the chocolate from your hand in the air."

"Oh, that part, Katyusha?" Klara asked, remembered of that event. "What's wrong with that? I mean, you were adorable when you tried to get the chocolate from Nonna."

"Wha-what?! Adorable?!" Katyusha exclaimed embarrassedly, they were teasing her. "Come on, what's wrong with you two? I'm a big girl!"

"But you're not tall," Nonna added with a smile.

To which Katyusha responded with a slight offence. "Nonna! Don't say that!"

"Alright, alright, big girl," Nonna said calmly and happily as she patted her shoulder. "No one could look down on you, Katyusha."

Klara just giggled at that, while Katyusha just asked her to quit it. Their Valentine's Day yesterday was really the best day they had. They had recently visited Himeji Castle in Himeji City, which was awesome. More than that, near Himeji Castle there was a Valentine event took place so they joined in to spend their time yesterday. Damn it was fun, even Katyusha was so happy that she was almost tired to spend her Valentine's Day.

Katyusha finished up her thoughts on her Valentine's Day when Klara asked her. "Katyusha, I want to ask something."

"What is it?" Katyusha asked back as she and Nonna looked at her.

"Do you heard of any news for today?" Klara asked curiously.

"Well, I heard about the Exhibition Match," Katyusha replied with a tilted head. "It'll began about 4 days from now."

"I see," Nonna replied with a nod. "Then we should train our teams soon."

"I agree," Klara replied with an agreed look, before looking back to Katyusha. "The Exhibition Match is still in the same place, right?"

"Yeah, still not changed for now," Katyusha replied with a nod.

Klara smiled before asking again. "Is there anything else than that?"

"Still the news about the 141 raided a mobsters' hideout in Shizuoka," Katyusha replied as she red her book. "I heard they burned the whole place to the ground."

"And also the 141s did brought their tanks just to save hostages in there," Nonna added as she looks at Klara. "More than that, they never seen tanks like the 141s had existed."

"Really?" Klara asked. "I don't really think those tanks could blow the whole hideout to the ground, and even without any mobsters surviving."

"It's more like they bombed the place than shooting tank shells," Katyusha responded as she closed her book.

"Wait, you're saying they brought plane bombers there?" Klara asked in surprise.

"Yeah, and I don't really sure if it was a plane," Katyusha replied in doubt, then continued by Nonna. "It's more like they sent an artillery of Katyusha but it dropped from the sky. I don't know what made of that."

"And that caused a controversy within the government," Katyusha added with a grin. "I'm pretty surprised to know the JGSDF could handle that controversy."

"That, I wouldn't be surprise," Nonna replied in her usual flat tone. "Ami-sama has a lot of tricks in her sleeve."

"You just made me to start wondering what Cpt. Ami is doing now," Klara commented as she landed her cheek on her hand lazily.

"I'm sure she's dealing with the Exhibition Match, Klara," Katyusha assures her. "I just can't deny how excited I am with this."

"Me too, I wonder how are Kuromorimine and Ooarai doing now," Nonna commented, to which Klara and Katyusha glanced at her.

"You do know they still have a truce, right?" Katyusha asked, just to make sure she didn't forget.

"Of course, Katyusha," Nonna replied with a nod. "I'm just wondering about it."

"I'm sure the truce is still okay with Miho around," Klara added in her assured tone.

* * *

Ooarai Girls Academy. 11:00 AM.

.

"Miho-san! It's good to see you again."

"As always, Ms. Kadotani. Ogin, Yukari, I didn't expect to see you here."

"Oh, we both know that."

"We also wanted to talk with you."

"I see, it's good to have another company."

Miho was already in the Student Council's office, sitting down on one of the sofas available inside. Yuzu and Momo had already served glasses of juice on the table there. Yuzu and Momo sat right next to Miho while across her were Anzu, Ogin and Yukari sitting there. It was a pretty calming day for them, knowing how happy they are to see Miho coming over. Aside that, they were pretty happy that Miho had been able to make sure the truce between Ooarai and Kuromorimine still intact.

For Miho, it was like she had to delay a declaration of war.

Miho had wondered why Anzu wanted her to come over. Miho had checked up on Anzu, Murakami and Ogin on how are they doing a few days ago. Miho was still glad no one had noticed that they were a part of the 141. From the sound of it, they still convinced that the 141s saved Ogin first before Miho, Anzu and Murakami could.

Miho was pretty happy to see Ogin and Yukari here. They both are good friends for her and they are doing fine and well. She could get to know about Ogin a bit, aside her knowledge about the pipe she was smoking on was actually toy pipe with mint flavor inside. Ogin would consider herself as Captain Kidd, which Miho found it fitting for the leader of Team Shark. She also liked to be called boss or oyabun in Japanese term.

Aside all that, from how Miho looked on this meeting, she could say it was something important. She could see that everyone was pretty hopeful to see Miho around. It seems they were a little afraid if Miho couldn't come over. Though, this kind of thing did give Miho a little discomfort. Needless to say, she was pretty happy to meet up and talk with them.

Miho took a sip of her juice before putting it back on the table. "Thanks for the juice, Anzu."

"Your welcome," Anzu replied with a nod. "I thought you wouldn't come over at first."

"Why would you think of that?" Miho asked with a raised brow. "You asked me to come over so I did."

"Well… first it's because your hard attitude, Miho-san," Ogin replied with her glass of juice reached out to her. "I have heard about yourself from Yukari."

"Really?" Miho asked with a small smile.

"Yes, I did," Yukari replied with a nod. "You do know I'm a top fan of you, Nishizumi-dono."

"I could see that, mate," Miho replied with a warm smile, something that comforts Yukari.

"And I heard you are a good fighter, Miho," Ogin added as she took her pipe off her mouth for a moment, remembering the time she with the 141s save her. "Is that true?"

"Yeah, mate," Miho replied with a nod, making sure she didn't spoil the secret about herself as the 141. "I even broke some of the students' bones because they pissed me off first."

That did took Ogin off-guard, she widen her eyes in surprise. "Whose students' bones?"

"Maginots and Bonples," Miho simply replied.

That left everyone except Ogin a small sweat on their foreheads. "Yes, that's true, Ogin. We didn't a girl like her would do something like that," Momo added, remembering the reports from the students about what Miho did to the Maginots many days ago.

"Wow, I don't know what will happen if you had a fight with Murakami," Ogin commented curiously.

"Oh, I don't like that, Ogin," Yuzu said worriedly.

"I would agree with Ms Yuzu here, Ogin," Miho replied with a thumb pointing at Yuzu. "If I did had a fight with her, it's going bloody all over, mate."

"Bloody?" Ogin asked, but then she quickly gave a concerned look. "It's like what you're thinking, right?"

"Yeah, that bloody," Miho added with a nod. "We don't want someone end up in the hospital, right?"

"I agree, Miho-san," Anzu replied with a nod and her arms crossed. "Not after what you did to Momo."

"Well, I heard about what you did to Momo after she made you angry," Ogin stated, to which she narrowed her left eye. "But did you really have to go that far?"

"No, but I was enraged that time," Miho replied with a frowned face. "I lost control of myself if not for Anchovy was there."

"I see," Yukari replied with a nod, but then everyone quickly widen their eyes on the name she mentioned. "Wait, Anchovy?"

"Yeah, Anchovy," Miho replied with a nod. "She was a dearest friend for me. She somehow calmed me down when I looked at her."

"That's strange," Anzu commented with her fingers on her chin. "That reminds me, didn't you have a Valentine's Day yesterday?"

"With Anchovy of course," Miho replied quickly, this did make everyone surprise. "Along with Éclair, Pekoe and Naomi. It was really a fun day back in the Sakura Park in Kameoka."

"Sounds nice, Miho," Momo added as her head tilted to her. "I wish I was there myself."

"That's right, mate," Miho added in consent. "The Sakura Park in Kameonka was the best place I ever visit."

"Aww… I wish I was there as well," Anzu added teasingly and cheerily.

"It's a shame if I didn't tell you about that yesterday," Miho commented on Anzu's response. "But I guess I already had enough company for that one."

"Same goes for me," Ogin added with a nod, pipe pointed at her. "You wouldn't believe if Flint even gave me a ship model out of chocolate."

Miho just chuckled to hear that while the rest widen their eyes to her. "Flint really has a good impression for her captain."

"I was about to say that, Miho," Ogin responded with a smile. "But you got better words for that."

"Alright, hang on a minute," Miho raised her hand in the air, changing the subject. "You lads didn't call me here just to talk with me, right?"

"Oh yeah, that's right," Yukari replied with a nod, before looking over to Yuzu. "Yuzu-san?"

Yuzu then looked over to Miho by leaning forward and looked to her left, passing through Momo. "Well… now that you're here. We need to discuss on something important."

"How urgent?" Miho asked flatly.

"Really, really urgent, Miho-san," Anzu replied slowly in concerned tone.

Miho narrowed her eyes to Anzu for that. "And why it's really urgent?"

"I'm afraid we don't know how to say this," Momo responded to her question as she tried to keep her calm. "The only thing we could say is that this is really important for us."

"Alright, what is this 'important' thing that you're talking about?" Miho asked, as she observed every each of them cautiously.

Anzu and Ogin, as the part of 141, had even no idea how they would say this to Miho. Despite the fact that they were able to kept their stoic posture and their confident. Yukari was looked so agitated as she was frowning on something. Yuzu and Momo were in doubt if it's the right thing to tell Miho what was so important that she had to call her here. Make Miho wonders more why they reacted like that separately.

"So, what do you want to tell me about?" Miho asked, she narrowed one of her eyes and raised her eyebrow on the other.

Yukari then looked over to her nervously. "I don't think you won't like it."

Miho had confused a little on what she said, but then asks again. "So, what is it?"

The Ooarai Student Councils looked at each other for a moment, before Anzu able to answer to her with a rather frowned face. "It's about the Exhibition Match."

They had expected Miho would be immediately retort to them, but she replies to them with a cold expression. "So that's why you said it was important."

"Um, yeah-" Momo replied but then Miho quickly cuts her.

"What does this Exhibition Match has to do anything with me?" Miho quickly asked coldly.

"Miho, you're the only one who could help us win this," Ogin replied stoically but with a stern tone. "We really need you."

"Look, you already got Kuromorimine and Saunders on your back," Miho responded coldly but in a rather heavy tone. "Why the bloody hell do you really need me?"

"Because you're the only who is an expert in tankery," Yuzu replied as she stood up from the sofa. "You're a Nishizumi, Miho. And you're more better than your elder sister. We really need you in our side."

"That's not a good reason for why you need me," Miho responded coldly, narrowing her eyes to which indicated that she was starting to get angry.

"Miho, this is important!" Anzu said quickly in worries. "Even if we backed up by Saunders and Kuromorimine we couldn't even stand a chance against our opposing schools."

"Are you sure about that?" Miho asked in her heavy tone as she stood and pointed at Anzu. "The Kuromorimine has good aims and skills while the Saunders are good at pre-emptive maneuvers to cut off enemy reinforcements and retreat paths. You don't need me to win that damn Exhibition Match!"

"Miho, you don't understand-" Ogin said, but then Miho cuts her off.

"I don't understand?" Miho asked coldly, wincing her eyes to her. "The Exhibition Match is supposed to be a match where people could demonstrate their abilities and skills on the field and it's a bloody preseason game! You can do it on your own without my help because the other schools can help you on that."

"Miho, it's not about that!" Yukari said quickly as she stood off the sofa across Miho. "We need you back in the tankery, just for this once!"

"No, I'm going back to do any goddamn tankery!" Miho retorted angrily to Yukari. "How many times I have to tell you about that?"

"Look, we really need you, Miho," Ogin said calmly as she tried to not get carried away by emotion.

"No, I'm not doing the goddamn tankery," Miho responded coldly to Ogin. "I had enough of that bullshit since that goddamn incident and the 62nd National Tournament."

There was more reason than that for why Miho didn't want to do that. The other reason was because her first role when she first joined the 141. The time when she promoted to 1st Lieutenant because her ability to teach and lead an armored division of 141. She had memories when she was on a mission with tanks, and it was not pretty. She ever nearly gone rage once when she was on a mission involving a tank.

"I already hated to do that kind of nonsense again after I washed up in London," Miho stated coldly as she pointed her thumb to behind her. "It pains me much more if I'm going to do that again."

"I know, Miho, but this is different!" Yuzu responded in discomfort. "Just give us a hand on this one."

"I'm not going to do the tankery, Yuzu," Miho replied coldly, giving an angry glare at Yuzu. "I don't care if you're asking my help so you all can avoid any degrades given by a lot of people."

"We're not asking you because of that!" Yukari replied loudly as she nearly narrowed her eyes.

"Then because of what!?" Miho asked back loudly to her. "I can't do that again and you know it!"

"But, Miho, please!" Anzu begged as she stood off the sofa agitatedly.

"That's enough!" Miho shouted angrily, before changing her tone to a cold one. "I'm not going to help you without a good reason. I'm getting out from here."

Miho then quickly headed for the door and about to reach for the knob, while Anzu caught up on her a little and shouted at her. "We need your help because our school will be closed down if we lost!"

All the sudden, Miho just stop in her tracks just like that. Her hand nearly reached the knob of the door and she was froze in place. Her widen eyes still darting toward the door and left her mouth open a little in silence. She was pretty aghast of what she just heard. She was confused on why their school will be closed down if they lose the Exhibition Match. Why would the school she was formerly in will be closed down like that? She still loved this school, despite the fact of the incident she had last year.

Miho then backed away from the door slowly with a couple of steps. Before she turned her whole body towards the Student Councils, Ogin and Yukari. They were sad and agitated when they almost watched Miho the room. They were pretty surprised to see that Miho is already giving her pitiful expression to them. Miho begins to worry of this after Anzu said that.

"What did you just said?" Miho asked calmly to Anzu who was already clamping her hands on her chest.

Anzu was silent for a moment, before she replies. "Our school will be closed down if we lose the Exhibition Match."

Miho winced her eyes as she stares at her, before asking. "Why this school will be closed down if you lose the Exhibition Match?"

"It's the MEXT, Miho," Ogin replied in sorrow. "A man called Renta Tsuji-sama threatened that he will close down our school if we do not win a match for one last time."

"You have troubles with him before?" Miho asked in concern as she bowed her head a little.

"Yes, quite plenty," Momo replied with a sorrowful nod. "We had to make a lot of contracts for him to make sure this school is still running and we had to keep this secret from everyone in Ooarai."

"Why?" Miho simply asked.

"He has a past grudge against this school," Yuzu replied with her arms crossed. "Especially the time that this school shut down the Sensha-Do curriculum years ago before Anzu revived it back. We couldn't distinguish ourselves in any way."

"We even made contracts for him stating if we could win the match, the school will be still running," Yukari added as she walked over next to Anzu. "But… we made a lot of failures in the past matches that we had to make another contracts for him and helped him on some… favors. We even had to challenge the All-Stars University Sensha-Do team, but we failed."

Miho was speechless of this, as Ogin adds up. "Now, we only have one last contract for him. If we won, this school will not be closed forever. If not… it's all over."

This was a pressuring day for the students of Ooarai. Miho even felt so conflicted about this to know why they had to call her here. It was a wise move they made, if they had to tell this to her through the phone before even knowing why they wanted her help, she could've closed the phone call angrily and quickly. This was pretty pitiful for Ooarai, this school has been degraded, insulted, and now MEXT wanted to close this school.

This was her former school. The only school that she loved to be in before. And she won't dare to let this school get closed down which resulting the schoolship will be confiscated and their home is lost. She may be a soldier, she may be a commanding officer of her Task Force, but she won't let this one happen to her own former school.

She may hate going back to do a tankery match, but she is willing to help Ooarai.

She thought in silence for pretty a lot amount of time to consider it, before she gives her answer to them. "I will help you."

Everyone quickly taken back of her reply and immediately look straight at her. "Wait, did you just said…?" Anzu asked but then halted.

"I will help you, Anzu," Miho replied with a soft nod. "But I'm helping you not because I'm doing this for you. I'm doing this to my former school that I liked so much and for all the students in here."

They all smiled in response, they were very happy to hear this from Miho. "You… you will?" Yukari asked slowly in disbelieve, leaning her head forward to her.

"Yes, I will, Yukari," Miho replied softly with a nod. "I'll try to help you in any way I can."

Yukari was so happy to hear this, that she had quickly ran straight to her and hugs her. "I'm so glad to hear that, Miho!" Yukari said aloud in joy as she hugged.

"Okay, okay, easy now," Miho said to her as they both done hugging. "Though, I can't promise one thing."

They all raised their eyebrow with little confusion. "What you can't promise?" Ogin asked as she tilted her head.

"My emotion," Miho simply replied. "That what I can't promise actually. Especially if I was enrage."

They began to worry of this. Yukari, Anzu and Ogin understand that she did have trust issues. But they all worried of Miho's control of her emotion. Remembering the time when she enraged and beat up Momo deadly. Momo gulped to that memory for that.

"But do you can control yourself?" Anzu asked in concern.

"I'll try as best as I can despite I can't promise that," Miho replied with a frowned smile. "Just make sure you didn't set me off."

They could understand about it, she had a rough life after all. "Alright, Miho. We'll make sure about it," Yukari replied with a nod of understanding.

"Also, Miho," Ogin interrupted. "Just in case if you were enraged. What should we do about it?"

Miho didn't like of the question, by she was willing to reply. "I couldn't say how… but… try not to intervene if I'm enraged, alright?"

They really didn't like it, but they could understood that. "I understand, Miho-san," Momo replied with a nod and a small smile.

"So… when the Exhibition Match begins?" Miho asked with a raised brow and a raised a hand.

"4 days from now," Yuzu replied with her fingers raised to show the said number of days left. "I suppose you can began helping us training our Sensha-Do teams tomorrow."

"I agree, Ms. Yuzu," Miho added with a nod and a thumb up. "I could need a clear mind if I want to train them better."

"Sounds like a plan," Anzu added as she leans back a little.

Then they all stayed silent as they all awkwardly stood in their places like that. "Can we sit back down on the sofas?" Yukari asked to break the silence.

"Yeah," – Miho

"Oh, sure," – Ogin

"Yep," – Anzu

"Okay," – Momo

"Of course," – Yuzu

They went back to the sofa again and sat down. They then began to drink their juices up to the point where some of them asked for another glass. That's when Miho asked if she could… smoke in the office. Everyone including Ogin were surprised of the question, but they let her smoke with permission. Ogin had thought it was like the toy pipe she had now. But Ogin had to watch Miho pulled a cigar and burned it with the lighter.

She was stunned to know it was a real cigar after she smelled the smoke produced from the cigar.

Miho was real happy to smoke this cigar again. It's her favorite and it was also the thing that could calm her down. Despite that, everyone in the room was a little bothered to have her smoking in the room. But at least they could ignore the smoke she made. Ogin, on the other hand, fascinated to see an 18 year girl who supposed to be a high-schooler and actually a soldier is smoking like an old lad.

"Wow, Miho," Ogin commented, nearly left her jaw open. "I didn't even know if you're really smoking a real cigar."

"It's a rare for all of you of course," Miho replied as she breathes out a fog of smoke. "I hope I didn't bother you all because of this."

"Don't worry, Miho-san. I think we'll be alright," Yukari assured her with a smile. "Even if it's not healthy for us to breath."

"At least it's not pure carbon dioxide," Miho commented lowly to herself, everyone nearly heard that.

"What did you say?" Anzu asked as she misheard.

"It was nothing," Miho replied with a shook.

She spends the rest of her time there talking with the Student Councils and her friends there. They are pretty happy to have her around for company. But there's one thing she knew.

She's going to give a favor to Ooarai, a last favor to cancel the closure of the school.

* * *

Bonple High School. 13:00 PM

.

"Komandor Mika, Aki and Mikko, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Komentaja Jajka."

"And I see you already prepared a lunch for us."

"Of course, Mikko. We know you didn't have a lunch yet back then."

"Aw, we're happy for your generosity."

Mika, Mikko and Aki were visiting Bonple High School for hanging out. The relation between Bonple and Jatkosota schools was thankfully very nice since Jajka cease any act of harassment to other schools. Mika was so glad to know that the relation between her school and Bonple's changed from neutral to friendly and so as Jajka's. Thought, she did know the reason why Jajka did that. Her answer of 'because of Miho' was of course gave Mika and her teammates some surprise.

Jajka, Uzska and other Bonple students were already prepping up the lunches on the big table in the office. And of course, all of the lunches were made in Polish style foods except for a couple of it which are Japanese foods. It was nice of them to make lunch for the visitors, because Mika and her teammates didn't eat anything in the afternoon, and even forgot to have breakfast in the morning. Mika wondered how good these foods were as she let out her tip of her tongue from her mouth.

Jajka and Uzska were both happy to see the visitors smiling. Long ago, they both wanted to invite the Jatkosotas. But then instead of inviting them, Mika had called Jajka and told her that she wanted to come to this school. Despite that Jajka still has her arrogance along with Uzska's, they are friendly at their best. Though, if they were in the match they would still be ruthless as always.

Except in Miho's case, they would watch their mouths about her if she was in the battlefield.

Mika, Mikko and Aki sat down on the comfy wooden armchairs available in the room which was said to be the visitors seat. Jajka and Uzska, along with other 3 members of Bonple's Sensha-Do sit down on the chairs that were meant for themselves. The room they're in even fancy and warming as Polish related souvenirs decorated the room. There was also a banner of this school above the door of the office.

Jajka began the conversation as they take the foods served on the table. "How's the day for you?"

"Fine as the breezy winds in the morning, Komentaja Jajka," Mika replied softly with a fine smile. "How about you?"

"I guess I could say the same," Jajka replied with a nod.

"And me too," Uzska added as her head tilted to her commander.

"How about you Mikko and Aki?" one of the Bonple commanders with a red ponytail hair, her name was Zuzanna, asked. "Did you have a good day as well?"

"Yes, we did," Aki replied with a smile, before suddenly turning her face to sour. "Well, until Mika finished playing her kantele."

Everyone raised a brow on that as Mikko asked. "Well, what's wrong with that? Don't you like it?"

"Then tell me why you were driving the car like a crazy when Mika played that song?" Aki asked irritatingly as she leaned towards her pass Mika.

"Hey, she's the one who asked for me to play a song so I did," Mika answered her softly. "Besides, luck was on our side that we didn't get chase down by the police."

 _"Wow, didn't know Mikko has driving issues,"_ Jajka thought in her heart, imagined how did that go.

"That's impossible," Uzska commented. "That's should rely on skill."

"Sometimes we need luck, Uzska. Especially on the battlefield," Mika replied as she glances at her. "Besides, that's what would Miho need if she indeed goes back on the battlefield."

All the Bonples stared at Mika in surprise which caught her and her Jatkosotas teammates off-guard after Mika said that name, it made the Bonples frowned. "Oh, forgive me. I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's alright, it's just…" Jajka paused with a sigh, before continuing. "We didn't expect you would say that."  
"But… she really said that?" the second commander who had a monocle and medium straight black hair reaching her shoulders, her name was Milena, asked. "Does she relies on luck?"

"Both luck and skill, Milena," Mika corrected with a tilted head and closed eyes. "She depends on them both."

"Huh, that's odd to hear," Uzska commented with confusion as she creased her eyebrows. "Why would she needs luck if she had the skill?"

"To avoid unexpected occurrences," Aki answered with raised finger. "Even Miho was a Nishizumi member, who is known to be the expert in the tankery, she couldn't oversee that something bad would happen to her. That's why she also relies on luck."

They all had a pause of thought for a moment on that, before Jajka responded. "I guess you're right, Aki."

The Bonples were surprised of Jajka's response with blank eyes, before Mika added. "That reminds me of something, how is your hand, Uzska?"

Uzska just sighed at the memory Miho broke her fingers, before replying. "Thankfully, my hand is already doing well than before. I hoped she didn't do that to me again."

"Don't worry, I'm sure she won't do that to you again," Mikko added with a smile, but then she decided to be sarcastic. "Unless you set her off again."

Everyone was very inconvenient as they looked back at Mikko with concerned expressions with a sweat leaving their foreheads, Mika on the other hand just clears her throat to her. "Mikko, you're making everyone uncomfortable here."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean that," Mikko quickly apologized with an open palm.

"That's alright, Mikko," the third Bonple commander with long wavy dark red hair, her name was Agata, replied sincerely. "Just try to avoid anything that discomforts us."

"I will, Agata," Mikko replied with a sure nod.

As they continued to eat, Jajka asked. "I would guess you heard about the Exhibition Match?"

"Sure, I did, Jajka," Mika answered with a gentle nod. "It seems everyone is pretty excited about this. Knowing the Exhibition Match will start in 4 days from now."

"And more exciting enough," Uzska added. "it's a 3 vs 3 joint-school match."

"I couldn't even disagree on that," Agata added with a thumb up. "This Exhibition Match is going to be awesome!"

"But there's still one thing that makes me questioned about it," Uzska stated as raised her index finger in front of her face."

"And that is?" Mikko asked as everyone glances at Uzska.

"Why the match allowed up to 35 tanks?" Uzska asked. "I mean, why not 30 tanks to make it fair enough for everyone?"

"I'm afraid I don't have the answer for that," Jajka replied in disappointment.

"Yeah, me too," Zuzanna added with a consent nod and disappointment. "Naprawdę, why would the MEXT think allowing up to 35 tanks to enter the match is a fair and good idea?"

"Maybe they need more excitement about it?" Milena suggested with a raised brow.

"That's unlikely, knowing everyone already overexcited about this," Aki replied, doesn't like Milena's suggestion. "Allowing up to 35 tanks to get more people excited is just unnecessary."

Mika was silent in her thoughts for a moment, before replying with a smile. "Probably to see who's the dominant school in the team that would be worthy to add extra tanks for the team?"

They glanced at Mika, speechless as they couldn't believe of that logic. "That sounds tempting. But why would you think of that? The only thing that does make sense to me is to know who's the dominant commander to handle the battlefield," Jajka asked curiously.

"It's more than just leadership, Jajka," Mika responded softly as she sips the Polish tea she got. "It may also includes the strength, the skills and tactics the schools had."

"And which school that has most good traits on those accounts, the said school will be said as the dominant school in the team," Aki added as she clasped her hands on the table.

"So you're saying whoever's school that has a good performance on handling the battlefield will be the dominant school allowed to add the tanks?" Mikko asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's correct, Mikko," Mika replied with a nod. "Of course, that's what I think."

"That's sound logical," Uzska added with her right hand on her chin. "But I doubt that's the case. I don't think they would bother to see which the dominant school is."

"Most likely they would vote on which school that will add the tanks," Agata suggested while she raised her glass.

"I can agree on that," Jajka replied as she points at Agata.

"And so I am," Aki added with a smile.

"Then voting it is" Mika added with her eyes closed.

They then continued to eat, as Uzska asked. "So, you girls had Valentine's Day yesterday?"

"Of course we do," Mika replied with a nod. "What's better than giving each other chocolates and flowers?"

"When someone is having a date, of course," Jajka replied, which she received glares of everyone with their empty eyes. "What? It's true."

When they looked back at each other, Milena noticed Zuzanna was blushing. "Why are you blushing?"

Everyone looked back at Zuzanna, which made Mikko snickered. "You had a date, haven't you?"

"Erm, yeah…" Zuzanna replied shyly, making everyone except who was smiling, snickered. "I have a boyfriend."

"Ooh, I'm jealous," Jajka commented with a smirk as she landed her cheek on her hand lazily. "How was the date?"

"Well, it's pretty awkward actually," Zuzanna shyly replied as she played her index fingers to each other. "But we had a very great day honestly."

"Aw, that sounds adorable, Zuzanna," Agata commented with a smile and tilted her head.

"So how was he looked like?" Uzska asked curiously with a smirk as she closed her mouth with her hand.

"Well, he's charming, handsome," Zuzanna replied awkwardly as she scratched her head. "But… he's also shy like me."

"I'm sure you both will get along, Zuzanna," Mika replied softly with her eyes closed." But… just make sure you both didn't go far on the next date."

Mikko and Aki both looked back at Mika with confusion, but apparently this made the Bonples blushed to know what Mika meant. "N-no, it's not like that!" Zuzanna exclaimed embarrassingly to Mika.

"Calm down, Suzanna," Mika replied as she looked at her with an open palm. "I was joking."

Jajka laughed a little at that as Mikko and Aki still didn't understand what are they talking about. "I love how you embarrassed someone like that, Mika."

"I got tricks on my sleeve, Neiti Jajka," Mika stated stoically with her eyes closed.

They would spend the rest of the day eating up their lunch. They were pretty happy to have the visit to Bonple High School. And the conversation they had was enjoyable and really warming. They are pretty excited for the upcoming Exhibition Match that will be coming in 4 days. Mika and Jajka could how's the match will be going despite the fact they know Kuromorimine and Ooarai might have a little trouble with each other.

Unbeknownst to them, Miho will be joining up in the Exhibition Match.


	41. Chapter 39 - Sensha-Do Training

Nishizumi Residence. 08:00 AM

.

It was another glorious day for Miho Nishizumi. All the while the sun is shining brightly into the residence without no trouble from the clouds. Birds could be heard chirping from the outside as little breezing winds sighed to the house softly. The temperature for the day was warm-cold that may comforts the inhabitants of the residence. The day was just wonderful for Miho to drink her black tea for now.

Miho was wearing her grey shirt and black jeans for the day. She didn't wear anything on her head too because she felt it's not the time for it. Miho was also using her fingerless black cloth gloves. She has her usual drop bag on her right leg, along with the pouches that contains ammo on her left belt. Though, the pistol she will be bringing with her for safety precautions was Browning Hi-Power to avoid people recognized the pistol that shouldn't have exist in this year.

Miho was having a breakfast with her mother and her sister. While Miho was drinking her black tea and eating her crackers, Maho and Shiho were eating their food that could fill their bellies to full. Kikuyo on the other hand, was out the house to handle the gardens outside. Maho had checked her phone for awhile to see if anything is up while Shiho had worked on a little on her document she brought. Miho didn't want to have a breakfast, since she had stated that…

"I already had my own food back in my room."

Miho remembered that she had some business with Ooarai today regarding training the teams to be better. Though, there was something else bothering her. If Ooarai was on the verge of their school is getting closed, why anyone else aside Ooarai themselves didn't tell her about it? People may not know that she still liked, no, loved that school and could tell her about it. It made her even wonder why her mother didn't even tell her about it.

She was so deep in her thought, that she didn't notice Shiho and Maho were both confused why Miho was so serious to herself.

"Imouto-san, you alright?" Maho asked with a raised eyebrow.

Miho quickly snapped herself and looked at Maho. "Huh? I'm fine, Maho. I'm fine."

"Really?" Shiho asked, unconvinced. "You looked so serious about something."

"Well, it's just I need to focus on something I need to do for today," Miho replied with a raised open palm.

"Focus on something?" Shiho asked curiously. "What's that?"

"Is there another mission for both of us?" Maho asked as she leaned to her younger sister.

"No, not that," Miho replied with a shook. "I'll be helping Ooarai soon."

"Oh, helping?" Maho asked in surprise, before backing off from her. "Why would you be so focused on helping Ooarai?"

"Like, why don't you also come to Kuromorimine to give a hand too?" Shiho added to Maho's question as she finished writing her document.

"It's because the help Ooarai needed is different than the usual like back in Kuromorimine or Ooarai's usual stuff," Miho replied

Shiho and Maho gave out a huh before Maho asks. "What are you trying to say here?"

"I'm saying that Ooarai had asked my help to train and join their Sensha-Do teams," Miho responded and then sips her tea.

Maho and Shiho were both caught off-guard by that as they widen their eyes, and looked back at Miho. "Are you joking?" Shiho asked.

Miho just glanced at her mother with a pause of silence. "No, I'm not, mother."

Shiho and Maho was very taken back from that. They still remembered that Miho had enough of doing tankery that has giving her negative effects. But this one was very unusual for them to hear that from Miho. They didn't know why Miho wanted to do that.

"But… I thought you hated to do that," Maho recalled as she narrowed her eyes.

"I did, sis," Miho replied with a nod.

"Then why you would want to do that?" Shiho asked, her hands clamping each other on the table.

"Before I'm going to answer that," Miho replied after she sips her tea again. "I want to ask you something."

"And what is that?" Maho asked as her head tilted as Shiho was drinking her tea.

Miho was just silent for a moment towards her mother, before replying. "Why didn't you tell me that Ooarai Girls Academy was about to get closed down?"

"GLEKH!"

Shiho just choked on her tea which made her spilled her tea to her own suit. Shiho was taken off-guard by that while Maho was surprised. Shiho awkwardly rubbed her spoiled shirt as she puts down her tea. Maho on the other hand just glanced at her mother with an awkward look. Miho just sighed to see her mother like that.

"Is there something wrong, mother?" Miho asked curiously in her soft tone.

"I…" Shiho stammered worriedly as her hand nearly touched her chin. "How did you know that?"

"Anzu explained it all to me," Miho replied flatly with her eyes closed. "She said that if she lost the Exhibition her school will be closed down."

Maho was shocked because she didn't know about this, but Shiho was like… confused. "Wait, their school will be closed if they lose the Exhibition Match?" Shiho asked in doubt.

"Yeah, she said that," Miho replied with a nod, but noticed her mother's reaction. "Why did you sound confused?"

"Because from what I heard from Tsuji-san, he didn't say something like that," Shiho stated with her narrowed eyebrows. "All he said was he's going to close that close soon. But that didn't happen until now."

"And that makes you found pretty odd about it," Miho added as she crossed her arms.

"Correct," Shiho replied with a nod. "So why Tsuji-san didn't close the school sooner?"

"Aside the fact that their deficit problems have been handled with," Maho added to Shiho's question.

"It was thanks to Anzu and her other Student Councils," Miho replied as she leaned forward a little. "They kept making contracts for him so ensure their school is still running, even they had to do some 'favors' for him."

Both Shiho and Maho creased their eyes in discomfort. "It must be hard for them," Maho commented pitifully.

"I would agree on that, sis'," Miho agreed with a nod sadly.

"And that's why they asked for your help to train Ooarai's Sensha-Do team?" Maho asked to confirm this.

"Yes, that's why," Miho replied with a nod.

"You really loved that school so much," Shiho stated with her eyebrows raised. "Since you are willing to help them by joining up their Sensha-Do."

"I did, mother," Miho replied with a sigh. "But thanks to the 62nd National Tournament and that incident to Ooarai, I already got my early graduation by joining up a Task Force."

Maho and Shiho had chuckled at that, knowing the fact she was leading a Task Force full of adults. "You sure did, Imouto-san," Maho agreed with a smile.

"But she's not going to get an early graduation after she joined your Task Force, right?" Shiho asked with her head tilted.

"Nah, she won't," Miho replied with a shook. "I will say she graduated when she finishes her school, along with Kay's. And then they don't have to be bothered about getting the job because they already have one."

"Which is life risking," Shiho added in a slight tone of annoyance and worry.

"Yep," Miho simply replied.

"Sounds about right," Maho added in agreement as she nodded. "Maybe I could also applied to the Sensha-Do professionals later."

"Heh, if you say so, mate," Miho added with a small smile.

"But are you sure you're going to join the Sensha-Do team for the Exhibition Match?" Maho asked somehow in concern.

"I did, mate, why?" Miho asked back, she then eat a cracker after dipping it into the tea.

"Recalling your anger towards doing Sensha-Do, Miho," Shiho replied with a frowned smile. "You did tell them about it, right?"

"I did, mother," Miho replied with a nod. "And also I told them that I can't promise if I can hold out my anger for sure, especially when I'm enraged."

That did discomforts Maho and Shiho, but Miho added. "I'll try as best as I can to stay calm and to control myself, alright?"

"And did you tell them what to do if you were enraged?" Maho asked to make sure she didn't harm anyone in the future.

That question made her frowned. "I don't really think I gave a good solution for it. But I told them that if I was enraged, they need to back off and do not intervene."

That might be a hard solution for it, but Miho tried her best. "Still, it's good enough for us to let you join up with them," Maho commented with a flat smile

"Well, maybe for you," Miho responded as she leaned back a little. "But I'm glad you say that."

"I hope that they'll be doing fine when they are training with you," Shiho said to her. "Recalling that you're-"

"You don't have to say that, mother," Miho interrupted quickly with an open palm. "I'll try my best with them."

"Hopefully, Miho," Maho added. "Hopefully."

"How about you, Maho?" Miho asked after she sips her tea. "You'll be training with your teams as well?"

"Yep, I want to avoid my teams from losing their skills for the Exhibition," Maho replied with a nod. "Don't want the Pravdas see Kuromorimine as an easy target, right?"

"You are right on that one," Miho replied with her finger pointed at her. "How's Erika doing? I didn't get the time to talk with her."

Shiho and Maho sighed at that, before Maho replied. "She's doing fine, Miho. But I heard she really wanted to talk with you about something."

"Really?" Miho asked with a raised brow. "What does she want to talk about to me?"

"I dunno," Maho replied with a shrug. "She didn't say what she wants to talk about. But she really wants to talk with you if you by any chance got the time."

Miho just sighed internally to that. Despite Erika was being friendly to her, she didn't like her. Personally because of her memories back in Kuromorimine and how Erika treated her. And every time Erika had mentioned of the past, that triggered Miho personally like that time Miho was angry at Erika when starting to investigate Ogin's disappearance. Miho personally hates Erika because of her stupid arrogance and being an asshole towards Miho before, despite the fact that Erika was now already being friendly to Miho after Erika found out what Miho gone through and how Maho reacted to Miho's unfortunate faked death.

Miho just upset to remembered her past, before Maho asked. "Are you alright?"

"It was nothing," Miho replied with a shook. "Just remembering how a bastard she was before I survived that incident."

Shiho and Maho flinched to her language and leaned back. "Miho, can you at least… try not to swear in this house?"

"Forgive me about that because I'm just upset right now," Miho replied seriously with a deep tone, nearly taking what she said was sarcasm. "It… reminds me of something that's just personal."

"Is it about your time in Kuro-" Maho was about to asked.

But then immediately achieved Miho's angry dark glare, giving the nerves to Maho's and her mother's spines. "Okay… I won't finish what I said."

"Good…" Miho replied darkly, before moving her glare away from her sister.

Shiho may loved her daughters pretty much. But, knowing she had ever kicked her daughter out because she dishonored the Nishizumi-style, to which Miho didn't like it so much, she had been worried about her. Also… she's sometimes afraid of her because of her hard personality and how hard her self-control was since she was a soldier. And also how dangerous she was to everyone else if she was enraged.

But then again, she hoped for the best for her youngest daughter.

* * *

Ooarai Girls Academy. 12:00 PM.

.

"Ah, Miho-san, you're here!"

"It's obvious, mate. You don't have to shout it out loud."

"Forgive us about Yukari. We're just excited that you would help us on the Exhibition Match."

"I'm doing this for your school and for all of you, mates. I'll try my best about it."

Miho has met Yukari, Azusa, Shinobu and Erwin at the entrance of the school. Miho had greeted them politely, though she didn't expect to achieve a hug from Yukari. It's not annoying actually, it's actually awkward for her but not also embarrassing. Moreover than that, she was pretty happy to see Yukari here than anyone else with Yukari. She's a fan of her, yes, but at least she's trustworthy since back at the incident.

Yukari had told Miho that the training would starts soon and they should heading out for the hangars. The hangars are located behind the school so there's no need to get a vehicle there, nice thing to know Miho didn't come to Ooarai with a car. Though, despite that it was a long way to go to the back side of the school since the school was pretty large in the term of area. But Miho didn't mind walking, she ever walked miles before in a mission.

As they started to walk to the hangars, they bypassed some students that recognized Miho. Miho greeted some of the students who had come over to say hello to her. Some students she could heard gossiping to each other, knowing that Miho would help Ooarai school in the Exhibition Match. And some of them… couldn't help but to be deadpanned and stare at Miho who walked pass by in excitement in heart.

May she'll be damned of doing this Sensha-Do bullshit. But she can't help herself to see her former school to be shutdown. She was doing this also for her own best friends in her former school. For the best of themselves, at least they knew Miho really hated doing this again. But she's doing this because she was doing a last favor for their school by doing tankery. And this kind favor we're talking about here is the critical one, not the daily jobs that students would always do everyday.

As they walked, they also open a door for a conversation. "You're having a great day, right?" Yukari asked with a cheery smile.

"Well…" Miho paused in doubt. "I guess so…"

Erwin just looked at her, didn't believe that. "Not pretty convincing, Miho-san."

"Is there something up with your family, Miho-san?" Azusa asked with a raised brow.

Miho just sighed about it. "It's nothing, really."

Everyone then looked at her. "Are you sure about it? I mean… you sounded pretty doubt when I asked how are you doing today," Shinobu responded with an unsure look as they walk.

Miho just sighed in defeat with her eyes closed. "It's just that I have some conversations with my mother and sister."

"And what did they say?" Yukari asked curiously and in concern because of Miho's mother.

"They both hoped for the best for me on helping you in the match," Miho replied, the shrugged. "Though, I could notice my mother was concerned about me."

"Huh?" they were a little surprised about it. "Why though?" Azusa asked.

"My blasted rage, that's why," Miho replied a little harshly, though her tone was rather emotionless. "You all remembered of my anger before, right?"

"Well… totally…" Erwin replied with a nod, everyone even doubted if recalling those memories is the right thing but Erwin said it out nevertheless. "That one time when we asked something personal, and other one when you put Anzu in gunpoint."

"Good then…" Miho replied blantly with a tilted head.

They shivered a lot to remember the time Miho had to put Anzu on gunpoint for the sake of getting the location of Ogin's disappearance. They even wondered if she really had to do that to Anzu. Anzu is just a school girl and a hard-working Student Council who kept the school running, even if she had to hide a secret that might costs life. But at least, Anzu had told them that she along with her are good now.

"I see…" Shinobu awkwardly replied, nearly made a nod.

Azusa then looked over to Miho's drop bag, then asks. "What's in the drop bag?"

"Excuse me?" Miho asked as she misheard of what she said.

"What's in the drop bag, Miho-san?" Azusa asked again with a discomfort feeling.

Miho raised her eyebrow to her. "Why are you asking that?"

Everyone looked at her in curiosity, before Azusa replied. "You know, I saw you pulled out a gun from inside the drop bag before."

They all suddenly stopped walking and stared at her deadpanned except for Miho who just stared at her in stoic expression. Anyone else aside Azusa did remember that Miho had pulled out a gun to gunpoint Anzu before. That made everyone except Azusa gulped, and afraid. Azusa was starting to regret asking that to Miho.

But to their surprise, Miho just chuckled in impression. "Yes, I did bring a gun. But it's because I'm using it for safety precaution."

Everyone was convinced about it, not for Yukari however. "If it's not?"

"That means I'm pissed and wanted to shoot someone."

They quickly recoiled in fear with their awkward smiles. Was she serious?"

"Are you serious, Miho-san?" Shinobu asked, hoping she was joking.

"Yes," Miho replied with a nod. "I shot my sister before, but she got out unscathed."

Surprised of her truth was an understatement. They all quickly widen their eyes and dropped their jaw in horror. Why would Miho wanted… no… would shot her own sister? Well, they're going to ask Maho about that soon, or maybe just ask to Miho.

"Why did you even shot your own sister?" Erwin asked aloud, nearly making everyone around them to be recoiled in shock about it.

"She brought me to Kuromorimine school one day and said we'll be doing a walk there," Miho replied calmly with a shrug. "Then when she brought me to the tank hangars with my mother to meet the Sensha-Do teams, she suddenly told me that she lied to me and trying to put me on doing a match. I got angry and shot her around 3 full mags of pistol."

They widen their eyes more and leaned forward. Makes them wonder how the hell Maho survived that.

"How did Maho could survived that?!" Shinobu asked, concerned of Miho's sister fate.

"She was just lucky," Miho replied before she walked off and leaving behind the girls.

The girls that got left behind looked at each other in disbelieve for a moment, before catching up with Miho quickly. "Are you serious? You could kill her you know?" Shinobu asked in concern of Miho's unsafety actions.

"Well, I tempted to kill her," Miho replied flatly to her.

And with that, she silenced all of them for a moment. They all gave their empty stares to her with sweats leaving their foreheads in concern. Now it's not about how safe is she handling the gun. It's how sane is she to handling the gun.

"Miho, I really hate to say this to you," Erwin admitted with an upset sigh. "But you're a madwoman."

They expected that Miho would retort on that, but Miho just took it quiet well. "At least someone said that up to my face."

They just suddenly confused by that. "Are you kidding me?!" Yukari asked aloud.

"Nope," Miho replied with a small muttering. "Losing my sanity is on my list. But sometimes I tend to get annoyed to be called like that."

"Like right now?" Shinobu asked with an open palm facing up.

"No, not now," Miho replied with a shook. "I only felt annoyed when someone called me a madwoman from afar."

"Really?" Shinobu asked with an unamused look. "And how do you know that?"

"If I looked annoyed all of the sudden, that means someone called me a madwoman from afar," Miho replied as she stretches her eyebrows. "Even if the person who said that was over 10 km away."

Their eyes just stoned at her for a moment, before looking away and thought. _"Well, shit/damn."_

They said nothing else on the way as they make their way to the tank hangars. Once they reached the open field in front of the hangars, they could see the rest of the Sensha-Do teams tending their tanks out the hangars. And honest to say, the Automobile Club are doing a great tending the tanks there. Though, Miho knew the hard part was for the club to fix the Mark IV tank belongs to the Shark team. They gave a good impression to Miho.

Currently, the girls are actually having nice chats to each other. And Miho knew that they were ready for training for sure, since she heard there are target practices set up in the field. Anzu can be seen from afar that she was briefing with each leader of the teams. Some of the girls there can be seen tending their tanks for foreseeable care.

What was surprising was that Ami is there as well. From what Miho heard from Yukari is that Ami has been monitoring Ooarai's Sensha-Do Team for a long time. Ami keeps training them despite the fact that this school was an insult for the Sensha-Do Federation and the students are doing their best to keep their school running. Seeing Ami there helping the school on the verge of closing had made Miho remembered her time with the 141 when the Task Force got disavowed, trying to survive and get any support as best as they can.

When they got close to the teams, everyone there including Ami turned their heads to Miho and the girls she's with. When Ami looked at Miho coming over to them, she was rather surprised to see here. The teams however, were all pretty excited to see her here. But also Miho could noticed that the teams were also surprised to see her here as their first reaction before excitement. They then right in front of the teams and the Student Councils.

They all stopped their excited expressions and bow toward Miho. "Konnichiwa, Nishizumi-san!"

Miho didn't expect that kind of greeting, but replied anyways with a nod. "Good afternoon, ladies. I can see you all are about to do some training soon."

"Oh, sure, Miho-san," Ami replied with a nod. "But I didn't expect that you'll be here."

"And I didn't know you'll be here as well, mate," Miho responded with her arms crossed. "So you kept this school running for the whole year?"

"Yes, she did," Anzu answered with a nod and a smile.

"But I thought you knew that I'll be coming here to the train the teams here," Miho stated to Ami.

Ami and the girls behind the Student Councils looked at her confusingly. "Wait, what?" Satoko asked with her blank stare.

None of them said a word for a moment, until Miho breaks the ice. "Don't tell me Anzu didn't tell you about it."

Everyone looked at each other for a moment as Ami replied a little nervously. "Well… Anzu did say that another instructor will be coming here. But I didn't expect that instructor would be you, Miho-san."

Miho raised her eyebrows irritatingly, before looking back at Anzu. "So the girls here who weren't surprise of my presence here are the ones you talked to about me, Anzu?"

"Um, yeah," Anzu replied with a nod.

Which made Miho raised her hands to her sides in irritation and replies. "What the fuck, Anzu?"

Everyone recoiled a little to that swearing, prompting Ami to reply. "Can you don't swear like that in front of the girls?"

Miho raised her hands to her sides again, but with tilting her heads to left and right. "Depends."

Erwin, Shinobu, Yukari and Azusa pretty discomfort of what Miho said while the rest just stare at her. "I don't like that word, Miho," Nekonya responded uncomfortably.

"Well, you got a madwoman standing right in front of you," Miho replied back with small sarcasm and truth. "Of course you don't like that word."

They just gave Miho a 'really?' look, before Momo breaks up. "What's going on in your mind now, Miho-san?"

"I dunno," Miho replied with a shrug. "What do you think?"

Then it's just an awkward silence for everyone. Maybe she is a Nishizumi, but they doubt if they want to keep her around. Miho was really honest about being a madwoman, even Ami agreed a little about it. And to think she will be their instructor for the day could be rather nice.

Or worse…

"Miho-san, I thought you hated doing any tankery," Flint stated as she recalled of what Miho said on the previous days.

"Well, I did, mate," Miho replied with a nod. "But I'll be helping you on winning the Exhibition Match."

Everyone was surprised about that including Ami, except those who knew about this. "Nani?" Sodoko asked as she leaves her mouth open a little.

"But… why?" Hana asked as she raised her fist underneath her chin, then continued by Saori. "You said that you don't want to join the Exhibition Match."

"I did, Saori," Miho replied with a nod. "But after Anzu told me that your school will be closed down if you don't win the Exhibition Match, I felt pity for you and I will help you as best as I can."

Everyone was surprised if Miho would say that, they all smiled to hear that. "Oh, we're very happy to hear that from you, Miho-san!" Noriko cheered aloud with her eyes closed.

"Easy Noriko, you don't have to say that out loud," Miho replied with an open palm to Noriko.

"She's just overexcited, Miho," Akebi responded with a smile.

"I know, I know," Miho replied with a nod, but then she frowned.

"Is there something wrong, Miho-san?" Ogin asked as she concerned of the 141 captain's condition.

"I'm fine," Miho replied with a nod. "Just thinking on how I'm going to train you, ladies."

"Oh, about that?" Shinobu asked. "Well, since you're an instructor. You could monitor us by watching us from the watchtower over there."

They understood that despite the fact that she was in the age of a high-schooler, if not for Ami had to mix things up. "Shame, I got a better plan than that."

Everyone looked at her curiously, but Miho is actually giving her unamused face. "And what is that?"

"Why don't you go do a tankery match with them?" Ami asked with a grin as she pointed at the girls.

As much as they hate to admit, Miho doesn't want to do that and it made her to turned her whole body to Ami. "Look, I know what are you getting into. But I'm not going inside a bloody tank."

"Aw, what's wrong, Miho?" Ami teased with a grin. "You are afraid to get in the tank?"

"Not that I'm afraid," Miho replied coldly. "Didn't I bloody tell you about it?"

"Oh, you did tell me about it," Ami replied with chuckle. "But I don't care about it."

Seeing this, Suzuki whispered to Anzu as everyone watched in concern. "This is going to get worst, isn't it?"

"Eeeeyup," Anzu whispered back with a nod.

"You don't ca-," Miho quickly stops for a moment. "Look, I got my own reasons to not be inside a bloody tank."

"Why? Because of cramped space?" Ami asked sarcastically, she wanted to screw around with Miho for a moment to make her to get into a tank. "Because the interior is a little dirty? Because it's not safe enough for you?"

"It's not because of those accounts," Miho replied back coldly. "I don't want to get inside the tank because it's giving me negative effects, alright?"

"But you are a Nishizumi, Miho," Ami joked teasingly. "You're a scaredy cat, you know that?"

"Look, Captain Ami, enough of that," Miho responded coldly with angry glare. "I'm not afraid to get into the tank and I want to avoid negative effects that it gave-"

"Hah, nonsense!" Ami replied with a laugh, she really wanted to screw with her. "You're just bluffing on the negative effects just because you are a coward. You're stupid and ugly, you know that?"

*CLICK-CLACK*

Tada, everyone quickly froze to what they just heard. And to what they just saw. Miho just drew her Browning Hi-Power pistol and aimed it straight to Ami. The girls recoiled with fright as they froze on their place. Ami, on the other hand was so shocked that she had to take a step back from Miho. Everything was just silent after this happened.

Yukari then awkwardly said to everyone aloud. "I… forgot to tell you that she has a gun."

Well, it's too late for that, as Miho warned Ami. "5 seconds."

"Ah shit."

.

5 seconds later.

.

*DOR-DOR-DOR*

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! FUUUCK!"

*DOR-DOR*

Ami already hid in the bush and then to behind a tree as Miho starts putting pot shots to Ami. Saying she was angry was an understatement, she was really offended about it. While all the students back there could only watch in horror and shock as they still froze in their spots with their jaws dropped.

"Miho, I was joking!" Ami shouted panickedly as she peeked out.

*DOR*

"Oh, YOU'RE JOKING?!" Miho asked aloud sarcastically. "YOU JUST MAKE THINGS PERSONAL, YOU WANKER!"

*DOR-DOR*

Ami ducked down again behind the tree, before shouting back again. "Miho, we can talk this out!"

*DOR*

"WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT WHEN I PUT A BULLET IN YOUR THROAT, YOU WANKER!" Miho retorted aloud, then shoots again.

*DOR-DOR*

Meanwhile the girls still watching Miho shoots at Ami in anger. It questioned them if Miho really wanted to kill her or not. Even the Anglerfish team starting to think that Miho just lost her mind, with Mako facepalmed at that. The Shark team could imagine if Miho was a pirate and could go angry like that. The Student Councils could only give their blank stares to the scene with their false smiles.

*DOR-DOR*

As they watched, Yuzu leaned over to Anzu. "Uh… should we…?"

*DOR-DOR*

Considering the situation right now, Anzu replied stoned-face. "No, no… just no. It's not a good idea right now."

*DOR-DOR-DOR*

"Okay then," Yuzu quickly replied with a nod then leaned away from Anzu and continued to watch.

*DOR-DOR*

They only continued to watch the odd scenery in front of them without moving a single body.

.

25 minutes later

.

Miho was already in the Panzer IV tank with the Anglerfish teams, and it's good to say the situation right now is awkward.

"Well…" Yukari said awkwardly as they all still froze. "That escalated quickly."

Miho and the Anglerfish team was already at the designated position in the training field of a jungle. Miho was sitting out on the door turret lazily as she looked around the surrounding areas. Yukari is dealing with the loading of the turret's cannon. Saori is dealing with operating radio. Hana is dealing with shooting targets, in which Miho could see that she has the potential to become a sniper. And Mako is the one who's driving the bloody, which reminds Miho about Nikolai who drove a tank before.

Ami is standing on the overwatch tower far away from the training field. Watching the whole scenario with her binoculars she brought. She was pretty glad that Miho stopped shooting at her angrily, one bullet nearly hit her head back there. Ami didn't really think some small joke like that could trigger her like that. Despite the fact that Miho is the commanding officer of the 141.

Miho and the Anglerfish team already moving in throughout the jungle and have teamed up with the Shark Team. They are actually looking around for any targets around the field because they already found and shot the Hippo team and Rabbit team. They are currently driving around the top of the hills and advanced forward through the bushes. There's nothing else ahead of them except for the thick bushes and a few trees on their left and right.

Miho looked around by turning her head around but didn't found anything out of the ordinary, she then reached for the radio of the headset she has. "Shark team, do you see anything out there?"

"I don't see anything out there, Captain," Ogin replied in the radio. "All we could see here are only bushes and trees here."

"10-4, keep your eyes open for any movement," Miho replied in the radio. "Out."

After she closed the radio, the Anglerfish team except Mako looked up at her in confusion. "Miho, what's 10-4?" Yukari asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Acknowledgement," Miho replied, not bothering to look down.

"Oh," Yukari replied, then continued by Saori. "By the way, Miho. Where did you get a real pistol like that?"

"I bought it," Miho simply replied, still keeping her eyes on their surroundings.

Hana had felt uneasy about this, knowing that Miho is still keeping her pistol around especially now. "I know it's for safety precautions, Miho. But do you really had to shoot Ami-sama like that?"

"When I got angry," Miho replied with her head tilted.

"I suppose you ever shot your own sister before," Mako joked despite she sounded pretty emotionless."

"Mako, don't say that!" Saori exclaimed angrily to Mako who just huffed of that shouting.

Miho on the other hand, was impressed internally. "I didn't expect you know about that, Mako."

The Anglerfish team quickly went speechless for a moment as they stared into nothing. "Nani?! You really shot your own sister!?" Hana asked aloud as she turned around to Miho who's sitting out on the turret.

"Yes, I did, mate," Miho replied flatly. "She pissed me off first before I shot her. Apparently she didn't get shot, despite the fact that I shot her with 3 full magazines."

The Anglerfish teams only gave their blank stares as they didn't bother to look at Miho. "I still can't believe how she survived that," Saori commented, while inside she was in shock.

"Let's just say she was having a bad day," Miho countered flatly, leaning her back a little.

"I could see that, Miho-san," Mako replied with a weak tone of her usual low-blood pressure.

Hana looked through the scope for a moment, before she said to Miho. "I got nothing in my scope, Miho-san."

Miho then looked through her scope to her north, it was a path leading down the hill. But now on their left side there's a small cliff of a hill. But on their right were the same bushes and trees there.

This made Miho commented something as she got off her binoculars. "Hmm, I wonder why only Hippo and Rabbit teams are the only ones we encountered before."

"Do you think we're walking to a trap?" Yukari asked as she looked up.

"Probably," Miho then reached for the radio. "Shark team, stay on top of the hill at the edge of the hill."

"Why?" Flint asked in the radio.

"I want you to provide overwatch for us," Miho replied in the radio. "Enter through the bushes and trees on your right, find a good position that would conceal your tank from sight and watch for any movement below."

"Aye-aye, captain," Ogin replied in the radio.

The Shark Team then go to their right straight to the bushes and trees. The few trees there are big enough that it could conceal the big Mark IV tank from plain sight. The Anglerfish team was not comfortable about this. Knowing that the hard armored tank is not with them for now.

"I don't like this," Hana commented as she looked through her scope. "Are you sure telling the Shark Team to go there?"

Miho then entered the turret and looked at Hana. "Why?"

"We're pretty vulnerable here without that tank," Saori replied in concern.

"I know, mate," Miho replied with a nod. "But I'm sure they won't ambush us from here."

"Why?" Yukari asked, curiously.

"Because my guts telling me they're not hiding on our right flank," Miho simply replied. "And it's impossible for them to shoot us from the cliff that is right next to us."

"Well, I can agree on that," Mako replied as she didn't bother to look back and kept driving. "I have a same feeling like Miho-san."

The other three girls then looked back at Miho in little concern. "Alright, if you say so," Saori replied with a nod.

Miho then got out the turret again and looked around with the binoculars. The team then drives down the hill without any trouble and then turn a little to their right. Miho directed her binoculars to their right flank which there was a load of dense forest there. She didn't see anything there because she had to turn to their left after she heard something from there, a rustling. Turn out, it was a couple of rabbits playing around in the grass next to the advancing tank.

She sighed to see that, but then her body quickly tensed up. She narrowed her eyes and turned her head very little to her right, only looking through her shoulder. She suddenly felt something from a distance. What she felt was something waiting for them. And then… she quickly knew something is coming for them.

"MAKO! STOP THE TANK!"

The team was surprised by her shout and Mako suddenly stops the tank.

*BOOM-DUARR*

… Right on fucking time. It shot the ground in front of them.

"Oh God!" Saori shouted, as the team and tank flinched from the blast. "Where did that come from?!"

"It's from our right flank!" Miho shouted as another shot from the forest afar on their right rang out

*BOOM—DUAR* *BOOM—DUAR* *BOOM—DUAR* *BOOM—DUAR*

Another shot blasted on their rear. And aside their tank.

"Woah!" Yukari shouted as they hold onto the interior and began driving the tank out the killing zone.

"Shark Team, do you see them?!" Miho shouted on the radio as Mako drives the tank to the front left.

"I could see the Turtle team!" Flint shouted in the radio. "We're giving you covering fire!"

*BOOM-BOOM-DUAR-DUAR-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"Mako, evasive manouvers and get us out the line of fire!" Miho shouted. "Hana, get ready to return fire!"

"Of course, Miho-san!" Hana shouted back as she turned the turret around and ready to open fire.

On the other side, Anzu with her Turtle Team along with Duck, Mallard, Anteater and Leopon teams were having a bad day. They really had a good chance for Anzu to shoot at the Anglerfish Team and put it out of commission. They can't believe that Anzu missed the shot just because the Anglerfish team suddenly stopped their tank right on time. And now, they are under fire by Miho's team from nowhere.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-DUAR-DUAR-DUAR-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"How the hell they dodged that!?" Momo shouted in shock as they trying their best to hold onto the interior of their tank.

"I don't know!" Anzu shouted back. "They didn't see us, that's impossible!"

"And now they know where we are!" Yuzu exclaimed loudly as the cannon shells shooting at them from above unbeknownst to them.

"What are we going to do!?" Sodoko asked loudly in the radio.

*BOOM-BUAR* "AAAAAAHH!"

"Duck team, are you okay?" Anzu asked in the radio.

"We've been destroyed!" Noriko shouted back in the radio.

*BOOM-BUAR* "AAAAAAIIIHH!"

"Anteater?" Anzu asked in the radio.

"We're out of the fight!" Piyotan shouted in the radio, they're down as well.

"Alright, all remaining teams, spread out!" Anzu said in the radio, Yuzu then quickly drives their tank away from their position.

Back on Miho's team, Hana was firing back onto the opposing targets as Mako drives the tank around to avoid the incoming shells flawlessly. "Shark Team, did we got 'em?" Miho asked in the radio.

"We got Duck team, but we still have 3 teams to deal with," Flint replied in the radio as Shark Team shooting from above the hill.

"Do you think you can deal with the Leopon Team?" Miho asked in the radio, Hana nearly shot the Mallard Team who was moving out from the forest.

"If we go with you," Ogin replied in the radio.

*BAM-BAM-BAM-BUAR-DUAR-BUAAAM*

"Copy, come down and follow me," Miho replied as enemy shells raining at the team.

Miho then looked out the turret and use her binoculars to see where are the enemies moving to. She could see that the enemies moving out to the edge of the right of the forest and took cover behind the trees there. Some shells hit the grounds in front Miho as the Panzer returned fire at the enemies. Miho didn't even mind about it despite they were shooting in an open area.

*BOOM-SWUIIIING*

"Bloody hell," Miho casually said after that shell passed the tank. "There goes the Tiger."

"There's no way we're going to shoot it down on the front!" Saori exclaimed to Miho.

"The only way to deal that tank is only by shooting it on the rear," Yukari replied quickly to her smoothly.

"I know that, Yukari," Miho replied as she uses her binocular to see the enemy positions. "Mako, get this tank around that forest so Hana can get a better shot."

"Alright…" Mako replied weakly before she drives the tank forward and around that forest.

"Hana, can you get a shot on them?" Miho asked as the tank moving.

"A little, Miho," Hana replied as she pulled the trigger on the targets.

"Come on, you can do it, Hana!" Yukari cheered as she inserts a fresh shell into the cannon.

"I'll try," Hana replied as she focused on shooting another target.

Mako drives the tank quickly around the forest and hold their position there. Mako then drives the tank forward and backward for the sake of avoiding the incoming shells as Hana adjusted her aim to the targets. Miho could saw the Shark team is already off the hill and advancing towards the forest from the west side of the forest to do a crossfire. The opposing teams are having a hard time to deal with the crossfire.

*TUNG-TANG-TWING*

And Mallard Team managed to hit the Panzer with their machine guns.

"And they scratch the paint," Miho commented, unamused. "Return fire."

"I'm on it," Hana replied as she shot out another shell.

*BOOM-BUAARRRM*

Hana managed to shot the Mallard team that was hiding in the bushes and next to a tree. But the shot wasn't enough to put it out of commission since Hana shot it on the front. Mallard team's Char B1 Bis tank returned fire at Anglerfish team, but the shot landed right next to the Panzer tank. It was close enough for Miho.

*BOOM-BUARM*

The Mallard Team suddenly got shot from their left flank, and immediately pops up the white flag on top of the turret. The Char B1 Bis tank is out of commission thanks to the Shark Team. The Shark Team was slowly closing in to the forest. Now there's only two teams to deal with.

As Anglerfish and Shark teams returned fire, they saw the Leopon and Turtle teams' tanks retreated back deeper into the forest. They were out of sight and the two teams ceased fire for now, they sure don't want to waste their ammo for it. Miho ordered both teams to move in to the forest to intercept the targets, Anglerfish from the north of the forest while Shark Team coming from the west. Despite the dense the forest had, the tanks could go in with no trouble. Unless the dirt there are wet.

"Looks like they scared!" Yukari shouted happily. "Even if they had a Tiger on their side."

"Looks like it," Miho replied as both tanks were halfway to reach the edge of the forest, the reached her radio. "Shark Team, keep your guards up. They may have some surprises for us."

"We'll keep that in mind," Flint replied in the radio.

When they reached the edge of the forest, that's when they heard some rustling from the forest. And then, the sounds of the engine.

*BBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMM*

And it was getting louder.

"Eyes up, ladies, we got contact!" Miho said nearly aloud, to her former team and the Shark Team.

*BBRRRRRRRM-FWISH-BRRRRRRRMMMM*

The Tiger tank and the Hetzer just came out from the forest on the northwest side. It took the both teams by surprise since they are still aiming at the forest. Not for Miho though, she expected a little for that to happen. It was funny for her though, the last time she remembered there is a path that could go through the forest. So she could say the opposing teams were booking to run away.

"They're running away!" Ogin shouted in the radio.

"We need to get them!" Saori shouted to Miho.

"Chase 'em down," Miho ordered casually as Hana turned the turret at the targets.

Mako quickly turns the tank around as Shark Team did the same and chased the running away enemies in full speed. Hana, Cutlass and Murakami who were in the Mark IV tank open fire at the running away targets. Their shots still miss as the opposing teams are having the same thing as they engaged a high-speed chase. Though, the only thing they need to worry about was one.

*BOOM-WHIZZ-*

The Tiger Porsche tank was one hell of a problem for them, since it has great damage against many tanks.

Makes Miho to wonder if that Tiger could put Abrams tank down.

"That Tiger tank is a big problem for us," Mako stated as she focused on driving the tank.

"I know mate," Miho replied as she holds onto the hole turret. "Hana, deal with the Tiger first."

"Hai!" Hana replied quickly with a nod.

Hana then turned her turret towards the enemy tiger and silent for a moment, before pulling the trigger.

"BOOM-DUAR*

But Miho saw the shot as a miss. The Shark Team are trying to put a shot on the Tiger on the rear but they still miss. They kept shooting at the runaway Tiger, and Shark Team managed to put a shot on the Tiger on its left side. But it was not enough to put it out since the shot actually scratched the Tiger Porsche instead of blowing up on it.

"We hit the Leopon Team!" Ogin shouted in the radio. "But it's a scratch!"

"Copy that, Shark Team," Miho replied in her stoic tone. "Keep the heat on them."

Miho then went back in the turret and looked over to Hana. "Hana, can you make the shot?"

"I can, Miho-san," Hana responded as she take aim on the scope, then whispered to herself. "Steady… steady…"

Hana focused her aim on the rear of the Tiger Porsche and calms her breath down. Then she pulled the trigger.

*BOOM-WHIZZZZ-BUAAAARMM*

Hana managed to shot the Tiger Porsche right in the rear, putting a big hole in the rear. The hole was so big, that the shell Hana sent punch through the enemy's engine. The Tiger Porsche suddenly stops in its track and left the engine burning like hellfire. And a small white flag popped up on the turret.

"Nice shot, Hana," Miho commented with impression as both teams drive past the downed Tiger. "That tank is history."

"Arigato, Miho-san!" Hana replied quickly with cheers in her tone.

They kept chasing on the last target ahead of them, the Turtle Team. The good news was that the Turtle Team had Hetzer tank that could only fire what's in front of them. Meaning their turret could not fire what's behind them. Though, the Anglerfish and Shark teams were having a trouble on shooting the Turtle Team down as they chased them.

And, it was Miho's turn to do the shot.

"Shark and Anglerfish teams," Miho announced aloud including in the radio. "Stop the tanks."

"What?!" everyone asked in unison and shock.

"Stop the tanks," Miho ordered.

"Miho, are you crazy?!" Ogin asked, shouting in the radio. "We got her on our aim here, we can't let her escape!"

"Who said we're letting them escape?" Miho asked back coldly. "Stop the tanks… now!"

Her former team looked up at her in worries and silent as Miho waited for Ogin's reply. Things went silent for a moment. Why would Miho ordered something unusual like that? This just doesn't make any sense.

After a few seconds of silence, Ogin replied sincerely. "Alright, we're stopping the tank."

Miho went back inside the turret and looked over to her teammates. "Do it."

Mako then quickly stopped the tank as Shark Team did the same, leaving the Turtle Team to runaway. They all then turned around to Miho with their confused looks.

"Why, Miho?" Saori asked, concerned of her decision.

"Hana, let me takeover the gunner," Miho replied to her with her stern eyes.

Back to Turtle Team, they are still running away from Miho's and Shark teams. Though, something surprised Anzu when she looked out the turret. The two tanks that were chasing hers just stopped right there about 500+ meters. This is very weird for her, knowing her team was a vulnerable target in an open area. She just went back inside the turret and looked over to her teammates.

"What's wrong?" Momo asked.

"They stopped chasing us," Anzu replied with her confused look.

"Wait, nani?!" Momo and Yuzu asked in unison and surprised. "Why they stopped?" Yuzu asked.

"I don't know," Anzu replied with a shrug, and a lazy look. "What makes them letting us escape is a good idea?"

Nothing said anything as Yuzu drives. "I'm pretty sure that's not good."

"Oh, maybe they give us a chance to shoot back," Anzu replied surely as she placed her hands on the back of her head, being lazy again.

They went on driving away from the opposing teams without getting shot at. Which was giving the nerves for Momo for it. And now, Yuzu had said they are already beyond 1.500 meters from the opposing teams. The only distance that Hana could having a trouble with.

"Looks like we're in the safe zone," Yuzu said confidently.

Anzu gave a smile on that. "Good, then let's-"

*BOOM-WHIIZZZ-BBUAAAAARRRMMMM*

They suddenly took a shot right on the back of the tank.

"Oh damn!" Momo shouted as they thrown away from their seats.

Back to Miho, she successfully shot the Hetzer flawlessly. She only gave one shot to the last target who was 2000 meters away. Everyone from both tanks were all awed at the shot and left their jaws opened wide outside the tanks. They watched as the Hetzer was burning hot. And a small white flag was popped on top of the Hetzer from the distance. Hana couldn't even believe it, this was Miho's first shot and she could shot that tank that far which is beating her current record.

Miho could only give a smirk on that.

"That's… wow," Mako commented, felt speechless.

"Impossible…" Hana commented, still awed and very impressed.

"How in Jolly's name..?" Flint asked in shock in the radio.

Miho then looked off from the scope of the cannon and leans back against the seat. "Target neutralized."

After a moment of silence, the radios which were on speaker mode went on loud coming from Ami. "Team Hippo in StuG. III, Team Rabbit in M3 Lee, Team Duck in Type 89 I-Go, Team Anteater in Type-3 Chi-Nu, Team Mallard in Char B1 bis, Team Leopon in Tiger Porsche, and Team Turtle in Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer, you all have been immobilized."  
There was a pause as the surviving two teams smiled on their victory except for Miho who just huffed and gave a flat smile and leaned against the seat lazily. "So, Team Shark and Team Anglerfish have won the match!"

"We won!" Yukari shouted happily, then raised her fist in the air "YEAAAHH!"

"Impossible.." Hana commented with a sigh of awe.

"That's awesome!" Rum shouted in the distance on her tank. "Was that Miho's shot?!"

"She sure has a good aim," Murakami commented with Ogin smiling, reminding of their last mission on the hideout raid.

They all then looked back at the Panzer's turret to see Miho was coming out the turret. "Alright, lads. Let's get back to the hangars."

* * *

Tank Hangars. 10 minutes later.

Miho is standing in front of the teams along with Ami. The teams are already lined up according to their own teams. The teams who were taken out during the mock-up battle back there were all have their clothes dirty due to the destroyed tanks they're in. The only teams who were still clean are only the Shark team, Anglerfish team and Miho herself. And it was safe to say that they were pretty tired.

And Miho was practically amused to see how's the Student Councils' reactions were after she shot their tank in the distance of 2000 meters. All of them were completely in catatonic state, with Anzu kept her mouth smiling like a clown woman. It seems that everyone in here couldn't believe that Miho herself who used the tank cannon could shot Turtle Team that far and beat Hana's record.

A moment later, Ami gives a shout out to the teams. "You all did good out there, everyone! I could see your skills are improving much better than expected."

"I'm also impressed of your skills, lads," Miho added with a thumb up. "But you all should practice improvisation tactics to the next level."

Miho then looked over to Anzu. "That was a nice ambush and a good aim you got back there. I know you wondered how did I avoid that shot."

"Correct, Miho-san," Yuzu replied with a nod. "There's no way you could avoid Anzu's shot, it was so precise and you didn't see us."

"Well…" Miho paused for a moment, before replying. "It's a perk I got for being a Nishizumi to sense any incoming attack or tanks. Though, my senses have been enhanced that I could sense where you were hiding."

"Nani?!" Yukari asked aloud, with everyone recoiled in surprise. "Enhanced?!"

"Were you get involved in some sort of experiment or something?" Oryou asked curiously.

"I-what?" Miho asked with her face stoned for a moment. "No, I trained myself to heightened my senses."

"Oh," Oryou replied, not sure what else to say.

"Alright, now with this training over, you all should get yourself some rest and clean up your clothes," Miho said aloud to them with her hands clapping. "You all deserved it."

"Arigota, Miho-san!" all the studetns thanked aloud with a bow.

"Your welcome, ladies," Miho replied with a nod. "Now, you all dismissed."

After she said that, all the students then disband from their lines and headed back for the school to clean themselves. Leaving only the Student Councils, Ami and Miho in the field. After they watched them leave the field, they all then look at each other. Everyone was smiling, except for Miho who gave a sigh emotionlessly.

"You okay?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"Well… the fact that they only have 3 days from now until the Exhibition," Miho stated to her. "I felt pretty unlikely about them getting ready for the match."

"But you're here to help us on doing the match," Anzu optimistically replied. "I'm sure everything will worked out well."

Miho just gave a blank stare at her, before replying. "I hope so."

They all then looked back at the Ooarai school in front of them, enjoyed the view of it for the day.

"I hope everything will worked out."

 **Author's note:**

 **Damn, it's a long bloody way to get this far. And I'm pretty happy to my own work. Yeah, I know the chapters are pretty long but it's really fun. Really, really fun as always for me, don't know about you. I'll keep working on my chapters until the end, probably 15-20 more chapters. I'll make sure to keep you entertained as best as I can.**

 **Also, I wanted to know. After this story is complete, do you think I should make a sequel of this story. Let me know in the reviews.**

 **Oh, and as always, leave a good review for the story. And may Freedom always be with us.**

 **С нами Бог**


	42. Chapter 40 - Welcome To The Exhibition

Nishizumi Residence. 07:30 AM.

It's been 3 days have passed and today is the day when that event will happen. The Exhibition Match will be happening for today. Though, thankfully it was around near the noon so Miho got a time for herself. Miho was already out of the bathroom and heads back for her room. As her towel was covering her breast and her lower body, Miho picked her clothes from the cabinet and set them on her bed.

She then began wearing them one by one in a minute and a half. Miho was now wearing her black long-sleeve buttoned shirt along with her olive pants. Miho also wears her usual belt and pouches. She has her usual drop bag with the Browning Hi-Power pistol on her right thigh and her wristwatch on her left hand. She also wears a black blank bandana around her neck, in case she needed to cover her face with it.

After she is done with the clothing, she took her phone and looked at it if there's any message for her. Turns out, it was Anchovy again who was expecting to meet her in the Exhibition event. Miho had told her about helping Ooarai to win the Exhibition Match and why she had to do it. Miho wanted Anchovy to kept this a secret, and thankfully she knows how to keep silent about it. She replied the message and puts her phone in her pocket before heading out to her family for breakfast.

She reached the dining room with her family and sat down at the table on the floor. Miho greeted her sister and her mother and they both greeted back to her. Miho did a small prayer silently to herself and her family before proceeding to feast on the breakfast. It was fried pork, Ramen, some crispy fishes, and a vegetable soup.

As they eat, Shiho began the conversation. "Well, Miho… you know what the day is today."

"Exhibition Match," Miho replied coldly with a nod. "Next thing to do on my goddamn list."

Shiho and Maho just sighed to Miho's reaction. "We know you don't like this, but we just want you to calm down," Shiho replied with a frown

"Oh, I'm calm, mother," Miho replied as she looked up to her. "I'm just upset if Ooarai would be closed down just because they lose the Exhibition Match."

Maho and Shiho raised their eyebrows in understood. "I could agree on that, Miho. But Ooarai had a lot of hardships to go through back in the day."

"Too much hardships," Miho added in agreement. "I'm pretty glad and impressed to see the school could hold up until this far."

"Wish I could say that before I gone too far," Shiho replied, she frowned to think about that. "If I knew what Ooarai had through, I shouldn't have thought to insult that school."

Miho looked up to her mother curiously, she wasn't surprise but she didn't expect to hear that. "You insulted that school?"

"Yeah, well… more than insults," Shiho replied, she frowned as she bit her lips a little. "Though… I harassed that school twice. I thought about you before I go too far, because I'm sure you didn't want that."

It was actually an honest truth, Shiho was sure Miho didn't want that, especially knew what had happened to Ogin many days back. Miho smiled a little to hear that. "I'm glad to hear that, mother. I surely don't want that to happen."

"I know," Shiho replied with a nod. "I hoped they don't think me as their enemy."

"I did asked Anzu about it," Miho replied flatly. "They didn't take it kindly of your harassment, but they don't take you as their enemy."

Shiho and Maho smiled to hear that. "I'm pretty glad to hear that. I was worried if they did, especially if I had a fight with your former team," Shiho replied happily.

"Don't worry about it," Miho responded with an open palm. "You didn't know what that school had gone through before."

Shiho just chuckled at that, then Maho asked curiously. "So… how's Ooarai's Sensha-Do teams' performance?"

"They're getting better from day to day," Miho replied as she eat the pork. "They'll be good on doing improvised tactics."

"Improvised tactics?" Maho asked. "Interesting."

"Maybe Maho could learn on doing that kind of thing," Shiho added with her hand on her chin. "Unless… the 141 already taught Maho on that."

Miho and Maho gave their 'really?' look to their mother. "Well… it taught her a little about it," Miho replied with her head tilted.

"Says the girl who ordered to fire the tank at the building full of civilians," Maho added sarcastically.

"Hey, who's keeping tabs on your finance?" Miho asked rather much more annoyed, while Shiho just stoned-face.

"Ok, ok, I was joking," Maho replied with a smirk with her both open palm in front of her. "Well… half of it."

Miho stared at her for a moment, still annoyed. "Now you starting to make me want to shoot Ami."

They were surprised to hear that, with their eyes widen. "You what?" Shiho asked.

"You shot Ami?!" Maho asked nearly aloud, disbelieve the fact that Miho had tried to shoot a member of JGSDF.

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod. "Three days ago."

"And why didn't you tell us about it a few days earlier?" Shiho asked in concern of her daughter's sanity.

"Because I don't really bothered about it," Miho replied with a weak shrug. "I shot her because she tried to make a mess with me, and make things personal a little."

Now that just… right. Shiho and Maho had thought she really injured Ami, but they felt Ami was scared shitless instead of getting injured. So they both calmed down a moment, remembering Maho able to survive Miho's shots. But that doesn't mean they were safe with Miho.

Shiho only sighed. "I hope you didn't shoot anyone when we got there, Miho."

* * *

On the way to the Tank Exhibition in Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture. 10:50 AM.

.

"Everything is already in order, right?"

"Yep, also everyone is here and accounted for."

"Good, how far 'till we get there?"

"Should be in a moment now, Miho-san."

"Alright then, Maho remind me to drop off at the front door of the Exhibition when we got there."

"Why?"

"I promised Anchovy to meet her there."

Miho was on Maho's Tiger 1 tank and they were on the way to the Exhibition event. The Tiger tank was at the very front of the road, followed up by the rest of Kuromorimine tanks behind it in one line on the road. The Kuromorimine school was the iconic school in Japan that even in the road some people cheered for Kuromorimine. Miho just stays cold as they passed the cheering people on the road.

They went on through the road as some people cheered at them on the road. And by chance they met up with Pravda's tanks on the road. Miho did straighten her back and looked over to the Pravda's tanks, and found Nina and Alina in their KV-2 tank. It's also felt strange for Miho though, she knew that they both are clumsy, well except for Alina because she was a little smarter than Nina. The reason she doubts Nina and Alina to command that tank was that the tank was that it had poor armor, effective for artillery and not for direct action due to the slow turret, and they would have trouble balancing the tank.

Nevertheless, it took them 10 minutes to reach the Exhibition event. And wow it was really crowded there. A lot of people were gathering in the Exhibition area and even food and drink stands were build there. Miho could even see from afar on the tank that there were also souvenir shops opened there, all themed prehistoric tanks and banners. And there's even some reporters on site are shooting the scene about the Exhibition.

Reporters… she didn't like since they could make her discomfort.

Reaching the entrance, Maho stopped her tank there and she reminds her sister of what she just said a few minutes ago. Miho then got off the tank and she motioned them to keep moving to the tank hangars. After the tanks left, she turned towards the entrance only to see Anchovy was there waiting for her. Anchovy greeted her by waving her hand with Miho raised her open palm in the air to her.

"Miho-chan~!" Anchovy greeted cheerfully as Miho walked over to her.

"Hey, hey, don't get too excited, lady," Miho replied as she held her shoulder. "I'm happy to see you too."

"I'm glad you could come over," Anchovy said with a huge smile, clasping her hands to each other. "I'm afraid you didn't come over because you didn't like tankery."

"I did, 'Chovy," Miho politely replied, Miho then rubs her hair. "But not with you around."

"Aw, Miho, stop it!" Anchovy quickly replied shyly as she waved away Miho's hand, blushed a little for that. "You're embarrassing me."

"Forgive me, Anchovy," Miho replied with a chuckle and a smirk. "You're so cute when you looked like that."

Anchovy quickly blushed much more than the color of a fire hydrant. "Mihooo, stop it!"

"Easy, milady," Miho replied softly with an open palm. "I was being honest."

Anchovy gently pushed her a little to hear that, smiling shyly and still blushing. "So… you're also saving Ooarai from getting closed down?"

"Yes, I am," Miho replied with a nod. "Apparently I have to join up with the tankery teams to save that school."

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Anchovy responded in a sure tone.

"What else can I say?" Miho asked with a sigh. "Need to do a tankery while at the same time making sure Ooarai and Kuromorimine didn't fight with each other in the middle of the match like a civil war."

"Don't say that," Anchovy responded with a smile, then holds her both hands onto Miho's. "Come on, let's see what's inside."

"Lead the way," Miho replied with her hand motioned towards the Exhibition, they both then went into the Exhibition Area.

After they went in the Exhibition area, they could a lot of people around them. They could saw some children were pretty excited and can't wait to watch the match. Students from their respective schools who are not in the match were discussing on how the match will go down. And some people were taking selfies and taking photos around the Exhibition area.

Eventually, Anchovy led Miho to a small souvenir shop. Anchovy was rather surprised to see a model of her Carro Armato P40 tank there. Anchovy admits that she wasn't interested to get any souvenirs until she learned why people would want one. Anchovy bought one and they both headed somewhere else in the Exhibition Area. This time Miho leads Anchovy, because she wanted to meet some friends around here.

And by friends, she means the men from the 141. Anchovy still doesn't know that.

Miho and Anchovy kept moving around the area, until Miho spotted three of her men in front of her. Chemo, Royce and Garhaaye were there in their casual clothes, Royce was rather a little formal on his clothes. But to her surprise, the men were talking to Darjeeling, Jajka, and Nishi. Anchovy was more rather surprised that the friends Miho mentioned were actually adults. Nishi noticed Miho and Anchovy and gestured everyone to the both girls.

"Royce, what the bloody hell?" Miho asked, Royce didn't say anything about meeting these girls.

"Ah, hey mate," Royce replied back with an open palm. "Where have you been?"

"Checking the souvenir shops with Anchovy here," Miho replied.

"That's the girlfriend you're talking about?" Chemo asked, accidentally. That made everyone glared at him except Anchovy. "Uh, sorry."

Anchovy blushed to hear that, Darjeeling, Nishi and Jajka didn't expect to see that was true. "Are you…?" Darjeeling asked but then halted.

"Yes, yes, I am," Anchovy blushed, but then calmed herself down and changes the subject. "So… these are your friends, Miho?"

"Yes, these are my friends," Miho said to her, gestured to her friends one by one. "This is Royce, Chemo and Garhaaye. Lads, this is Anchovy."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, young lady," Royce said as he shook her hand.

"It's great to meet you, Ms. Anchovy," Chemo said as he shook her hand.

"I'm really happy to meet you," Garhaaye said happily as he shook her hand.

After shaking hands, Miho looked over to everyone with her. "Right, Darjeeling, don't tell me you've met them before."

"That's right, Miho-san," Darjeeling replied with a nod, Miho was noticing Ami, Chiyo, Shiho and The Bermuda Trio from the All-Stars University nearby. "We've met them in a bookstore before. Well, it was me and Jajka along with my schoolmates and hers, not Nishi here."

"Yeah, I never knew you are having friends with some grown-up people," Nishi commented with a smile. "I guess it must be fun to be with them."

"Well, you could say that," Jajka added in agreement, though she achieved Anchovy's glare.

"Jajka?" Anchovy called, angry a little to see her here as everyone except Miho was surprised of her reaction.

"Easy, Anchovy," Jajka replied with her open palm faces to her. "I don't want any trouble, and I don't want to harass you anymore."

"You mean it?" Anchovy asked a little suspiciously, she was also surprised of this.

"She mean it, milady," Royce answered, that caught her off-guard. "She won't bother you, I can assure you."

Anchovy then looks back at Jajka, before looking over to Miho in doubt. "I trust that she wouldn't make any trouble," Miho said to her, in her British accent.

Anchovy then looked back at Jajka, and sighed. "Alright, I trust you wouldn't make any trouble."

Jajka replied with a nod, then continued by Nishi. "Now with that out of the way… Miho, how did you met them first?"

"Met them all back in London," Miho replied with her arms crossed. "Met by accident."

"That sounds rather convenient," Jajka commented, her both eyebrows raised and eyes widen.

"It sure is," Miho replied with a nod, then turned to Garhaaye. "Oi, halkee ayaa ah saddexda qof ee kale?"

The girls deadpanned at the language, Jajka was much more taken off-guard by that language. "Waxay noqon doonaan waqti dho."

The girls then looked back at Garhaaye, Jajka was in shock that Miho understand that strange language Garhaaye was talking in. The men however, didn't pay any mind about that. Nearby people including Ami, Chiyo, Shiho and the Trio Bermuda who were talking with each other were all heard that language and confused to it.

"Waxay ku dhufteen gaadiidka?" Miho asked with a raised brow, Jajka swears the language was alien to her.

"Waxay u egtahay sidan," Garhaaye replied with his waved to his side.

"Can you both use English for now?" Chemo asked, his open palms were in front of his chest. "People are looking at us now."

They then looked around them and found quite amount of people was staring at them. Miho even noticed Shiho, Chiyo, Ami and the Trio Bermudas gave their blank stares to her. Miho just greeted them with two fingers raised above her head, while the rest of the people who looked at them she ignored them. The looks people made was able to break up when Chemo stated out to them aloud.

"They're just talking in African language, it's normal."

The people around them only mouthing an 'oh' in understanding and then get back to their daily stuffs. Shiho, Ami and Chiyo felt pretty normal on that. But the Trio Bermudas, they dropped their jaws to the ground to know Miho could understand that hard language. The girls and the men except for Miho and Garhaaye felt awkward on that situation.

"Okay… that was weird," Royce awkwardly began.

"Alright," Jajka then folded her arms on her stomach. "In what language did you just speak?"

"Somali," Miho replied, leans her back a little. "It's a pretty hard language."

"Because he's Somalian, right?" Anchovy asked as she pointed at Garhaaye.

"Yes, I'm Somalian," Garhaaye replied with a nod. "Chemo is American and Royce is British."

"I see," Nishi replied with a nod. "What were you two talking about?"

"Asking where are the other three friends of mine," Miho replied with her hands waved wide to her sides.

"What, there are others?" Darjeeling asked as the girls surprised of this.

"Yep," Miho replied with a nod. "And they're not girls."

"Oh, more men then," Anchovy added with her hand underneath her chin.

"Yes," Chemo replied with a nod. "Except one of them is a little annoying,"

"And why one of them is annoying?" Jajka asked, confused on why he said that.

"Is it because he's a Canadian, Chemo?" Miho asked him.

"Something like that," Chemo replied with a shrug. "Reminds me of my father."

"Ah, I could see why," Anchovy added, then looked over to her left and see the friends Miho meant. "Miho, are those your friends there?"

They looked over to the people Anchovy meant by turning their heads at them who was in a distance from them. Miho smiled to see her other 3 friends were here and they were in their casual clothes. It was Vicek, Ustin and Chrome. The three men noticed Miho with her friends and were about to walk over to them. But Miho turned around to them and greeted them warmly and aloud.

"Assalamualaikum!"

Ustin smiled and chuckled as he replied with a waving hand. "Waalaikumsalam!"

That must be first time for them to hear a very strange greeting like that. Her friends except the men all left their mouths open and their eyebrows raised, stoned-face. Chiyo, Shiho, Ami, the Trio Bermudas, and Alice who coincidentally shows up to meet her mother slack-jawed to hear that as they stare at the said persons. The nearby Pravdas, Jatkosotas, Bonples and Glorianas were all perplexed and straight-faced to that. For the rest of the people, it was something remarkable to hear that kind of greeting from a Japanese and from a foreign man.

"Laqad bada'at 'aetaqid 'anak lm tuzahar," Miho said as she shook hands with Ustin with the other two stood by.

"Kunna ealiqin fi harakat almurur, alkabtin," Ustin replied as he patted her shoulder. "'Araa 'anak tatahadath mae 'asdiqayik hunak."

"Yes, I am," Miho then motioned her hand to her friends. "Come on."

The three men and Miho then joined back to her friends. As the people around them slowly goes back to what were they doing in the Exhibition Area. Chiyo, Alice, Shiho, Ami and the Trio Bermudas who were nearby also slowly shrug that off and talked back to each other on their current discussion. Anchovy so far was impressed of how many languages Miho knew, the rest of the girls however felt pretty outrageous to know Miho could speak that much language. In Jajka's case, she was in disbelieve to know Miho could speak hard languages like that.

"In what language did you just speak again?" Anchovy asked with her head tilted and raised a brow.

"That was Arabic," Miho simply replied.

They felt speechless for it, and Jajka commented on that. "That must be a headache for you."

"Somali is twice the headache than that, Jajka," Miho replied with her index finger raised.

"So, who are these other 3 gentlemen here?" Darjeeling asked curiously.

The other three men then shook their hands with the girls excluding Miho.

"My name is Vicek."

"The name's Chrome, sis."

"Ustin, pleasure to meet you."

"It's our pleasure to meet you all," Jajka said happily to the men. "My name's Jajka, this is Darjeeling, Nishi, and lastly Anchovy here."

Darjeeling then looked over to Miho "I'm really surprised you got a lot of friends here, Miho."

"Sure I am," Miho replied with a nod. "Especially the foreign ones."

"I'm starting to wonder how did you could make friends with these gentlemen," Anchovy wondered as she hugged Miho by her shoulders.

"In all honesty, she's an interesting friend to talk with," Vicek gives a thumb up to Anchovy. "Ain't that right, cестра?"

Miho gave a smirk to him, to which Chrome continued. "Hey, Anchovy right? Aren't you Miho's girlfriend?"

Everyone just glared at him with only Anchovy blushing at that. "Are you bloody for real?" Royce asked irritatingly.

"Sorry," Chrome quickly apologized.

Miho sighed with her eyes closed and replies. "Yes, she's my lady here."

"And that's weird," Darjeeling stated confusedly. "Shouldn't you be blushing too, Miho-san?"

"Yeah, shouldn't you be shy about it?" Garhaaye added in agreement to that confusion.

"Mate, I don't even care about getting embarrassed by that," Miho replied with an unamused look. "I'm fine with it."

"That's something hard to believe," Nishi commented with her head tilted.

"When you get to see a lot of weird things in your life," Miho stated to her. "Sometimes you won't give a bloody thing about it."

"I could agree on that," Chemo added in agreement, though he achieve the glares of the men with them. "What?"

"You sent a man flying in the sky with a rocket before because he pissed you off," Royce stated, noting the fact that they didn't say anything relates to 141. "How does that sound?"

The girls looked at Chemo in shock, Miho on the other hand facepalmed because Royce mentioned that. "Okay, I was going a little far on that."

"Yeah, interesting friends…" Nishi awkwardly commented as she had a sweat on her forehead, she was starting to imagine if she was the one who was sent flying by Chemo.

Though, Jajka looked around and noticed Ustin looked pretty discomfort. "Are you okay, pan?"

"Don't worry, I'm fine," Ustin replied with a nod, then scratched his head. "Just felt something itchy."

Vicek wasn't pretty convinced about it. "Is this something about LGBT, mate?"

"Yeah, something like that," Ustin replied with a nod and crossed his arms. "It affects my religion y'know?"

"Wait, what's your religion?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow.

"Muslim," Ustin replied with a shrug. "And in my religion it said that those who love each other which are the same gender, it's a meaning that they would bring doom to us."

The girls except Miho were all surprised of that statement. "Are Muslims so strict enough that same-gender relationship are forbidden in their religion?" Darjeeling asked curiously with a raised brow.

"Correct," Ustin replied with a nod. "If they see one, they would be angry until to the point where they punished people so hard that can result in death."

The girls except Miho were all pretty much horrified to hear that, but Ustin managed to calm them down. "But in all honesty, I'm still alright about this relationship stuff that other people have here. Including Miho. Especially because Japan don't really mind much about LGBT. Just make sure you're not Muslim, that's all."

Everyone sighed in relief to hear that. "Thank God, it's good to hear that," Nishi replied as her hand was on her chest.

"I know, mate," Miho added in agreement.

"I'm surprised how are you so neutral about this," Jajka commented, she had expected he'll be mad about it before.

"I really hate to bring that kind of thing up for discussion for a trouble," Ustin replied with his hand shook in front of him. "I don't want to be that Muslim people that are bragging and talking bad things about it, especially anything else aside that."

"I see," Anchovy replied with a smile. "You're so perspective about it at all."

"I also need to make sure that I don't end up bragging a little like Chrome over there," Ustin joked as he pointed to Chrome.

"Hey!" Chrome shouted, annoyed to his joke. "At least you didn't have to get to live in Canada. You loved to get your skin tanned under the hot sun of Arabia. While I'm having my feet cold back there and my tongue stuck to a frozen pole for an hour."

Everyone laughed at the outcome, and Ustin himself nearly rolled on the ground if not he reminded himself he's still in the Exhibition Area. The girls were pretty happy with these friends Miho had back in London. And honestly, might be the best friends to talk with next to Ami. As the laughing died down, she then looked over to her mother who were nearby with some other friends there. She looked passed her friends to see her mother with her friends there.

She looked over to her mother, which in turn her mother looks back at her. Miho was surprised that her mother has gestured her to come over to her. She then looked back to her friends as she wondered what Shiho wants. Miho gestured her friends toward herself.

"Excuse me, but my mother needs me," Miho said to them, making the men surprised.

"Wait, your mother?" Garhaaye asked, somehow his accent sounds funny to everyone. "Where?"

"Over there," Anchovy pointed them to Miho's mother.

"Ah, okay then," Chemo replied with a nod, then looks back at Miho. "You go ahead and catch up with your mother. We'll be here."

"Alright," Miho then looks over to her girlfriend. "You okay if you're here for a moment?"

"Nah, I honestly want to be with you," Anchovy replied with a shook, then holds her hand.

"Alright, come on then," Miho replied with a smirk.

Miho and Anchovy then both walked through her friends with a raised open palm toward Miho's mother. Thankfully, her mother wasn't too far from them hence it was around 30 feet from her group. As they both walk over to her mother, Miho had noticed this one tall man with square spectacles and his formal grey business suit with a blue tie. It didn't took long enough for her to know that this was Renta Tsuji that Anzu talked about, the member of the MEXT. They stopped in front of her mother and the friends Shiho was with including Renta (let's just he's an aquintance for now).

"Minasan, konnichiwa," Anchovy greeted with a bow. "Konnichiwa, Nishizumi-sama."

"Konnichiwa, Anchovy-san," Shiho greeted back as they all bowed to them both. "Konnichiwa, musume."

"Hello, mother," Miho replied with a nod, her hands were at ease behind her. "Captain Ami, Mrs. Shimada, Ms. Alice, Ms. Remi, Ms. Azumi, and Ms. Megumi."

"Ehem," the tall man known as Renta interrupted.

"Oh, right," Ami then gestured to him. "Miho-san, this is-"

"Mr. Renta Tsuji, MEXT Official," Miho quickly replied, which got everyone off-guard. "Heard about you before."

Miho then reached out her hand to him. "I see, from who did you hear about myself?" Renta asked as he shook hands with her.

"From Ms. Anzu Kadotani herself," Miho replied flatly, and emotionlessly.

" Ah, I see," Renta replied with a grin. "Is she having a good day?"

"More like she got hit hard by some complications," Anchovy answered with her arms crossed.

"Oh, and why is that?" Renta asked again, still grinning evilly.

"You're shutting her school down," Miho replied coldly, Renta was a little surprised of her answer.

"Looks like Anzu told a lot about it, didn't she?" Renta asked in a rather evil tone.

"Yes, she did," Miho replied with a nod. "You even had a history with the school itself."

Renta chuckled at that, to which Chiyo says to Miho. "He's here to watch the Exhibition Match too. And to see how far Ooarai will survive."

"Though, I feel bad for Ooarai about it," Remi added in upset, as she scratched her neck.

"I'm sure they'll be doing alright, Remi-san," Anchovy replied with an assuring smile.

"Are you sure about that?" Renta asked with a raised brow and a smirk.

"Pretty sure about it," Shiho replied with a nod. "Miho will be helping Ooarai on the match."

"Really?" Renta asked in disbelieve. "I find that hard to believe."

"And why is that?" Megumi asked, raised an eyebrow and narrows her other eye.

"You all know that Miho Nishizumi-san here is no longer a student of Ooarai, and that means she couldn't join up in the match," Renta replied as he looked to her. "And despite that she still has the skills to help Ooarai as a Nishizumi, I doubt she could control Ooarai's Sensha-Do Team even if they were backed up by Kuromorimine and Saunders because of how oppressed they are on doing this match. And she didn't ever do any tankery for a full year which means her skills on tankery will be deteriorated."

It's funny for Miho to see how sure Renta was about that, Miho shook her head with a sigh as Alice said to him. "I don't believe it," Alice shook her head with her eyes narrowed as her hair rubbed by her mother, Chiyo.

"You're right about that, Alice," Miho replied with a nod, her hands were on her hips. "Don't believe everything he said."

"Oh, why is that?" Renta asked curiously, he then looked over to his watch.

"I'm sure you have good reasons why you said that," Anchovy said confidently of her girlfriend.

"Miho does have good reasons," Ami added with a consent nod. "Her skill is at the best than she should."

Ami then looked over to Shiho, who continued. "She ever shot down a Maus tank from 1 Kilo in one shot before."

That caught everyone's glares except for Miho who was leaning her head back with her eyes closed and her arms crossed and Ami who rolled her eyes off Shiho. Chiyo and Alice give in their blank faces to Shiho. Azumi, Rumi and Megumi were all remembered of that conversation with Chiyo, and it still horrified them a little on how Miho could do that. Renta, on the other hand, was a bit shock to hear that with his mouth open a little and winced his eyes. And lastly for Anchovy, she was pretty awed to hear that.

Renta then looked back to Miho again in disbelieve. "You're joking."

"I don't really do jokes, sir," Miho replied sternly. "But when I do, it's because I wanted to lighten up everyone's mood."

Renta was a little taken back of her outcome. "I see…"

"Miho-san," Ami called. "What about that joke three days ago?"

Shiho was surprised Ami asked that, but then Anchovy was confused when Miho responded with an annoyed sigh. "We're not talking about it."

"Talking about what?" Chiyo asked, still perplexed about it.

"The joke she made up three days ago when we were with the Ooarai students," Miho replied, then shook her head a bit. "I didn't take it really kindly."

"Why?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow.

"Using some insults to joke around me," Miho replied with her irritated tone. "It wasn't pleasant."

"Well, I'm sure it's not that bad," Rumi said with a small smile.

Miho looked away from Rumi with her head shook for a moment. "Please don't make me to tell Captain Ami that she has 5 seconds to run right now."

Everyone was confused of Miho's statement. But for Shiho, Ami, Chiyo and Alice however, knew what she meant and they just deadpanned to her with pale faces. For Anchovy, she felt that her girlfriend was going to get pissed again.

"Um, what did she mean by that?" Renta asked when he looked over to Ami as his finger pointing to Miho.

"You don't want to know," Ami responded, looking over to Shiho next to her with her arms crossed.

They all silent for a moment, as Renta looked back to Miho with his perplexed face. "Hmm, I could see why."

"Yeah, you won't like it," Anchovy replied in agreement, even though she didn't know what Miho did to Ami. "I've seen her fight before, and honestly it was brutal."

"And how brutal was it?" Renta asked, thinking Miho couldn't do something worse.

Miho only glared at him for a moment, before replying in cold blood. "Enough to put you in the hospital for 5 years."

By now, Renta felt so intimidated to hear that. Renta never expected to hear that answered in that tone. Even Anchovy felt pretty scared to hear that from her girlfriend, and Alice also scared that she had took a step back to get closer to her mother. The rest however, starting to concern on what's up with Miho.

"Miho…" Anchovy started lowly in worry, she holds and rubs her gf's shoulder.

Miho sighed then looked over to Anchovy and then to Alice. "Sorry about that."

"Just don't be that scary, Miho-san," Alice said to her, still worried of her.

"I'll try," Miho replied with a nod.

"You'll try?" Megumi asked with a raised. "That doesn't sound convincing."

"It's because I can't promise about it," Miho replied with a sincere sigh.

"Really?" Azumi asked. "Can't even promise to Arisu-san?"

"Correct," Miho replied with a nod. "I rarely keep my promise. And I could promise to what I really can do best."

That made Renta had a question in mind, with an evil grin. "Can you promise to the students of Ooarai that you will save their school?"

That question had everyone to be in concern. What if Miho can't promise that, doesn't that means Miho can't do her best to save the school? They already worried about it because Miho had agreed to help Ooarai to not get the school shut down. If she can't, that means she would disappointed the school for it. They all looked back to her, who was staring at Renta without a word.

Though, as silence passed, Miho replies in determination. "I can promise that."

Everyone sighed in relief, with Renta huffed in disappointment with the answer. "I didn't expect you would answer that."

"I won't say no to that, 'mate'," Miho replied emotionlessly with her index finger raised, Renta and the Trio Bermudas were a bit confused on the word 'mate'. "I'm going to save that school as best as I can."

"But I'm afraid that won't happen, Miho-san," Renta replied as his hands were at ease behind him.

"Must be because I'm not a student of any school, isn't it?" Miho asked as she pocketed her hands in her pants, not even worried about.

"Correct," Renta replied with a nod. "In order to join to match, you have to be a student of that school. Or, to get a permission from the Sensha-Do Department to join the match."

Anchovy was worried about this. "There's gotta be another way to let her join the match."

"There's no other way," Renta replied with a shook, and a sly smile. "The only way for Miho-san to join in the match is only by getting permission from the Sensha-Do Department. Even if you got there right before the match, they don't and will not help you to get the permission for joining the match because they don't want anyone else crashes the show and went on with it. Especially those who don't have reasonable and good criteria to join the match."

Everyone then silence for a moment, Renta was expecting to see Miho to be disappointed. But instead… Miho only gave her unamused look. "Huh… good thing I have paid a visit there first."

Renta was surprised of the answer and looked over to the two mothers and Ami, they were giving their unamused looks as well. "It's a bad thing we got there first," Ami added with a grin.

"Don't even think about that, Renta-sama," a voice said aloud, they all then looked over to the source to the voice.

To their surprise, except for Miho, it was Shichiro Kodama who said that. "Miho-san here got a good reason and a good criteria to join the match. Despite the fact that she's no longer a high-schooler anymore."

Renta quickly turned around at him and asked him. "And what proof do you have for me so I would allow her to join the Exhibition Match?"

Shiciro then walked up to him, and pulled out a small paper in his hand. "How about this?"

Renta then quickly took the paper away and turned around from him to read the paper. To his anger, it was a written permission. "A written permission!?" Impossible!"

Everyone was eventually surprised about this, Miho could only gave a pat on his shoulder. "Don't expect too much, mate."

Miho then turns around to her girlfriend who was smiling to her, before she turned back to everyone in the group. "Now if you excuse me, I need to go back to my friends."

"Sure, go ahead," Chiyo replied with a smile and a nod, with Alice giggled to see Renta angry like that.

Miho then turned around to Shiciro. "Good day to ya', Mr. Kodama."

"Good day to you too, Miho-san," Shiciro replied with a two finger salute above his head.

Miho then walked back to her girlfriend and asks. "Let's get back to our friends shall we?"

"Sure, why not?" Anchovy replied with a nod, Miho then holds her hand and walked back to their friends away from Shiho's group.

Miho and Anchovy both looked over to the group of their friends at where they were. They both had noticed that there are some of them were not in the group. Ustin, Garhaaye, Royce, Chrome, Darjeeling and Nishi were nowhere to be found. But there were Anzu and Mika there with the two remaining of Miho's men. Apparently they were talking with each other happily instead for Anzu asking where Miho was. Miho and Anchovy walked over to them and greeted them.

"Hey there, mates," Miho greeted them.

"Konnichiwa, Miho-san," Anzu and Mika replied with a bow. "Konnichiwa, Anchovy-san."

"Kon'nichiwa anzu-san to mikasan," Anchovy greeted back with a bow. "I see you're having a fun talk with Miho's friends."

"Sure it is," Mika replied with a nod. "I never knew you have friends like these gentlemen, Miho-san."

"I know, Mika," Miho then turned her head to Jajka. "Where's the other six people?"

"Ustin and Garhaaye were both looking around the stands to get themselves some souvenir," Jajka replied, lifting her fingers accordingly. "Royce and Chrome both surprisingly were on security duty because Ami-sama hired them. Darjeeling needed to go back to check on her team while Nishi was getting herself some food."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod, was not surprised about the security duty.

"You looked not so surprised about your friends on security job," Anchovy added with a raised brow.

"Why should I?" Miho asked to her. "I've been on private security job before."

"Wait, for real?!" Jajka asked with both of her eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, for real," Chemo answered with a nod. "She's fit for a job like that."

"She ever broke a guy's leg before when that guy tries to attack one of the staff she was employed in," Vicek added with a smile, that give them the creeps to know Miho ever did that to a man.

Miho sighed, mildly irritated as she looked at him. "Вы действительно должны это сказать?"

"Что?" Vicek asked back to her, for now everyone can't understand what are they saying. "ты когда-нибудь делал это с этим бедным ублюдком раньше."

"Да, но это не значит, что это нормально говорить," Miho replied with a shook.

"Hey, Miho," Chemo called. "Back there with your mother, what is it all about?"

"Just a small meeting with the MEXT, Mr. Renta Tsuji," Miho simply replied.

"And how does it go?" Mika asked in her soft tone with a smile.

"Want me to be honest?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah?" Jajka answered reluctantly.

"He's a complete bastard to Ooarai school."

Ouch. They were pretty surprised to hear that. And they except for the men recoiled to her swearing.

"Okaaayy, that was to explicit, Miho-san," Anzu responded quickly with a forced smile.

"But somehow I agreed with her," Anchovy added with a small frown.

"Me too," Mika added with a nod. "Seeing how many hardships that school has that are coming from him."

"I guess it was a pain in the ass for them," Chemo added as he crossed his arms.

"Sure it is," Miho replied with a nod and her eyes closed. "But I guess those troubles will be over soon for the school."

"Right after doing this match, of course," Anzu added with an assuring gesture of swinging her right-fisted arm to her left.

"By the way, when the Exhibition Match starts?" Chemo asked, pointing his thumb to behind him.

"In about a few more minutes," Anchovy answered, leaning closely to her girlfriend. "I guess this is your first time to visit and watch a tankery match?"

"Kinda like that," Vicek replied with a nod. "And we were both not a fan of watching some competition, but this one is worth our time. So… how's the match run?"

"First, commanders from each team of school are gathered in the field and salute each other to prepare for the match," Jajka explained, with her fingers raised one by one per explanation. "And then, commanders from each team start to propose a tactical plan for battling in the field. After that, the teams headed to their positions and the game starts."

"I see…" Chemo replied with a nod, and an understanding smile. "Shouldn't you be with the teams, Miho and Anzu?"

"Soon enough," Anzu replied, her hand waved in front of him. "Don't worry about it, we still have time."

"Yeah, let's not be in a hurry for a moment, yes?" Mika added in agreement.

"Sounds about right," Anchovy agreed. "We still got time before the match."

The time went on with Miho spends her time with her friends in the area. The match will start soon enough and she was ready for it. Though, there's one thing that concerns her. Kuromorimine and Ooarai, she was concerned of this because she knew those two teams are not ready to work with each other, aside having a help with the Saunders.

This is going to be one hell of a day for Miho.


	43. Chapter 41 - Tactical Plan

In the field. 30 minutes later.

"Now in the field, with our bloody tanks."

"Well, the match is not started yet."

"And where are the opposing team?"

"There they are."

"Good, I almost wanted to smoke."

Miho, Maho, Anzu, Kay and the rest of the commanders from their respective tanks are standing in a line. The judges of Sensha-Do were also standing in a line as well but they were standing in between OKS (Ooarai-Kuromorimine-Saunders) Compound team and the opposing compound team that will come sooner. They were waiting for the opposing to come over. And it took them to wait for sometime to see that the BPG (BC Freedom-Pravda-Gloriana) compound team's tanks were in sight on the horizon. Those tanks then stop in front of OKS team for around 40 feet.

After that, each commanders of their respective tanks came out and dropped down off the tanks. They then form a line in front of their tanks and in front of OKS Compound Team. The line was formed, with primary commanders in the middle of the line while OKS was the same. Though, they know the only difference on the primary commanders is that one of them is not a member of any school, which is Miho herself.

The BC Freedom commanders were surprised to see Miho is here, and it was because they didn't get told about it except for Pravdas and Glorianas. Katyusha grinned a little to see her here, while Klara and Nonna wondered how she could get in the match without having trouble with the MEXT. Darjeeling, Pekoe, Rosehip, Assam, Nilgiri and Rurukiri were all pretty happy to see her here for doing the match. But that doesn't mean it was safe to be around her, that's what Darjeeling assumed.

The judges were also happy to see her here, but they also half-feared of her. Shiho had told them before that Miho brought a pistol to the Exhibition for safety precautions. When they saw the drop bag on Miho's right leg, they immediately know there's a pistol inside. It's pretty normal to have that around as the 141 commanding officer, but to the Exhibition? Might as well let Miho brought a shotgun into the battlefield.

Miho looked over to the opposing team as Darjeeling greeted them. "Konnichiwa, minasan. Konnichiwa, Miho-san."

"Good day to you too, mate," Miho replied as she salutes her with two fingers. "Is everyone all here?"

"Of course," Marie replied with a nod. "We're ready for doing this match."

"Good to see someone is in spirits," Ogin commented heart fully. "You all stretched up?"

"Yes, we did," Nonna replied with a nod. "How about you?"

"We're ready to go to do some damage, Nonna," Kay replied to her with a fist in front of her. "We ain't goin' down that easy!"

"Oh, you sure won't!" Katyusha replied excitedly with a big smile, who was piggyback riding on Nonna. "Because we're going easy on you!"

Miho chuckled on that with her eyes closed. "Not pretty convincing there, Ms. Katyusha."

"I agree with Miho-san," Naomi added with a nod and her fist pointed to Miho. "No really convincing enough for me."

"Because I know you're going hard on us for sure," Maho added, finishing the sentence.

"Well, it seems going that way," Pekoe commented with her head bowing. "It's going to be a fierce fight soon."

"We'll see who lose this Exhibition," Nonna stated flatly with a determined look.

"Don't even have high hopes for that!" Noriko exclaimed whilst pointing at Nonna. "We're going to win this!"

"Like you're going to," Maho joked with a smile.

To which her own teams including Miho glared back at her. "Mate, what the bloody hell?"

"Yeah, what the hell, Maho?" Alisa asked in disbelieve. "You just said that to your own team."

"Sorry, I was joking," Maho replied apologetically with her hands raised.

Miho paused for a moment of her reply, before responding back to her. "5 seconds?"

Everyone including the judges were all confused on what she said. Apparently not for the Kuromorimine and Ooarai commanders and Kay, because they've see it before firsthand (Kay heard about it). But thinking about it again, if she indeed opened fire at her own sister right here, right now… That's going to be a gutting event for everyone in the Exhibition. And not sure how will Ami and the JSDF officials will react and deal to that trouble.

When the opposing team and Saunders team saw Maho's face went pale, they were surprised of that. "Please no."

And they are more surprised to hear that. "Good then," Miho replied, before looking back at the opposing team.

"Miho, what do you mean by 5 seconds?" Andou asked curiously with a raised brow.

"I'm sure you don't want to know, Andou-san," Yukari stated in doubt and fear.

"And why is that?" Oshida asked with her perplexed face.

OKS Compound Team just stayed silent about it, until Miho replied honestly. "It nearly costs someone's life."

Everyone, including the judges and except those who know stared at her in horror. "Are-are you serious?" Klara asked in concern, and a sweat nearly left her forehead.

"Well, I completely lost the plot," Miho replied with little sarcasm. "So yeah, I'm serious."

Everyone was confused by what she said on the first part of the sentence. "You lost the plot? You know how's the match starts right?" Kanon asked who was the head judge in the field.

"That's a British slang, Kanon-sama," Rosehip quickly replied. "What she was saying was that she's insane."

Everyone then looked back at her in disbelieve, apparently the Glorianas gave their concerned looks to Miho. "Are you serious?" Katyusha asked, leaning her head back after she got off from Nonna.

"Eeeeeyup," Miho replied awkwardly as she shook her head. "I'm serious, you got a madwoman right in front of you."

They were speechless for the current time. The Pravdas and the BC Freedoms starting to think that Miho had mental issues. The Glorianas thought that Miho looked like wasn't in a good mood. For OKS, they wondered how the match will go down with Miho around knowing she's having a trait of losing her mind. The judges, who knew she's the 141, starting to think if she ever done some crazy shit back on any mission.

Though, everything goes normal after Ami comes into view in between the judges.

"Alright, is everyone ready?" Ami asked to everyone.

"We all are ready, Ami-sama!" Everyone except Miho replied loudly in spirits, Miho only gave a thumbs up to her casually.

Ami nodded back at them, and stated aloud. "Okay then, the match between Ooarai-Kuromorimine-Saunders Compound Team and BC Freedom-Pravda-Gloriana Compound Team will now commence!"

"Salute!"

Everyone then salutes by a bow to each team whilst saying aloud, except for Miho. "Let's play fair!"

* * *

Audience seats, Sensha-do Department Box.

Shiho was sitting in between Yuko and Akashi. Next to Akashi was Shiciro, Ami, Renta and Chiyo with her daughter and the Trio Bermudas. They were pretty much happy to see Miho is in the match, not for Renta apparently because his plan of shutting down the school wouldn't work with Miho around. But still, the women were pretty worried on how Miho will be doing while in the match. Remembering Miho ever shot Ami and her own sister for pissing her off.

"I'm pretty impressed you managed to get her in the match," Yuko said to Shiho.

"Well, it was mostly Miho's handiwork," Shiho replied with a shrug. "She has her own ways to get a solution for it."

"I could see why," Akashi agreed with his head leaned to her.

"She really didn't take kindly about her former school getting shut down," Ami added with her arms crossed and shrugged. "How about that, Renta?"

"This is bullshit!" Renta exclaimed angrily. "How could she got a permit to join the match!?"

"Renta-sama, Miho-san is more than a Nishizumi and a former high-schooler," Chiyo replied with a soft smile and tone.

"Why so?" Rumi asked.

"It's hard to explain, actually," Shiciro replied awkwardly, scratching his neck.

"Hard?" Azumi asked confusingly.

"Correct," Alice replied with a nod. "The only thing we could say about her, is only do not underestimate with her."

"Though…" Ami interrupted, seemingly in concern. "I'm still concerned about something in the match."

"You're worried that Miho-san would fail this match?" Renta asked as he grinned at Ami.

"Nope," Ami, Shiho, Chiyo and Alice replied with a shook.

"Then what worries you?" Yuko asked with her brow raised.

Shiho then turned her head to her. "Remember what Miho said about what she did to Maho?"

Yuko and Akashi both stoned-face for a moment, before they both looking back straight with uneasiness in their heart. "5 seconds… I… see…" Akashi replied awkwardly with widen eyes.

"What are you guys talking about '5 seconds'?" Megumi asked as Renta and the Trio Bermudas become more confused on what are they talking about.

"It's better if you see it yourself," Ami replied with a sincere sigh, not sure what else to say to them.

* * *

Audience seats, people and student sections.

Jajka is with Uzska, Éclair, Fondue, Galette, Anchovy, Mika and Nishi on one line of the audience seats. With the match is going to happen soon, they were pretty excited about it. But Anchovy was mostly excited on Miho who had a permission to join the match. Though, they were pretty much know why is that, since Anchovy had told them that Miho is actually her girlfriend. They pretty much snickered about it, knowing that she had a date with a member of a Nishizumi before.

"It's going to be fun," Uzska commented with a smile.

"But the match is not started yet," Fondue added with her hands raised to her sides of her shoulders.

"Well, they're going to make a plan on how to deal with the opposing teams," Mika stated with her arms crossed. "Now with Miho is on Ooarai's side, she could make the plan even better than the other students from other schools."

"I thought my plans are always better," Nishi commented with a sour face, to which everyone glances at her.

"Are you sure about that?" Anchovy asked with a grin and a raised brow. "I don't think your plan always worked."

"And why is that?" Nishi asked confusingly as she leans to her. "I mean, that's how we fight."

"By suicide charging at the opponents like us Japanese back in World War 2?" Jajka asked sarcastically. "Nope, that won't work for you."

"Then why the Russians back in WW2 managed to beat the Germans with suicide charging?" Nishi asked. "They managed to bust through the lines to Berlin that time."

Everyone stayed silent in thoughts for a moment, until Uzska remembered something about it. "That was because they were desperate."

"Oh…" Nishi responded, speechless for a moment. "I see."

"I don't recall you're a history type of a girl except Japanese's history," Galette commented with her both eyebrows raised.

"Well, that's because Fukuda showed some history of other nations," Nishi replied with a shrug. "Really has some advantage for me at all."

"Sounds pretty fun," Anchovy commented happily. "Because… y'know, you're pretty popular around Japan and all."

"Arigato, Anchovy-san," Nishi replied with a nod and a smile, though blushed a little. "I appreciate it."

"Huh… speaking of which," Éclair quickly said, index finger raised. "How are you doing with having a relationship with Miho, your girlfriend?"

Anchovy blushed at that, and pushed Éclair gently. "Éclair!"

"Hey, I'm just askin'," Éclair replied defensively, teasing her a little. "I'm just wondering how is it going."

Anchovy was about to answer that, to which they were interrupted by a man's voice. "She and Miho are doing pretty well together."

They all surprised and looked at who's coming up to them. Jajka, Anchovy, Mika and Nishi recognized the man as Vicek.

"Vicek-sama!" Anchovy said aloud with a bow. "Good to see you are still here."

"Please just call me, Vicek," he replied with an open palm. "That just sounded pretty awkward."

"Vicek, I introduce you to my other friends here," Anchovy then gestured him to the other girls and shook hands with them. "This is Éclair, Fondue and Galette."

Though, the names were pretty awkward for him. "Sounds more like foods than names. Sorry about that."

"Well, conveniently something like that," Éclair replied with a nod. "And it's alright, many people said that."

"I see," Vicek replied with a nod.

"So you're Miho's friend?" Éclair asked as she points at her.

"Best friend," Vicek corrected. "I'm her best friend."

"Best friend?" Galette asked with a raised brow. "You're pretty much more like an uncle for her."

"Hah, maybe," Vicek replied with his hands on his hips. "But I like it more to be called a best friend."

"So how did you met her?" Fondue asked curiously.

"Met her back in London," Vicek replied. "After she got washed up in the waters of London."

"And after the Ooarai Incident?" Jajka asked.

"Yep," Vicek replied with a nod. "Gotta be honest with you, she's pretty strong to survive all of that."

"Could you tell how's it felt like to be with her?" Mika asked curiously with her hand on her chin.

"She's fun to talk with," Vicek replied with a shrug. "But since she lived in London for a year, she changed. But she was still a good friend to have around. Good talks, carefree, and good at taking shots."

They are confuse on what the last sentence meant. "Taking shots?" Nishi asked with her eyes narrowed.

That's when Uzska realized what he meant. "Wait, she drinks alcohol?"

"That's right!" Vicek replied with a thumbs up. "She could drink 5 bottles of vodka without getting drunk."

For a girl to drink that much, that's just seem impossible. The girls including Anchovy herself fell speechless and deadpanned at him. Anchovy knew Miho was a smoker, but to hear Miho is also a drinker was surprising for her. She can't tell if he was joking or not.

"I… I see…" Mika replied awkwardly, then turns her head at the TV of the match. "So… what do you think about Miho in joining the match here?"

"Honestly?" Vicek asked back, before turning to the big-arse TV. "It's going to be more beyond fun."

"Oh, I agree with that, Vicek," Jajka added with a consent tone. "But though, she still doesn't like to do any tankery."

Vicek then looked at Jajka for a moment, before looking away. "Well, I can see that, Jajka."

They all silent for a moment, before he continued. "Though, the only thing I would worry about Miho in the match just one."

Anchovy looked at him, to which she knew what he meant. "If someone sets her off..."

"Correct," Vicek replied with a nod. "You don't want to be around her if she goes angry like that."

"I could agree on that," Uzska added with a nod. "She even broke my fingers before."

Vicek just looked at her, stupefied. He wondered what Uzska did to Miho that made her broke her fingers.

* * *

OKS Compound Team camp.

Miho is sitting on the Panzer IV tank's turret to look around the field. Their camp was near the forest with their tanks park in line near the trees, while the tent was shadowed at the edge of the forest. All the girls except the commanders were either have their time off or tending their tanks. Miho was just observing the field around them, and it's good to say it was pretty open here. Open enough for someone to play golf on these greenly field.

She is also waiting for the rest of the commanders to be inside the tent. She told Rum to let her know if all commanders are already in the tent. Since they need to make a tactical and decisive plan on how to beat the opposing compound team. She also expects to see there are good cooperation between Ooarai and Kuromorimine, knowing they're still enemies to each other and are on truce.

She is also enjoying the peace she had right now. Even if she had a few moments for enjoying this, she kinda like to not shooting stuffs up for now. And most of all, not have to hear someone insulting her. Mostly because Ami would be confused on how to deal with that kind of situation. And might give the chills to the spectators.

As time goes by for Miho to enjoy peace as she blankly stares to the field of grass in front of her. And as the girls are having a time-off with their tanks, Rum walked over to Miho. Rum then looked up to her, and whistled to her. Miho turns her head to her and stood up from the turret.

"The commanders are all in the tent, Miho-san!" Rum said aloud to her.

Miho only nodded, then got off the tank. Miho then gestured her hand to Rum to lead the way. Miho then followed Rum to the tent not far near the forest. Reaching the front door, Rum stopped and gestured her to come inside. Miho sighed, before entering the tent as Rum returns back to her tank.

The commanders from the three respective schools are murmuring to each other. Kept deciding on what course of action about making a plan for the fight. When they have noticed that Miho already entered the then, they quickly stopped talking and stare at her. Staring at her as if she was a VIP, and gave her a path when Miho walks around the table to the end of the table ahead.

She then looks over at each of the 18 commanders, including her own sister, Yukari and Kay. To say they were ready was an understatement, they were pretty tensed up to have Miho around. Knowing she's a Nishizumi and might be more of a veteran tanker than Maho. And needless to say, she has a tactical and marksmanship value for the team.

And also a value of leadership and morale for the team.

"Is everyone all here?" Miho asked, just to make sure Rum was right.

"All in and accounted for, Miho-san," Mauko replied with a nod.

"Good, then we can start on making a strategic plan for the game," Miho stated in relief, leaning against the table in front of her with her two outstretched hands. "But I want to make sure about something."

They all gave their concerned look to her, which Noriko asked. "And that is?"

Miho then looked over to the commanders of Kuromorimine and Ooarai, and asked. "Are you okay working with each other?"

"I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" Alisa asked confusingly.

"I'm talking about Kuromorimine and Ooarai," Miho replied with a stern tone. "Knowing both schools are having a truce here. I want to make sure any commanders from both schools don't have a trouble with each other."

"What makes you think both of us schools would have trouble with each other?" Geshiko asked, she was just curious.

"Mauko…" Miho simply replied, and gave a dead stare straight to Mauko.

Saying they were unnerved was yet again an understatement. They practically felt scared to see Miho gave a dark glare like that. Mauko was starting to sweat on her forehead as she fixes her collar of her uniform for it with a gulp. Honestly, it was pretty uncomfortable to see her like that. Even Yukari herself who was Mauko's victim didn't like it.

"Oookay… calm down…" Erika lighten up the situation slowly. "We'll try to cooperate as best as we can."

Miho glances at Erika for a moment unconvinced, before nodded in approval. "Alright then, then let's get on the plan."

"Right, the map," Kay then showed the map on the table, as wide as the table they have.

"So where's our starting point?" Miho asked as she focused on the map.

"Should be around here," Ritaiko answered as she points at the said position on the map. "Around the opening of the forest here, on the west of Shunan city."

"Good, what about the opposing team?" Miho asked as she raised a brow.

"Their position will be around… here, in this opening of another forest," Satoko pointed on the map. "Kilometers away on the east of our starting position."

"Hmm, tempting," Miho commented, her head just shrugged at the thought. "Forest Warfare and Bushwacking."

"Bushwacking?" Sodoko asked as everyone confused at the meaning.

"Guerilla warfare in rural areas," Yukari replied with her arms crossed. "The term was commonly used in the American Civil War in the 1860s."

"Thank you, Yukari," Miho thanks her for clearing it up.

"Dōitashimashite," Yukari happily with a bow.

"Okay…" Miho said with a nod, before looking at the commanders. "What do you lads think about this? We got a lot of opening areas near our starting position of the forest, knowing there are a couple of houses nearby. While the opposing team got roads heading for us, and may have advantage of flanking us through the forest."

Miho then looked back to the map. "IF they didn't have any trouble to get stuck in the mud."

"Well, the soils in the forests are well maintained naturally," Naomi said as she blew a bubblegum in her mouth. "So no tanks would be sinking in any mud."

"Good, then we also have the advantage to snipe on the enemies in the forest while on camouflage," Miho suggested in determination. "And also for an escape route for the tanks."

"Works for me," Ogin said in consent.

"Me too," Maho added, also in agreement. "Those are real good advantages for us."

Though, Anzu also felt there's something else than that. "How about disadvantages?"

"Well, they have a KV-2 which is technically an artillery-class tank, enough to cripple the Maus if they take the right shot, unless of course they're stupid enough to use it to defend the flag tank," Miho said flatly as if she has done this shit before. "We'll be vulnerable in open areas and chances are there could be some of the people from the opposing team have sniper-like skill, like Nonna for example. Got nothing more than that except if they are good at attacking and flanking us in the woods."

They all pretty understand what she meant, but Miho felt there's more than what she said. At least, she could tell the opposing team are pretty well organized in tactics. Now the team in question was the BC Freedom, knowing they had their own civil war in their school. But the last time Miho checked on Andou, she could tell that the BC Freedom won't be having any fight with each other. And let's see the summary of the teams she had now.

Ooarai specialized in improvisation and unorthodox tactics, between battling decoys, feints or counterintelligence or retreat-counter attacks thanks to the training Miho and Ami gave since they have weak arsenals in their disposal aside from Tiger Porsche and Mark IV.

Kuromorimine has superiority in firepower and armor, and effective on Bliztkrieg tactic. Though, Maho had learned about maneuver warfare in case the Blitzkrieg tactic won't work. Since the school lack tactical flexibility and rely heavily on coordinated team efforts rather than coordinated spontaneous improvisation plan and tactics. The KMM forces would torn apart.

Saunders has good firepower and superior armored forces. Their tactics are involving to split tanks into multiple platoons and working together to surround the opposition and attack from multiple directions. The school relied on pre-emptive maneuver to cut-off hostile reinforcements or retreat paths which comes down to gut instinct. This tactic would work against lone scouts, but would risk many casualties and little reconnaissance of their enemy. And Miho needs to make sure they didn't do something illegal like having an aerial radio-interceptor Alisa has.

Honestly, it feels like she's in another joint-operation mission back in 2016.

"So… anyone knows how will the enemy planning on attacking us?" Miho asked to everyone, asking for suggestion for this part.

And with that, everyone began to discuss with each other about the tactics they need to use on their enemy. She could hear some agreed and disagreed to their own suggestions of the plan. But then, Miho felt there was something else she forgot. What was it…? Ah, right, the tanks! The match allowed up for 35 tanks in the match.

"Maho, Kay," Miho called, Maho and Kay look at her as the rest of the commanders still talking about making up the plan.

"Yes?" Maho responded with a raised brow.

"I just remembered that we are allowed to bring up to 35 tanks into the match," Miho stated flatly. "Since Ooarai only has nine tanks in their disposal, that means we have 6 spots for more tanks."

"We already figured that out Miho," Kay responded to her with a nod. "And frankly, we want to be fair in the game. So 3 KMM's tanks and 3 Saunders' tanks."

Miho smiled with a nod. "Then that won't be much of a problem."

Miho, Maho and Kay then looked back at the commanders to see how are they doing on making the strategic plan. Though, it was obvious how Kuromorimine and Ooarai doing on making their plans. The both schools were talking to themselves instead of asking other school's opinion about the strategy, except for Saunders who are pretty open about it. The only person from Kuromorimine and Ooarai who have talk to each other were only Maho and Yukari.

Miho was dissatisfied of this. Yes they are neutral and having a truce, but at least they needed to do cooperation on this one. Why wouldn't they discuss with each other than themselves, she didn't know. But for sure, she didn't like how this is going. Despite that, they already finished up their discussions and looked back at Miho. They are ready to give their opinions on the strategic plan.

"You're done?" Miho asked flatly with a raised brow.

"Yes, Miho-san," everyone replied with a nod.

"Good, then let's hear it out," Miho responded as she leans onto the table, landing her arms on it. "I need to hear your suggestions first before I consider my options on this."

"Uhm, right…" Nekonya said awkwardly, before continuing. "So… here's how it goes."

Miho listened to every detail of the plan from every commanders view from each of their respective school. And honestly, it was intriguing to hear for her. It's like having a fun to make a plan on how to raid an enemy base with Soap. But of course, this was the unpleasant version of making a plan. Since we got KMM-Ooarai on truce and could expect hostilities to each other still exist. The only reason they didn't get a fight with each other is that they would deal Miho after that, the only person they scared about.

They all, including Miho, have decided that the school that is responsible for the flag tank will be Ooarai. The Mallard Team aka the Public Morals Committee who will be responsible as the flag tank. It will be guarded with one Panzer III tank (and of course, it's not Sangou) behind the allied lines. In case if their location is compromised, they'll alert the team and make a run for the nearby reinforcements.

For this reason, Miho would secretly tell Sodoko later that she needs to yell "Code Black" in the radio.

The Saunders had suggested to hide within the forests and the bushes around the opening areas to ambush them. Splitting the teams into platoons so they can opened fire on the enemies as well as confusing and pinning them down on where they are standing. And since the Saunders have all their tanks colored in green, the chances could be increased on the camouflage points. While KMM as the Saunders' back up in case their locations have been compromised, Ooarai will be sent into two teams to find and eliminate the flag tank by circling through the forest and onto the road. From there they will be heading north-east into the enemy's opening near their starting position to see if the flag tank is there and eliminate it.

KMM has suggested to destroy the enemy via Blitzkrieg tactic. Ooarai will be covering KMM tanks from a hill north of an opening. While Saunders on the other hand will surround the opposition force through the hill on the north and the forest to the south, putting the enemies down for good. Two scouts will be sent to the south in case the surviving hostiles are escaping into the city where Urban fight will happen. 3 tanks from any school should stay back to escort the flag tank to a more secure area to make sure the enemies didn't slip past the main force and found and attack the flag tank without notice.

Ooarai on the other hand, suggested guerilla warfare and decoy tactics. 20 tanks, 5 Ooarai's tanks, 5 KMM's tanks and 10 Saunders tanks are to be split into 4 detachments and headed for north-east, south-east, south into the rural houses and city, and east into the enemy in the opening. 3 tanks are decoys and scouts and should be given a headstart before the 4 detachments commence a guerilla warfare in order to see how far out the enemies are. The 3 decoy tanks are to return immediately upon enemy contact and linked up with the rest of 10 tanks who were on standby at the rally point on the south-west of the main opening field into the forest (unofficially designated by Miho, Checkpoint Zulu) and act as a back-up reinforcements. After the flag tank is moved to another area along with its escort but eventually compromised by the enemy, the standing by 13 tanks are to link up with the flag tank before its getting destroyed in a fast-response situation manner.

Miho found these plans really tempting for sure. And according to the weather and the areas they're in, any of these tactics would be possible to accomplish. However, it has its own disadvantage as well according to each of the teams. Even the KMM commanders and Ooarai commadners give their dislike of the plan, while the Saunders just stood back and watch the whole scene.

They then kept discussing to each other with Miho only spoke a little about it. But then the friendly conversation was slowly turning into a hostile one the more they arguing. Miho had decided try to stay calm about it as they argue with each other. The only people who weren't arguing with their hatred tone was only the commanders of Saunders, who knew Miho won't like it. It was a wise decision for the Saunders to just stay silent.

"What's wrong with Blitzkrieg tactic?" Ritaiko asked as she was on nerves. "We could obliterate the enemies swiftly while you covering us."

"The problem is that once the enemy reached your formation, you will be disorganized and made yourself the targets for the enemies!" Erwin stated, ever heard and learned of this tactic due to her nickname. "We could give you covering fire but we could get ourselves in trouble if they flanked our positions!"

"And even if us, Saunders managed to circle around the enemies," Alisa stated her opinion. "The forces on the hill could be stuck with Ooarai because the enemy got there first while those in the forest had to shoot the enemy from there."

"It's very efficient to put them out of commission!" Mauko retorted, Miho stayed silent as she focus on planning the best strategy on the map. "You just never tried it!"

"Don't you remember we did that 7 months ago?!" Satoko asked half-angrily, pointing her finger down the table. "All of our light and medium tanks got destroyed with that tactic, only my tank and Ogin's that manage to survive that tactic!"

"Because you have a bad fire control and your team is not coordinated that well!" Geshiko retorted. "Guess Ooarais must be suck on that!"

"Hey, watch your mouth!" Sodoko retorted angrily. "We've been doing what we can in the match while you praising yourself as the best school in Japan like useless commanders!"

"Oh, so what, we're going to use your guerilla tactic?" Sangou retorted questioningly. "Your tactic is weak and useless the second they attack you!"

"What, because the tanks we got here are underrated?!" Azusa asked back angrily. "You don't how it feels you selfish woman!"

"Of course your tanks are underrated!" Erika retorted. "We got the best arsenal in here and what you got there? Just some pieces of scraps that you used against your enemy!"

"Damn you, Erika!" Yukari shouted angrily. "They're not scraps, they're the finest tanks we have in our disposal!"

"The only finest tanks that got you to retreat aimlessly!" Geshiko retorted mockingly. "Is that how you play guerilla warfare?! The Pravda can destroy you with no trouble like that time in your stupid with the in the 63rd National Tournament!"

"Hey, we were trying our best to fight Pravda!" Anzu countered, who was the seemingly calm, cheerful and indolent now turned angry. "Yukari had to keep us in high morale for it!"

"And yet she failed to do that!" Maho countered, she was half-angry now remembering Miho is with them.

"What were you expecting that time, we were desperate!" Yukari responded quickly and agitatedly.

"Of course you were desperate!" Ritaiko retorted as she points at her. "You were stupid enough to defend around the church when you got surrounded by the Pravdas!"

"Don't you say that to her!" Ogin shouted, defending Yukari. "She didn't have any choice!"

"And look how did that end up for your school!" Erika retorted back to her. "Your school become an ignorance and an insult all across Japan as you tried everything for your school! You are nothing but a bunch of losers!"

"Hey, that's enough!" Kay intervened aloud, but it wasn't enough to stop them.

"Why, you-!?" Noriko shouted, and quickly leans forward at the commanders of Kuromorimine.

The Saunders commanders quickly went and try to separate the commanders who were starting to fight with each other. The Ooarai and KMM commanders, including Maho and Yukari who are the overall commanders are fighting with each other. They all forget that Miho is here with them as they grabbed and shove each other in the fight. Miho was trying to stay calm and just looked over to the map, just trying to ignore the fight. But she was unable to focus on making the strategy on the map as she kept hearing the insults made from both schools to each other. With Saunders keep saying to them to calm down and try to separate them.

And Miho couldn't even take more of this, too much bloody nuisance. And this fight is starting to give her an edge. And there's only one thing that could make them to stop fighting.

The only way that a madman would use.

She quickly pulled out the thing from her drop bag. Cocked it as the fight drowned its sound. Before aimed it to the ceiling with her eyes straight forward with a dark glare.

*DOR*

Everyone immediately frightened of what they just heard a gunfire. Right.. inside.. the tent. All the commanders stopped their fighting in their current fighting stances, and slowly turned their heads to Miho. They then slowly shocked and terrified… to see that Miho was still aiming her pistol in the air and she's giving her deadly glare to everyone in the room. Even Naomi, who looked pretty cool with everyone else, felt a shiver on her spine to see Miho like that.

They, in horrified, just keep staring at her as Miho is glaring at them darkly and angrily. Now Miho was more look like a death angel than herself and a Nishizumi. Maho, Yukari, Ogin and Kay could feel their hearts beating only by looking at her. They then slowly begin to have their sweats pouring from their heads. And they were unsure on what to do but to be still on their poses as their skins went pale as snow.

Miho looked at everyone slowly, before slowly putting the gun down on the table. Miho took a heavy sigh and looked back at them. It was clear for them, she was very pissed. And Miho took it too far to stop them from fighting.

 **"Will you all JUST SHUT THE FUCK BEFORE I FUCKING KILL ALL OF YOU!?"**

They all quickly heavily taken back by her shout. It was no normal shout, it's more like when she is ready to go on a rampage. They quickly step away from each other and from their poses in extreme anxiety and fear. It was a clear death sentence for them, and she was dead serious about it. Everyone, including Miho, didn't say even a single word as the intense silent fills the tent.

Miho just sighed for a few moments, before speaking grimly. "You all said that you are okay to work together… now explain to me why are you fighting each other?"

They all fell speechless to the question. Erika was about to say something, but no sound came out from her mouth. Maho and Yukari are even in deep thought about that. They're on the same team, why would they, both schools are having a fight with each other right now? They keep looking for an answer with Saunders just stood there and froze. But, no answer came in mind from any commanders with her.

Miho could only shook her head coldly and pull a long face. "Silence… just silence… is that all you got?"

The commanders looked at each other with their frowns, before looking back at the cold Miho. "You are unbelievable."

They flinched at that, it was sharp as a combat knife. Yukari had to put her hand on her chest with Erika clasping her hands against each other. The Saunders were nervous to see if Miho could calm down at this time. Ogin was pretty frightened to see Miho is angry like that, despite the fact she knew she is the commanding officer of 141.

Maho on the other hand, had felt this was pretty unnerving. Maho was worried if Miho is going to shoot someone now. But thankfully, she just shot her gun to the sky. Maho sighed a little on that. But then commented randomly on Miho very lowly.

"Miho was stupid and moron to do that."

Which she quickly regretted saying that, after realizing what she said.

"What was that, sister?" Miho asked coldly, quickly glances at Maho.

Maho was surprised, Miho was not supposed to be to hear that. How Miho could hear her very low voice she didn't know, even though she was a little farther from Miho. Everyone then slowly glance to Maho with their confused looks. Maho looked over to everyone anxiously, before looking back to her sister.

"Erm… it was nothing," Maho lied as she shook her open palm to her.

But then, Erika answered to Miho, who was close to Maho. "No, she actually said that you were stupid and moron to do that."

Well shit, that didn't go as plan. "Dammit Erika…"

Everyone is shock if Maho had to say that to her own younger sister. But to their surprise, Miho didn't look like she's flinched nor insulted by it. Miho just gave her cold look at Maho, narrowing her eyes in anger and in silent. Miho blinked as Maho stands unfazed toward Miho. Miho sighed and looked back at Maho.

"You have 5 seconds to run, Maho."

Everyone knew what's that meant, except for Alisa and Naomi. And with that, Maho quickly ran out the tent, leaving her figure-shaped dust next to Erika.

* * *

 ***BBBBRRRRRRRVVVVVVVVVMMMM***

"A chainsaw, are you kidding me!?"

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK!?"

And right now, Maho is on a free-running from Miho who is holding a chainsaw and chasing down at her. This is her first time to have a crazy chase with a chainsaw wielding sister. She just kept running around the forest, and then around the tanks, and then into the open in front of the camp. Another bad day for her and as fear took over her mind.

Even all students of Ooarai, KMM and Saunders alike are dumbfounded and terrified to see that. They swear it looks like Miho was about to kill her own sister that way. And that also made them wonder how the hell Miho could run with a revving chainsaw in her both hands. And they even wondered why Miho was chasing her own sister like that.

The commanders could only stood outside the tent and watch the whole shit. To say they were dumbfounded is not enough, speechless and frozen to see that. What they could do were only to gave their blank stares at the two sisters, one who runs and one who chases. It's like a deadly cat and mouse game.

"Well… she's really pissed," Alisa commented flatly, it felt like her time when she thought she has seen some shit.

They didn't even bother to look at her with Ogin commented back flatly. "Tell me about it."

They silent for a moment as they watch, to which then Yukari asked without looking away. "Peace?"

Everyone didn't even felt bother to answer it. "Yep."

* * *

BPG Compound Team Camp.

Katyusha, Nonna, Klara, Darjeeling, Pekoe, Marie and Oshida were busy setting up a tactical plan to fight against their opponents in the match. As they discuss on setting up the plan, Andou apparently had come inside the tent. She was carrying some sort of antenna phone that's only used by the Sensha-Do personnel, which can viewed live feeds. The commanders were happy to hear her footsteps coming into the tent.

"Andou-san, we were wondering where you-" Darjeeling said, but quickly halt when she noticed her face. "Andou-san, are you alright?"

They have noticed that Andou looked pale on her face and on her whole skin, as if her brown skin color nearly changed into white. "Is there something wrong, Andou-san?" Nonna asked.

"I think I just seen some shit from the other compound team."

Frankly, they were surprised to hear that. It's their first time to hear that. But also confused at the same time. What's this 'shit' Andou was talking about?

"Is there something going on with the OKS Compound Team?" Marie asked with a raised brow, curiously.

"Yeah… but…" Andou paused a moment as she looks on the phone. "I'm not sure how to describe it."

"Well… what is it?" Pekoe asked with her narrowed brows.

"Umm… what do you think?" Andou then gave them a look on the phone that gave the live feeds.

For their first reaction, 'what the fuck?'

The camera was set in the air and they could see what's going on with OKS Team. Now, they are watching Miho is chasing Maho all around their camp, with something big in her hands. They widen their eyes and gave their blank faces, terrified for sure. They slowly lean back away from the phone in shock after found out what was the object Miho was holding.

"Is Miho… carrying a chainsaw?" Katyusha slowly asked, stammered and afraid.

"Okay… how did she get that thing in the match?" Oshida asked blankly to them.

"No idea…" Pekoe replied with a shook.

They all then fell silent for a moment, before Darjeeling continued. "I'm starting to consider her mental condition."

Nonna just shrugged as she sighed. "I can't help but to agree on that."

* * *

Spectators area.

They are not sure if they are hallucinating or not. But right now, they are watching on the large screen above them that is recording the live feed. It's showing that Miho is chasing her own sister, Maho all around the camp like a madwoman. Miho looks like didn't even care if it close to danger to run with her chainsaw revving.

In the Sensha-Do Department Box, we could see as clear as day on how they react. Shiho, Ami, Alice, Chiyo, Yuko, Akashi, Shichiro, Renta and the Trio Bermudas were stupefied and all quite in shock and shiver to watch what is Miho doing. Shiho, Ami and Chiyo could tell that Miho was pissed all over again. Seeing how she swaying the chainsaw around without getting herself hurt.

"Is this… normal?" Renta asked doubtfully, also worried of the other students.

"Yeah..?" Shiho replied doubtfully.

"Are you sure, Shiho-sama?" Rumi asked, they are unconvinced to the answer.

"Well…" Shiho paused for a moment. "It's normal for her."

It took them for a moment to register what she said, before everyone then looked at her. "Are you for real?" Shichiro asked as everyone is in disbelieve.

"Yes, I am," Shiho replied with a nod.

"Now I'm starting to think letting her to join the match is a mistake," Akashi stated doubtfully.

"Yeah, she looked pretty unstable for herself," Yuko added.

"I can assure you Miho won't do more trouble," Chiyo paused, then points her finger at the screen. "Except that."

"She tried to kill me before," Ami added, to which everyone looked at her in disbelieve except for Shiho.

"Why would she try to kill you?" Azumi asked curiously, she thought that was a joke.

"Well, it's because I made her angry before," Ami replied with her hands raised. "She told me that I have 5 seconds to run before she got the urge to kill me."

They were uncomfortable to hear that, but then they able to register something. "Wait, the '5 seconds' you were talking about was about that?!" Megumi asked to their realization.

"Yeah," Shiho, Ami and Chiyo replied with a nod.

"And I'm pretty sure Miho-san is mad to her own sister," Alice suggested softly to comfort them. "I'm sure Maho-san and Miho-san will be alright."

They all stayed silent for a moment, before looking back to the screen. "Well if that's the case… I won't argue about that." Rumi said with a shrug as she looks back at the screen.

The 5 men of Miho's friend were all stood on the top of the audience seats. They all were looking at the screen where it show the live feed of the OKS Compound Team. And a lot of people in this area are dumbfounded and terrified to what are they watching. For the men, on the other hand, stay stoic and weren't surprise on what they saw. Though, they show worries about it.

"Okay," Garhaaye began with his arms crossed. "Tell me again why she's mad?"

"Simple, Maho pissed her off again," Chemo replied with a shrug.

"I bet 500 yens Maho insulted her," Chrome said to his friends with a grin.

"Then I bet that Maho pranked her," Ustin said back as he shook hands with Chrome.

"Really, mates?" Royce asked in irritation. "We are watching something that everyone never saw before and now you're gambling on it?"

"Don't you gamble before?" Garhaaye asked curiously.

"I don't anymore," Royce replied with a shook. "The last time I gambled I nearly took away my clothes."

Everyone then looked at him in disgust. "Are you serious?!" Chemo asked aloud in disbelieve.

"Well, it happened to me back in London," Royce replied unamused. "And worst of all, I was drunk that time."

"Alright," Chrome said quickly with his hands reached out to him. "What the fuck? Sorry."

The eight girls along with Vicek are also watching the big damn screen above them. They could say, it's quiet scary to watch. Could be said from the nearby students of Pravda, Gloriana, Jatkosota, Bonple, Saunders, Chi-Ha-Tan, Maginot, KMM, Ooarai, BC Freedom and Anzio. They just can't believe if they're going to watch this.

Jajka, Uzska, Éclair, Fondue and Galette were pretty shock to see Miho chasing her own sister like that. Mika and Nishi were speechless and slack-jawed to what they saw. Anchovy was pretty horrified of Miho's rage. Vicek however, stayed calm with little to no worry.

"Wow…" Jajka said in fear at the screen. "I never knew Miho could be angry like that."

"Me too," Anchovy added in agreement. "Let alone chasing her sister like that."

"And with a chainsaw," Mika added with a raised brow, worried what will happen to Maho.

"Now I wonder how did she smuggle one into the match," Nishi stated curiously, but still afraid about Miho.

"It's better we don't ask that," Fondue replied in disagreement. "I don't want to be anywhere around her to ask that, seeing how is she still angry like that."

"I agree on that," Uzska added with a consent nod.

"Me too," Galette added with a nod as well.

They kept staring at the screen, until they realized Vicek didn't say a thing. They all then turned their heads to him. And they are surprise to see Vicek was so stoic of this. But then, he commented flatly.

"At least it's no worse than this."

All eight girls quickly stared at him with their jaws drop and eyes widen. "What do you mean by that?" Anchovy asked, they were curious on what he meant by that.

Vicek just casually glances back at them and replied. "Well… I ever made her angry once. She then chased me down around the block with my own shotgun."

That's when they starting to sweat on their foreheads and gave their darken and scared stares to him. "Are you joking?"

"Oh, no, I'm not," Vicek replied with a shook, still naturally casual about this. "But I can assure you, Maho will not get killed by Miho."

Despite that, they all felt relieve to hear that. If Vicek ever got in trouble with Miho and lives, that means Maho could survive that as well. But they could guess the trauma someone had from that. Anchovy was a little horrified to think that Miho could kill a soul, but was happy to hear she didn't kill anybody.

Though, she didn't know Miho ever killed someone until now.


	44. Chapter 42 - Eye Of The Storm

**Hold up, before getting into the Exhibition Match. Read the continuity of the previous flashback.**

 **I know what are you going to say about this, but I need more time on the Exhibition Match.**

 **So, enjoy reading.**

* * *

Task Force 141-Disavowed

Mission Briefing

[Image of Volk's passport, Interrogation picture. Beaten up hard]

Price: Did our man talk?

Sandman: They always talk. We got names, dates, locations. Volk gave us everything, even Fregata.

[Fregata Industries]

Sandman: It seems your hunch was right, Captain.

Price: Makarov's already making friends.

Miho: The company that smuggled in those weapons… bastards…

Soap: Calm down, Miho.

Miho: Sorry.

Sandman: Anyway, lets continue.

[Footage of assault, Makarov's convoy]

Sandman: He's meeting his top advisors six hours from now. Location is the Hotel Lustig. It's in the center of the city, near the old square.

[Hotel Lustig, Surrounding locations]

Sandman: We have Tier One groups assigned to handle this, but I don't think they'll make it in time... ...but you're close.

[Footage of Russian forces occupation, vehicles flown in, hotel images]

Price: Very. I'll contact you when it's done.

[Hotel images, surrounding location, map]

Yuri: Makarov's council all together in the middle of a warzone? Sounds convenient.

Price: Overconfidence makes you careless.

[Assault Team placement plan, map of location routes]

Price: We'll infiltrate along two separate routes. Soap, you, Miho, and Yuri head for the church and provide overwatch.

Soap: The city's locked down tight. We'll need a back door.

Price: Leave that to me.

* * *

"Welcome to Prague, ladies and gents." Price told the group that was with him. Soap was sitting beside Miho, who was smoking a cigar, along with Price, who was beside him. Yuri was on the other side.

"The resistance is expecting us half a click to the North." Soap mentioned.

"I want to know what happened after you pressed detonate on the nuclear missile, Soap." Miho said as she took the cigar out temporarily to speak. She then continued to smoke.

"I'll tell you later, Miho." Soap replied to Miho's request.

"Let's get this over with." Price finally said as he threw his cigar into the sewers.

Miho followed suit, throwing her own cigar into the sewer water as everyone jumped into the water one by one. And goddamn how cold the sewer it was. But she should be thankful that this sewer is not as cold as the Russian waters. The four operatives then began swimming toward the exit of the sewer to their right.

"Eye of the storm"

October 10th – 21:36:46

Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141 – Disavowed

Prague, Czech Republic

The group swam in the sewers until they reached the exit of the sewer. They kept to the shadows to avoid being spotted by Russian forces. But then, something in front of them caught Price's attention.

"Hold up." Price suddenly said with his fist raised, having everyone stop.

They saw a wooden platform ahead, where the Ultranationalist forces are camping. Not just Ultranationalists were there, there were also civilians taken as prisoners on the platform. Some of them are resistance fighter, judging from the equipment like helmet and goggles they've got. The prisoners were group into lines while their hands are on the back of their heads.

"They've already taken prisoners. They're moving fast." Price continued. Miho wanted to say something, but stayed quiet, thinking this is not the right time.

"We need to be faster. Keep it tight, lads. Use the boats for cover." He warned them, everyone following that order. The group kept moving, finally moving under the wooden docks.

"Move under the docks. The storm will keep us quiet."

The group followed Price as they moved under the docks, moving to the left and right and eventually reaching the waters underneath the platform. They swim through as they are avoiding large gaps and moved silently. They then stopped for a moment after a dog above quickly alerted from the scent, probably making the hostiles topside to go on alert and shouted at the prisoners with their rifles raised. The team stopped in front of a large gap above them, and then Miho startled.

*DAK-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"Easy." Price said as Miho saw a person get shot by a soldier as he fell in the water.

"Let them pass." Price continued as the group waited. Miho wanted to kill that damn soldier. Another person was shot by the Russian soldiers.

"No, Miho." Soap said as Miho aimed her pistol. She put it down. The soldiers went away from the docks are where they were going to have to go to.

"Okay, go." Price told everyone as they moved under the docks.

They kept swimming and they finally left the docks and ended up into the tunnels, where resistance soldiers were waiting for them. Why the resistance decided to wait for them near the Ultranationalists checkpoint, they really don't know. But at least the resistance waited for them with bear to arms.

"What took you so long?" the leader complained as the rest of them helped the four out of the water.

"Your intel was off, Kamarov. You said this area would be clear." Soap told the man, who now was known as Kamarov.

"I'm sure it was nothing you couldn't handle." He replied.

"Yeah, we could have been spotted and killed by the Russians in the water." Miho told the Russian.

"So, who's this little girl?" Kamarov asked as the group started to move.

"She's an operative, just like us." Price told Kamarov.

"You Westerners are now recruiting children for war. I'm not surprised." He replied amused.

"It's teenager, ye' wanker," Miho retorted lowly, which made Kamarov flinched slightly.

"Oh, forgive me," Kamarov replied with a smirk. "The name's Kamarov. You?"

"Miho, Miho Nishizumi," Miho replied to him.

That name took him off-guard for a moment, before looking at Price. "Is she a Japanese?"

"Yeah," Price replied with a nod. "And a British."

Kamarov just chuckled whilst shook his head, then looks at Miho. "You've come from a long way."

"Anyway, let's just move on." Soap advised.

The group walked a bit more into the tunnels.

"Do you know what had to be done to get you this far?" Kamarov asked sarcastically.

"Enough chit-chat. Soap, Yuri, Miho, best get on your way. We'll meet you at the rally point." Price told the group as he went on his own way.

"Let's go you two." Soap told the two soldiers as they followed him. They passed by resistance men, who were either tired or injured. Soap immediately halted as soon as he saw Russian soldiers.

"Hold up. Got contacts. Twenty meters ahead." He whispered as several soldiers were nearby. Stay low. We don't want to attract any attention." Soap told the group as they followed him in silence, crouching.

"Five guys on foot, Snipers on the roof." He told everyone who was behind him. Miho and Yuri proned on the ground, aiming their guns at the people.

"Sit tight, we'll see what they do." Everyone kept their scopes at them, not moving. They were lucky, as the soldiers began to split up.

"They're splitting up. Must be our lucky day."

"The soldiers finally split up, making less people to kill.

"Ok. Take the snipers first. They'll alert the others if you don't." Soap advised. Aiming their guns on the snipers, Miho and Yuri immediately shot the snipers, but their luck ran out, as the sniper survived. The other one saw what happened and immediately got alert, making everyone alerted of the situation.

"We've been spotted! Return fire!" Soap shouted as several soldiers started coming out of the archway, who supported the men on the ground. They were in an unlucky positon at that point.

"Dammit!" Miho shouted angrily as adrenaline immediately flooded her body. She got her G18 with silencer out and shot everyone, killing them. In a short time, everyone was dead. They also managed to kill the dog nearby.

"This'll be a lot easier if you don't alert them." Soap told them off as he continued into the archway, Miho and Yuri following them.

"Bad luck," Miho commented to Soap's statement.

"Follow me." Soap instructed them, as they both followed him right behind him. They made sure to check all of the alleyways while moving to ensure they weren't found this time. Fortunately, they weren't found as they spotted a patrol in front of them, which consisted of two soldiers.

"Patrol up ahead. You two, take one of them out. I'll get the other." Soap told them as Yuri and Miho aimed their snipers at the men. They shot the first guy while Soap took out the other.

"He's down." Soap informed them as they got out of hiding and kept moving. Apparently there was another sniper nearby, as Soap and Miho saw him immediately.

"Another sniper. Don't draw his attention." Moving under cover, the group managed to move a bit more. This wasn't their day, as the rain couldn't mask the sound of the chopper flying in their direction.

"Chopper! Quick, through here!" Soap ordered hastily, as he found a place for them to hide. Miho and Yuri ran, following him.

"This day reminds me of the time in Africa, just with the dark sky and heavy raining." Miho whispered as they quickly followed Soap.

"Yeah. I feel you." Yuri replied as he followed after her.

"You two. Wait here." Soap ordered as he looked out the window and contacted Price.

"Price, you copy?" Soap asked.

"Go ahead…" was the reply.

"Lots of movement of the street. Keep your eyes high, snipers are everywhere." Soap informed him.

"We'll keep an eye out." Price informed him. Yuri then turned to Miho and Yuri, who were waiting for him.

"Let's go." He told them. The two nodded as they followed him. The group was being very careful to avoid any Russian soldiers as they moved. Suddenly, the sound of a heavy vehicle and chattering could be heard.

"You hear that?" Soap asked. Miho and Yuri nodded. Soap realized what it was.

"Enemy convoy! Move! Now!" With that order, the group immediately followed him. Making sure to stay behind him while being under hiding.

Soap started checking out the convoy and sighed. It was too big to get rid of.

"Stay low. There's too many of them…" he said as he opened the door to a nearby building. The group entered the building silently.

"Get down." Soap ordered as he, Miho, and Yuri proned.

Crawling, they made their way while avoiding the convoy. The sound of the portrait that hung on the wall falling nearly surprised Miho, but she knew she shouldn't show it. They kept moving in silence. All the while Miho is locking her rage up to know they have to crawl through a building, filled with corpses of civilians and resistance fighters. While their blood has colored the floor and wall and the properties of the dressing building has been ransacked.

It became worse with the sound of the door opening and the chattering of the Russian soldiers who entered the area. Yuri knew it was a huge problem.

"They're inside the building." Soap informed them as they all slowly continued to crawl, Miho and Yuri following behind Soap. The dog that was with the convoy apparently got suspicious and started barking.

"Don't move…" Soap warned them.

They knew it as they stopped behind him. Miho and Yuri saw one of the Russians talk to the convoy outside, who then continued to search the area. The barking stopped a bit later. The three kept crawling, sadly more soldiers entered the building. They saw a resistance member, who the Russian soldiers saw him alive and shot him, killing the wounded man. The Russian soldiers kept speaking in Russian as they kept searching the area.

"Ok, We're going to have to do this sharpish." Soap whispered to them as everyone quickly followed him. They stopped behind the door frame.

"Get ready." Soap told them. Miho and Yuri nodded.

"Go!" With that, the three quickly sprinted from the area, hiding behind the car, and finally going around the convoy. Following Soap, they went over the fence.

"You two, stay close." With that, the two watched as Soap snuck behind the patrolling soldier and killed him with his knife.

"Good night." He whispered as he dragged the body toward their direction.

"This weather is making me freeze." Miho muttered as she saw Soap place the body in the alleyway.

"We'll find shelter soon, Miho. Don't worry." Yuri replied as Soap was checking out the area. He finished just as soon as Yuri assured Miho.

"Hold up." The two stopped behind Soap.

"Twenty plus on foot, and they're bringing in armor." This made Miho sigh. This day was just disaster after disaster, which reminded her of Africa. She hoped to get some Earl Grey when this mission was over. Suddenly, Price called Soap, who answered.

"Soap, what's your status?" Price asked. Soap looked around to confirm the exact situation before answering.

"In position, but there's a bloody army in front of us." Soap informed Price.

"We're coming in from the West. Watch your fire." Price told Soap, who replied with a "Roger".

"Scout on the rooftop. Take care of him." Soap told the two, as Miho got her sniper and was about to shoot him. Suddenly, Soap ordered her to stop.

"Wait!" he told her. She didn't fire, as she saw Price shoot the first scout then stab the other, killing him with his knife.

"Huh, nice timing, old man." Soap complemented as Price dragged the bodies away from the ledges. Kamarov was with Price as he stayed on the ledge himself. Sadly, there still was an army on the ground.

"Well one's down, mate, but we've got four men, and they've got dozens." That wasn't reassuring to Miho as she was shivering from the cold. They were looking for a way to move into position.

"Don't worry, I've brought some friends." Price informed them as several men with guns got onto the ledge and positioned themselves to fire on the Russian soldiers on the ground. As soon as they got ready, they started to fire. A flare was flown into the air which revealed their position, but the rebels managed to give enough damage to the helicopter or kill the pilot, making it drop the BTR on the ground and crash. The Russian soldiers were immediately taken out, making it able for the group to move.

"Move with the rebels and get to the church. We'll cover you as best we can!" Price informed them as the rebels continued to shoot at the soldiers on the ground, killing them.

"Copy that! Yuri, Miho, let's go!" with that, the small group started to move. Soap went first, towards the statue.

"Moving up to the statue, cover me!" Miho and Yuri shot at the Russian men nearby, killing them to ensure Soap was able to go there. They managed to kill everyone in the square as soon as Soap began to fire on the men.

Miho was thinking if Soap needed any help in the first place since there practically was no one to kill. They just moved on.

"Move up." Soap ordered as they followed him. The day was bad for them, as they heard the sound of helicopter blades.

"Helos inbound!" This day just got worse. Being forced to fight their way up with the Mi-8s dropping troops, Miho was slowly losing her patience. What was worse was that more reinforcements were arriving as they fought.

"Truck coming in!" Soap shouted as a truck arrived in the scene. Several men got out.

"Fuck you, Makarov!" Miho shouted as she started to shoot aggressively. With her assault rifle running out of ammo, she picked up an AK47 and started to shoot at the Russians. She managed to get rid of several of them. Unfortunately, this wouldn't help with the next enemy arriving in the scene.

"Get to cover, they're bringing in armor!" Soap shouted as an APC arrived in front of them. It aimed their guns at them and began to shoot.

"Miho, Yuri and I'll try and draw their fire! Take them out!" Soap shouted as Soap and Yuri went away from Miho. Miho had to find a way to take those BTRs out, but she was lucky, as one of the Russian soldiers carried an RPG with him when he died. Picking it up, she aimed it at the BTR while it was shooting at Yuri and Soap.

"Now take out that armor!" Soap shouted as Miho shout two RPG rockets at the BTR, destroying it.

"Alright, It's down! Good work!" Miho was able to get a breather, as it was tiring to quickly load and shoot an RPG.

"More tangos inbound! Fall back to the building! Go!" Soap suddenly shouted. It was obvious why: a tank and several soldiers arrived in the scene.

"Miho! Get in the building! Move!" Soap shouted. Yuri was with Soap, so he followed him. Miho immediately dropped the launcher and ran into the building where Soap and Yuri was waiting for her.

"This way!" Miho and Yuri followed Soap, who was leading them. They were just losing breath from being forced to fight in this situation. Suddenly, Price called Soap.

"Soap, I've lost sight of you! Soap, come in!" The sound of the Mi-8 blades made it hard for Soap to hear Price, and Miho really wanted to shoot that helicopter down.

"Can't talk right now, Price! We're busy!" Soap replied as they kept moving. They were in a shelter where Russian civilians were, some being injured or some being resistance fighters and trying to take a break from the fighting.

"Alright, we're going to cut through the buildings and find out way to the church." Soap informed Price as soon as he managed to get somewhere quiet.

"Copy. We're on our way to the hotel. Good luck." With that, Price cut off contact. The group exited the corridor to an open place where they saw two resistance fighters fighting against Russian military forces outside.

"You owe me the rest of the story what happened after you and Price stopped the nuclear missiles from hitting the Eastern Seaboard, Soap." Miho told Soap.

"Yeah, Miho. I will as soon as we get to the tower." He told her.

"Through here, let's go!" Avoiding gunfire from the outside near the stairs, Miho, Soap, and Yuri went up the stairs. They could see fighting from the window inside, with another resistance member shooting someone outside.

"Hold your fire." Soap ordered as they moved. They were moving through, with shells from the tank shooting at the wall. The resistance soldiers were being killed from the shelling, with the building being damaged.

"Take point, Miho." Miho looked around while they moved. It was obvious that the building wasn't exactly going to survive too long.

"The building's not going to take much more of this." Soap said as they moved.

"No shit, Soap. I want to take a break, and now we're in a building being shelled by the Russian bastards." Miho replied as they kept moving. Gunfire from outside killed more resistance members as they went through the building.

"Ok, let's go!" With that, the three exited the building, following the resistance soldiers. They were seen taking cover from the heavy machine guns shooting at them, unfortunately, several men already lay dead.

"Two gunners! Across the street! Second floor!" Soap informed as Miho got out her sniper and shot at the sniper on the 2nd floor first, killing him. It stopped half of the gun bullets. Aiming for the next one as fast as possible, she killed him too. It stopped the Heavy Machine Gun fire.

"They're down!" This made two people less to deal with. With her sniper, Miho was able to kill the rest of the soldiers nearby without the machine guns shooting at them. She managed to clear the street for them to move on. Sadly, they had to turn right, and it was still full of men. Taking cover, Miho got the AK-47 out and began to shoot at the soldiers occupying the area.

"Tank! Get to cover!" Soap shouted as the three and the resistance managed to kill every one of the soldiers. The resistance soldiers were rushing through the road, but the tank shot a shell, killing several resistance men and started shooting at everyone with its machine gun.

"We got to get out of this courtyard!" Soap shouted as Soap jumped through a random building's window. "This way!" He ordered. Miho and Yuri followed suit.

"Fuck! They had to bring in a tank, can this day get any worse?" Miho asked as she followed Soap.

"Probably." Yuri replied.

"You two, move!" With that order, the two rushed, quickly moving. The building they were in was being hit by explosives, making it shake. Turning right, the group exited the building into a deserted road. This indeed was a bad day for them. Normally, Miho wouldn't mind, but being under pressure as much as this while she recently also had two bad missions, one nearly giving her PTSD of her failure, made things like how it is now.

"Hang on, we got more armor on the road." That was a BTR sent to kill the resistance forces, who drew the attention on themselves for Soap, Miho, Yuri, and Price to be able to get to Makarov.

"On me." Yuri and Miho followed right behind Soap, avoiding being seen from the crew of the vehicle.

"C'mon." Soap entered a building, with Miho and Yuri following suit.

"More targets." This wasn't good. It was about the 2nd BTR outside.

"Stay quiet. They don't know we're here." Miho wanted to curse loudly but refrained in order to make sure not to give away their location. The three hid behind dividers as they watched what was happening outside. It looked like the soldiers were too focused on the men outside. Deciding to continue moving, Soap just decided to go on. Miho and Yuri followed suit.

"Nice and easy." Soap suggested as they quietly moved in the building. They ended up in an area where several men were shooting at the resistance men who were approaching the area.

"No getting past these guys quietly. Wait for my go." As soon as several of them were in view, Soap gave the greenlight.

"Alright, smoke'em." With that, Miho and the group quickly killed the ones in their firing range. They were spotted at this point. Unfortunately, this made several soldiers alerted to their presence and began to swarm the area.

"Reinforcements! Take cover!" Everyone took cover as they shot at the Russian soldiers entering the building. Miho remembered she had grenades and used them here, as she feared that using it will alert the soldiers outside. Since they know they are here, they're no use of not using it. Throwing one, it killed most of the ones who just entered the area.

That should keep them down for quite a while. Fucking bastards. More men started to enter the building.

"No time to clean up the mess. Let's move. We'll improvise if we have to." Soap told them as the two just followed him.

"I thought this was a fucking stealth mission." Miho told him. She was just pissed off, remembering Somalia. Knowing that Makarov will be here pretty much made it that way.

"It is supposed to be, or maybe it is. Anyway, let's just get to the church." Yuri suggested as everyone exited the building and sprinted across the street.

"Get down now!" Soap ordered. As soon as they did, an MI-8 started flying in the direction of the Resistance fighters running away, while the Resistance fighters were being shot by the Russian soldiers on the ground. Some were attempting to fight back, but failing. Several BTRs and tanks were following behind the Resistance members.

"Let's go!" with that, Miho and Yuri followed Soap.

"This day is just fucked up." Miho whispered to herself as they ran across the road.

"I'll provide some support to the Resistance fighters." Miho offered.

"No. Get in the church now." Soap ordered. Miho nodded with a frown as she followed Soap, as Yuri was right behind him.

Entering the church and ending up in the corridor, one of the members who had the door open finally closed the door.

"Price, we're in position." Soap informed Price.

"Copy. Get comfortable. We've got a few hours until the meeting."

"You got it mate. C'mon, you two. Let's get set up.

* * *

30 minutes later.

"You wanted to know what happened after Price and I turned the keys right?" Soap asked Miho. They were sitting on one of the pews, while Yuri was on a guard shift.

"You told me you will tell me the story." Miho responded.

"I guess I did." Let's get started then.

* * *

(Soap)

Seeing each other, they nodded and pressed the key.

(Price and I barely made it on time. We were able to destroy the missiles before they entered the Eastern Seaboard and being too close to the targets to detonate, which would have resulted in a nuclear air pollution.)

"Standby for confirmation." Command informed as they were checking if the missiles were detonated or not.

"Standby…Standby…" Command was double checking to make sure that the missiles were taken care of, making everyone really worried they failed.

"Bravo Six, all warheads have been confirmed destroyed in flight. We got a ton of debris, but most of it's landing in the ocean." This made everyone cheer. They managed to save the eastern seaboard of the United States.

(That day was supposed to be a good day. However, after we stopped the missiles, I remember we mentioned to you about the two Mi-24 Hinds that arrived and were waiting for reinforcements? They had troops in them. Those men surrounded the area and waited for backup, and that backup arrived by the time we had the nukes detonated. Even worse, we knew that Zakhaev was in the base. Sadly, we saw him leaving the area, making us unable to capture or kill him.)

"Sir, check the security feed! It's Zakhaev. He's takin' off!" One of the Marines informed Price and Soap. It was showing Zakhaev running through the base towards a Mil Mi-8 helicopter waiting for him.

"Captain Price, this is Gaz at the security station. They came in by trucks. I'm thinking we can all use them to get the hell outta here. I'm sending you the coordinates to the vehicle depot." Gaz informed them. Gaz apparently was going to meet up with them soon.

"Roger that. We'll meet you at the vehicle depot! Out!" Price informed him as he and Soap got ready to leave.

"Everyone follow me, let's go!" All of the personnel inside the control room already made sure to check their ammo beforehand, as they expected to fight again.

"I hope we can get out of here. Looks like the entire Russian army." Soap exaggerated.

"Don't worry so much, Soap. We will go home safely."

(We exited through the way we came in, the hole which we made when we entered. Apparently, we encountered the Ultranationalists who wanted us dead from the way we came in.)

"All teams this is Command, recommend you exfil from the area immediately. Large numbers of hostile forces are converging on your position. Get outta there now." Command advised as everyone went back to the entrance of the bunker, the place where the slow doors were. Suddenly, Griggs saw several soldiers and shouted.

'We got company! Enemy reinforcements movin' in!" Griggs informed them as the Ultranationalists began to open fire on anyone they saw.

Soap was tired of this and pulled out a grenade. He threw it at the place where several of them were standing, killing them. Clearing the path, the group kept moving. Turning left, several more of the ultranationalists began to arrive in the area, attempting to kill them.

"Move! Move!" Price ordered as Soap cleared the hall. With the hall clear all the way to the lift, everyone ran to the lift waiting for them.

(The Ultranationalists literally flooded the entire place. We encountered most of them in the vhelicle depot though.)

This is Gaz. We're takin' some fire up here at the vehicle depot. Where the hell are you guys?" Gaz demanded.

"We're coming up the lift. Standby." Price advised as they were still in the lift.

"You know sir, I wouldn't mind getting' a shot at Zakhaev." Griggs said.

"Yeah… well, get in line mate… if he doesn't find us first…" Price replied.

"We just missed him. How do you expect to bag him?" Soap asked.

"I have a feeling we will be seeing him again soon." Price said.

"Really." Soap replied as the lift came to a stop and the doors opened. The three exited the lift and ran through the corridors. They saw Gaz and several others fighting against the Ultranationalists who were shooting at them from the entrance, while some were already inside.

(We were almost there, ready to leave. At least we managed to kill every single one of the Ultranationalist asses who were trying to stop us from leaving.)

It took a while, but everyone managed to kill the Ultranationalists who entered the depot.

"All right, get in the trucks! Let's go!" Price ordered as everyone there prepared to leave, getting into the trucks.

* * *

"Is that how it ends?" Miho asked as Soap finished telling the story about the mission to stop the missiles.

"Nah. It gets more interesting how we managed to survive and even bag Zakahev. Price was right when he said that we will be seeing Zakhaev again. Want to hear about that?" Soap asked Miho. It has only been 30 minutes when he finished.

"I want to hear the end of the tale." Miho replied.

"We also got to meet Kamarov from there. That day is when we first met him, and when many of our friends died." Soap said sadly as he began to continue telling the story about that day.

* * *

[Satellite imagery loaded: active scanning initiated]

[Tracking… Located]

Command: Primary exfil point has been compromised. Proceed to secondary Extraction South of bridge. Enemy presence… substantial

[Multiple hostile targets sighted. Enemy Force, Analysis…]

[Friendlies being chased by heavy enemy reinforcements]

SSgt. Griggs: It's just too hot man… But room temperature? Please. A beer should be ice cold.

Captain Price: A lager maybe. Or a glass of water like you drink. but a pint of Stout?

[Heavy enemy reinforcements approaching the base]

SSgt. Griggs: I'm gonna have to school ya both when we get back stateside.

[Friendlies on the run]

Gaz: Either way, we're stopping in London first. And I'm buying.

SSgt. Griggs: Well, at least the world didn't end… Hit it.

* * *

"Game Over"

Day 6 – 08:25:14

Altay Mountains, Russia

Sgt. 'Soap' MacTavish

22nd SAS Regiment

(I was in a UAZ-469 with the guys when we were escaping from the base due to our exfil being compromised. It was a hell of a time that day.)

"Hang on!" Griggs shouted as he drifted the jeep, making the occupants swerve. Getting onto the main road, the group saw several Ultranationalist forces chasing after them in trucks.

"Enemy truck at 6 o'clock!" Griggs informed them as the truck was catching up to them.

Soap was trying to kill the driver of the enemy truck's driver with no success.

"Baseplate, this is Bravo Six, what's the status on our helicopter, over?" Price asked the one codenamed baseplate. At this moment, the truck immediately went faster than them and caught up with them, the gunners on the enemy trucks opening fire on Soap. Soap, while being shot, managed to survive with a few rounds that shot him.

"Bravo Six, the bird has been delayed, E.T.A, fifteen minutes." Baseplate replied to Price's inquiry.

"Not good enough Baseplate! We'll be dead in ten!" Price responded. The first truck, with its gunners dead, just went right beside Soap's jeep, while another one full of gunners were catching up with them. Again, shooting at the driver was useless, as the driver of the truck managed to survive.

"Truck moving up on the left!" informed Griggs as the other truck had its gunners standing right behind the cab and start shooting from there.

(These trucks were really annoying. They had gunners, and they attempted to ram us off the road.)

Not being able to kill all of the gunners on the next truck, the second truck attempted to ram them off road. What was worse was that the gunners on that truck was firing on them too.

"Get off you bloody arse and fire on that truck!" Gaz shouted. It was hard avoiding the bullets, and Soap, who was reloading his gun behind cover stood up to immediately kill the gunners on the truck on the left of them. As soon as he killed the gunners, Two more trucks caught up with them. What a bad day it was.

(These Ultranationalists were attempting to box us in. We were lucky that it didn't happen.)

"Cover the rear! We're getting boxed in!" Gaz shouted.

"I know! I spent a third of my ammo already! These fuckers are hard to kill!" Soap responded as he kept shooting. They entered a tunnel at that moment.

(I was able to finally get rid of the trucks, or start getting rid of them.)

One of the trucks attempted to hit them, but Griggs managed to make sure that they didn't crash. The one that was on their left attempted to force them to stop, but It started to lose control. Soap was still busy trying to kill the gunners on the truck behind them. They were lucky, as the truck that was beside them previously flipped and exploded. However, the truck that was chasing them from behind continued to pursue them.

(These truck drivers refused to stop. Even worse, they brought RPGs with them, just to try and kill us. I mean I admit it is a bit overkill.)

"Hostile with an RPG! Take him down!" Griggs told Soap immediately. It was the truck which had those gunners just recently.

"On it!" Soap replied as he attempted to kill the soldier carrying the RPG. He managed to get a lucky shot in the head, killing him immediately.

"That's a kill!" Griggs informed him. That was at least reassuring with the fact that an RPG can destroy their vehicle.

"There's an RPG on that truck! Open fire!" Gaz shouted as the truck behind them had more RPG troopers.

"Goddammit!" Soap shouted as he fired a lot of bullets. He took them out quickly.

"Nice shootin'!" Griggs complemented as the Ultranationalist died, dropping the RPG. The truck right behind them crashed, making only one more truck remain.

"Another RPG on that truck!" Griggs informed him. Aiming down the sights, Soap started to shoot at the guy. The soldier attempted to shot them, but he couldn't aim properly as both of the vehicles were swerving like crazy.

(The day was bad enough, that another truck replaced the one that crashed. They even sent a Hind after us.)

"We've got more company! Troop truck closing fast!" Gaz informed them as the truck right behind them lost control and crashed into a barrier. There was only one more truck after them.

"They're gonna fire an RPG! Take 'em ouutt!" Griggs shouted. If he didn't kill the RPG trooper, they would be dead. With having low ammo, Soap attempted to take kill the terrorist. He ran out before he could, so he was forced to change to the handgun he had with him. It did help, as the soldier died.

"Success!" Griggs shouted as the RPG trooper was killed. Fortunately for them, that truck hit the wall, flipping over and exploding.

(The most impossible thing to kill in a moving light jeep is a Hind. Trying to kill it with an RPG, I failed to kill it at the time.)

"Hind, six o'clock high!" Gaz informed them. It was staying its distance but using its miniguns to try and kill them. Having no choice since it was bulletproof against guns, Soap got out the RPG that he brought with him. They grabbed it in case they might have to face a heli, which they did.

"Pick up an RPG and fire on that Hind!" Griggs ordered Soap, who attempted to kill the Hind. The First shot missed, so he loaded it. He aimed at it while the road was stable before trying to fire again. It missed.

They were going through the mountains, with the Hind trying to kill them. With the Hind right beside them, Soap aimed carefully.

"Hind at nine o'clock!" Griggs informed Soap where the Hind was. He aimed at the left while the Hind stopped moving, but it just moved backwards as soon as Soap fired.

"Hang on!" Griggs shouted as Soap had only one more rocket left. When he was about to fire, the tunnels led to a place where they couldn't aim.

"Hind at 12 o'clock!" Griggs told Soap the location of the Hind.

"On it!" Soap asked sarcastically as he aimed at the direction. Fortunately, the Hind flew away.

"The hind's buggered off!" Price informed him. With that, Soap put the rocket down and sighed in relief.

"Must've run out of ammo! Good enough for me!" Gaz replied.

"At least I won't have to fire at anything for now." Soap said as he just sat down. Unfortunately, The Hind never left. It flew to the bridge, where it aimed its rockets.

"Yeah no kidd – oh shit he's about to take out the bridge!" Griggs shouted alarmed. The Hind fired rockets there, heavily damaging the bridge.

"Stop the bloody truck!" Gaz shouted as Gaz held the brake as hard as he can. A small collision, Soap blacked out.

(The Hind caused us a lot of problems. At least we managed to survive somehow.)

Regaining consciousness, Soap started to stand up. It seems that the bridge collapsed partially, but was about to fully collapse.

"The bridge isn't going to hold. Move, move, move!" Price shouted. Soap couldn't hear very well since he only heard a bit of high pitch noise. Fully regaining consciousness, Soap saw the damage that the Hind did, and the fact that part of the bridge began to collapse already. Quickly moving with Price, the two started to move to safety.

"It's about to collapse! Get your ass outta there!" Griggs shouted as Price and Soap got to a safe portion of the bridge. Finding his gun and some ammo luckily flew out from the other truck that the others were in, Soap picked up that gun and loaded it as he saw Ultranationalist forces heading towards them from the opposite direction.

"Baseplate, this is Bravo Five! We are under heavy attack at the highway bridge at map grid 244352! Request helicopter gunship support! Over!" Gaz requested Baseplate. They were under attack by the Ultranationalist forces who arrived in the area via trucks, with them all armed. A lot of Ultranationalists were there arriving more by the minute, trying to kill them.

"Workin' on it Bravo Five. Loyalist forces in the area may be able to assist but we cannot confirm at this time. Baseplate out." This was news that pissed him off. Reloading his gun, Soap killed three more of them coming from the right.

"Useless wanker!" Gaz was pissed off as he and everyone started to shoot like hell against the enemies in front of them.

(We were stranded. Behind us is a dead end, and in front of as is an army.)

"Gaz, gimme a strep on those helicopters!" Price asked Gaz as he got rid of a few more.

"Captain Price! We're on our own sir!" This made Soap alarmed.

"You gotta be fuckin kidding me!"

"No shit! Hell's gonna wait for no one!" Price replied as they managed to kill the Ultranationalists getting past the blockade made of cars. It was bad, as the Ultranationalists deployed smoke, and even an MI-8 flew into the area, dropping off troops.

(I first met Kamarov that day. He was the one who offered us help. As he was bringing support.)

"Bravo Team, this is Sgt. Kamarov. I understand you and your men could use some help." Kamarov said on the radio.

"It's bloody good to hear from you mate!" Gaz replied. He was busy taking cover while reloading.

"Standby, we are falmost there. ETA, three minutes. Kamarov out." With that, they stopped talking.

(That moment, A Hind flew right over us and started to shoot at the tanker behind us. We almost died.)

A hind was seen flying over them, then facing them to shoot the tanker that was behind them.

"The tanker's about to blow! Move!" Griggs shouted as everyone tried to get away from the tanker behind them. The Hind shot at it, making and some caught in the explosion. Soap was one of them, getting unconscious.

(When I regained Consciousness, it was chaos. Griggs was forced to save me, and we lost a lot of friends that day. One thing, Price was right about seeing Zakhaev again.)

When Soap regained consciousness, he saw the Hind approaching their location. He saw Griggs attempting to help him by dragging him away from the Hind's guns, and a bit later, Griggs put him down due to the amount of men surrounding them. He pulled out his machine gun and attempted to kill them, but died being shot in the neck.

Turning his body around, he saw lying on the ground. He was trying to get up. Facing back toward the front, he heard the sound of a helicopter and Zakhaev and two Ultranationalists in front of him. Casually approaching his direction, the two Ultranationalists and Zakahev shot at the surviving team, killing each of the men who moved. Gaz was one of the unlucky: Zakhaev killed him, a shot to his head.

(While we lost a lot of friends to Zakhaev, the Hind was still there. However, that is when gunship support arrived. It destroyed the Hind, making Zakhaev and his two men distracted.)

The Hind overhead was shot by a missile from nowhere. This made the three Ultranationalists suddenly distracted, with Zakhaev ordering his men to fire on the gunship that shot the Hind down. As this was happening, Soap faced Price, who managed to get his pistol out from his holster and slide it to Soap. Receiving it, with only a full magazine and an extra, Soap aimed for Zakhaev's head first. This made the other two Ultranationalists shocked, and as soon as they started to face Soap, he managed to kill the two before they even fully turned around.

(It was all over. The man responsible for the Nuclear threat was dead, and the man who killed so many of our fellow men. We were able to avenge them.)

A Mi-8 helicopter was seen flying towards him. Another flew right from behind him, with Loyalist men rappelling down on the ropes. They were checking to make sure that there were no more Ultranationalists. As soon as Kamarov saw Soap, he immediately talked to the others.

"Этот еле дышит!"

"You're going to be alright my friend!" Kamarov said as he immediately called for help.

"Мы нашлись оставшегося в живых! Заберите его отсюда! Быстро, давай! Мы должны доставить его в госпиталь немедленно!" Kamarov said quickly as they quickly strapped Soap onto a stretcher and connected it to a cable from the helicopter. Soap saw another Loyalist trying to get Price to breathe or start his heart.

(It was a hectic day, but a few of us were lucky to be alive from that day.)

* * *

Soap finished his story, then faced the clock. It has been an hour.

"So that is how you managed to escape from the area?" Miho asked.

"A lot of men weren't going home, Miho. But a few of us did get to." Soap replied.

'I'm sorry for making you remember those times." Miho said.

"It's fine Miho. Gaz was a good man. If only Zakhaev didn't kill him…" Soap said as he was remembering the image of Gaz laying dead next to Gaz.

"I'm guessing you aren't too happy about something." Miho said as Soap did have a sad tone.

"The Russian, US, and UK Government covered up the truth of how Gaz died. It was blamed as a series of nuclear tests, along with what happened in the cargo ship." Soap said in a grudging voice.

"That's wrong!" Miho said.

"It's politics, Miho. I hate it too." Soap said as he pulled out his mobile phone and played the video that he saved from the news clips in the hospital.

[News Reporter: ...The Russian government released a statement today confirming a series of nuclear missile tests in Central Russia. Although world leaders were quick to denounce the action, Russian officials maintained that the missile tests fell well within established UN protocols. No comment was received from the Ultranationalist party, where rumors of a possible leadership struggle have just begun to surface. In other news, the search for a ship lost in the Bering Strait due to a major storm has been called off...]

Miho was angry. Why would the governments cover these things up? This meant that Soap's friends died for nothing.

"We are heroes that are not named, Miho. They won't even we know saved them." This was true. Task Force 141, while are famous, are not known outside the military.

"I hope Gaz's family is informed of how he died serving his country. His family at least deserves to know how he died." Miho said as she got up to stretch her legs and arms.

"Me too, Miho. Me too."


	45. Chapter 43 - Exhibition Match: Part 1

In the field of the match. 10 minutes later.

The match has begun in the field. The Exhibition Match has begun in the battlefield. This is a moment for everyone to watch the tankery fight in the field. And most of all, the fight is live on TVs and screens and the spectators cheered so loud for it. What's more better to watch a tankery with its field is as large as the city of Shunan? Of course, that would be Miho Nishizumi.

And of course, when I said 'more better'. I meant it with a hint of sarcasm.

Despite the fact that all the students here are wearing their Sensha-Do uniform, Miho didn't have one. But of course because she's not currently a member of any school, she is allowed to let her keep her current uniform in the match. Especially her pistol, with a promise of not shooting anyone in the match (which concerns the JSDF members of this). She's maybe the same age as the students, but most students might have viewed her as a grown-up lady.

Miho is right now sitting on top of the Panzer IV tank turret with the Anglerfish. She's also with Leopon team, Alisa's team and Sangou's team and a Kuromorimine's Elephant tank. They were waiting for the decoy team to return from getting contact by the enemy. Miho is currently smoking her favorite Villa Clara cigar on top of the turret and relaxed as she looked around their surroundings of green fields and the below the hill a little they're on. Not even minding how awkward the girls are to see her smoke, which was obviously can be shown on the screen probably.

Miho had agreed to do this match with Ooarai's tactic. Of course, with a 141 spice in it. The three tanks of decoy comprised of Saunders tanks, callsign Echelon will immediately retreat after they got in contact with enemy targets. The two tanks, which is the flag tank and its escort, are codenamed Eagles. Now with 5 tanks are out of the way, now we can tell the details about the rest of 30 tanks.

The 30 tanks will be split into 6 teams, with 5 tanks each. And each teams have their own team leader.

Team Romeo comprised of Kay's tank as the team leader along with 4 other Saunders Sherman tanks. She has a Firefly Sherman tank in her group to provide better damage for the compound team.

Team Bravo comprised of Maho's tank as the team leader along with Duck's, Turtle's tank and two other Kuromorimine tanks. The Turtle team's tank is a Hetzer, which basically a tank killer. Which means it could deal with heavier tank. With the added fact that Maho's tank is a Tiger tank. She also has a couple of Panzer II in the field.

Team Dekko comprised of Naomi's tank as team leader, with 3 other KMM tanks and a Saunders' Sherman. Naomi's tank is a Firefly Sherman and also had two Panther tanks with her, basically providing heavy support.

Team Foxtrot comprised of Erika's tank as team leader alongside Anteater team, Rabbit team, 2 tanks of Ritaiko's and Geshiko's tanks. The Rabbit team has been equipped in smoke in case of immediate-retreat and to confuse hostiles forces to ambush them.

Team Hammer comprised of Mauko's tank as the team leader, with Shark team's tank, Hippo team's tank, and two other Saunders' Sherman tanks. This team provide both heavy armor support and heavy damage due to the Mark IV and Maus tanks.

And then the last team, team Sicari. Which is basically and technically Miho's team, which had been described back in the top of the page. It is the main overall team that runs the whole operation. With its leader, Miho with her former Anglerfish team as the team leader.

And due to the fact because it's Miho who runs the whole operation, and the leader of all teams, she has been given herself a callsign aside from Sicari 1 Actual. The callsign was Gold Raven. It was an important callsign for the compound team because of her excellent leadership, determination and commitment for the team. In case Gold Raven is down, Maho will be the next commanding leader for the compound team and she will be designated as Chaplain.

Hmm… Chaplain… it rings bells for me.

Anyway, Miho is currently enjoying her cigar as she leans her back a little to her surroundings. Some of the students felt a little disturbed of the smoke since everyone is out of their tanks right now. And also take notice of this. They have been moved out from their starting onto their positions and were instructed to hold ground and wait. It's been quite a few long minutes to wait.

The reason why Miho instructed them to wait? It's because they were waiting for the decoy to return.

Their positions were actually a little close to the enemy lines. If the decoy manage to lure the enemies to them, they all are authorized to engage the targets. But for Miho's team, that was another story. There was a reason why Miho picked this hill, and it was because of her sniper skills. The hill has the best point of view in sniping range.

As they wait, Yukari asked her. "Miho, I think it's not the best time for you to smoke, you know?"

"Why?" Miho asked back.

"Well, it's because we're in the middle of the match here," Sangou replied, she was on the front of her own tank and raised her hands to her sides.  
"Remind me why are we waiting here again?" Alisa asked again, who was in the door of her turret.

"We're waiting for the decoys to come back," Miho replied casually as she breathes out the smoke. "And then I'll try out my sniping skills."

Some of them are surprise of this. "Really? I thought you're just playing your part as a commander," Suzuki asked with a raised brow.

"She was able to shot the Turtle team 2000 meters away, Suzuki," Tsuchiya answered her, which surprises everyone with them. "And it was her first shot to do that, remember?"

"But how did you manage to do that first shot, Miho?" Hana asked curiously. "As I recall, you much more a commanding type than gunning."

"That… was a year ago, mate," Miho replied slowly as she tips her cigar. "I've been learning to shoot for a year."

"Does that includes your pistol skill?" Alisa asked sourly, reminded of what had happen back in the camp.

Miho just stares at her for a moment, before replying. "Yes, of course that one."

Everyone sighed and discomforts of that. "At least you use the pistol to shut us up back there," Sangou commented as she was glad the fight didn't get worse back then.

"But… where the hell did you get a chainsaw?" Saori asked.

That did silence everyone. How did Miho could get a chainsaw back in the camp in 5 seconds? Miho could tell that they might don't know of her relations with the Russians. Those magnificent people who could suddenly turned into a soviet soldier during WW2 if they are angry. Yeah, that's how Miho could do that, it's only that she rarely do that.

Miho paused for a moment as everyone stared at her, before she replied. "Let's just say I could pop things out of nowhere when I'm angry, and of course I rarely do that."

And still, their response is an awkward silence, except for Mako. "So… like a magician?"

"Um… kind of," Miho simply replied with a shrug.

Awkward silence again, but it seems Mako took it well. "Huh, okay."

After a moment, the students got back inside the tanks to check things up. Miho is still smoking as the Anglerfish team got back in the tank, except for Yukari. Yukari wanted to talk more with Miho. But it was something personal for her.

Yukari then joined Miho by sitting down next to her and began to enjoy the view. Miho's contemplation was interrupted and looked at Yukari. But Miho quickly knew that Yukari wanted to talk to her. Miho just sighed to herself. Yukari is her best fan anyway, so she let her talk.

"Do you want to talk to me?" Miho asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah, yeah!" Yukari quickly replied awkwardly. "I just… I just want to ask you something."

"What is it that you want to ask?" Miho asked as she enjoys the view in front of her.

Yukari contemplates for a moment, before she then asks. "Do you remember about our previous conversation when you help the Automotive Club to fix the tanks?"

"I do remember," Miho replied with a nod, then her eyes dart to Yukari. "What conversation were you referring to?"

"Um…well…" Yukari started, but then she blushed when she doubts to say that.

Miho was confused for a moment why she's blushing, but then she realized what she's going to talk about. "Don't tell me it's that conversation about myself not being straight."

Yukari startled by her answer, but quickly asked her. "H-how did you know?"

"Because you're blushing."

Yukari is taken back by the answer and immediately looks away. Miho didn't know why she ask that, but of course she is in no position to guess. Miho only stares at her as Yukari thought to herself for a moment. Yukari then turns her head to her after she could say something.

"Well…" Yukari paused for a moment. "You do know I'm a fan of you, right?"

"I always remember that, Yukari," Miho replied with a nod.

"Um… right…" Yukari paused for a moment before she continued. "I'm going to be honest, I… actually…"

"Yeah?" Miho asked with a nod.

Yukari paused for a moment in doubt, before answering it shyly. "I… I love you, Miho."

That… literally took Miho off-guard and froze. She didn't hear that wrong, right?

"Pardon me?" Miho asked as she breaks her frozen pose.

"I love you, Miho," Yukari replied again. "As in, I fell in love with you."

Miho could only stood in silent to that, but Yukari asked. "But… I just want to make sure. Do you already in love with someone else?"

Yukari just stared at Miho with hopeful eyes, but Miho could only sighed. She can't just… break up. Anchovy is already her true love despite the downsides Miho has. It's hard to do that.

Miho could only stare back at her and replies. "I'm sorry, mate. I already in love with someone else. It's Anchovy."

Yukari then frowned at her words, drowned in disappointment. "Oh… I see…"

Miho frowned as well in pity to Yukari. Guess she really likes Miho that far. It's a shame for her, really. But then, she then hugged Yukari by her shoulders which surprised her.

"Maybe I don't love you as a lover," Miho said softly. "But I do love you as a sister."

Sister. Yukari is even more surprised of this.

"Nani, sister?" Yukari perplexed a little. "As in… a part of a family?"

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "As sisters bound by bond."

Yukari smiled to Miho, it was quiet comforting. Yukari then hugs her back by her shoulders as well. Yukari likes Miho a lot as Miho likes her the same. Miho trusts Yukari as a sister.

"Thank you for telling me that," Yukari said happily as she lets her go.

"You don't have to thank me," Miho replied with a smile. "You're a sister to me."

*BOOM-BUAR*

That's when they heard booming from a distance far away.

Miho quickly put her fingers on her wireless earphone (which everyone never seen it before) and radioed calmly. "Echelon, this is Raven Gold, how copy?"

"Raven Gold, we have encountered enemy contacts!" Echelon 1 replied frantically. "We're heading back to link up with the nearby teams and nearly reaching your position, over!"

"Roger that, Echelon, we're moving out," Miho then looked over to Yukari. "Let's get moving."

"Sure."

Miho and Yukari quickly gets inside their tank with Miho standing in the turret hole, and Miho then radioed everyone. "All units, this is Raven Gold. Radio check, over."

"Romeo One, Lima-Charlie, over."

"Bravo One, loud and clear."

"This is Dekko One, we hear you."

"Foxtrot One here, read you loud and clear."

"Hammer One, radio's working here."

"Affirmative, all units execute Operation Iron Guerilla."

"Roger that!" all units replied in the radio.

"All Sicari elements, on me," Miho radioed again.

"We'll be right behind you," Sangou said, who nodded to the radio.

The team followed the Anglerfish team up to the hill. From which they moved forward for a few meters until they reach a vantage point. The vantage point is covered in bush and it's near the edge of the hill on their right. Sicari 1 (Team Anglerfish's callsign) then takes position in the bush while the rest of the tank group stood back behind the team. Since it's Miho who wanted to snipe the bastards from a distance, Hana switched seats Miho and overlook from the turret hole instead. Hana looked out the turret and use the binoculars that Miho given her and observed for any activity in the open field below the hill.

*BOOM-DUAR* *BOOM-DUAR* *BOOM-DUAR*

That's when Hana and Miho could see the shells boomed onto the field below.

"They're coming from the east, right?" Hana asked as she scoped out.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod, her eye is still in the cannon's scope. "Where the bloody hell are you?"

"Sicari 1, this is Echelon!" Echelon 1 pronounced in the radio. "We're heading into the open field, south of your position in a few seconds!"

"Affirmative," Miho replied. "What kind of hostiles on your tail?"

"5 BC Freedoms," Echelon 1 replied. "Pravdas and Glorianas are nowhere to be found."

"10-4, keep moving," Miho replied before getting off the radio.

As she eyes the area on the scope, the booming shells can be heard coming closer as it strikes into the open field a few times. A few seconds later, she spotted the Saunders about two miles away from their position. Then followed up by the chasing BC Freedoms' tanks right behind the retreating Echelon. Oshida's ARL 44 in the turret hole, Andou's SOMUA S35 and three Mk. III Valentine tanks. Easy targets for her… probably.

"Echelon 1, stay on course," Miho radioed as held the trigger. "I'm engaging the targets now."

"Yes, ma'am!" Echelon 1 replied in the radio.

"But Miho, those tanks are 2 miles away!" Hana complained worriedly.

"Do you think you could make the shot?" Mako asked emotionlessly, but also worried about it.

"Yes, I'm sure I can."

SOMUA S35, Rena Andou.

Andou is currently ducking her head down from the incoming fire from the retreating Saunders' Shermans ahead. For all they know is that those Shermans should be decoys, so the BC Freedoms are ordered to have five tanks Including herself and Oshida to follow them to the enemies. Hoping that those decoys will lure them to the opposition's main force and they could inform their compound team of their location. Though, she only worried about one thing.

Miho's plan on counter-attacking them.

So far, the Shermans could only lure Andou and her group into the open field of grass. But, she doesn't see any main force that would ambushing around the forest on their left. Even the hill on their right for about 2 miles looked empty save for the bushes up there. Though, she was doing a quick look to her surroundings so she doesn't pay any mind about it. Her tank and her group keep chasing down the Shermans in a straight line.

*POOM-WHIZZZ-DUAAARRRR*

Until one of the Valentine tank got shot.

The Valentine tank got shot on its side of the turret, destroying the tank in matter of seconds. Before a white flag popped out the turret get left behind by the group. To say the group was surprised is an understatement, they were pretty shock and slack-jawed on what has happened. They didn't even see it coming.

"Merde!" Andou cursed aloud. "Qu'est-ce qui vient juste de se passer!?"

"Quelqu'un a tiré sur notre tank!" Oshida replied aloud in the radio. "I don't think the Shermans could shot one!"

*POOM-WHIZZZZ-BUAUUARRRRRRM*

Another Valentine tank destroyed, and its white flag popped out on its turret as it left behind by the group. This time, Andou could pinpoints where that shot come from. She then looked over to their north towards the hill. She winced her eyes at the hill as her group still chasing the Shermans. That… when she used her binoculars and saw a cannon is pointing out the bush on that hill. They were actually getting shot by a sniping tank.

"There's a tank on the hill to our right!" Andou announced quickly. "2 miles away!"

"2 Miles!?" Oshida asked in shock. "That's impossible! We couldn't even make that kind of shot like that!"

*POOM-WHIZZZZ-BUAAARM*

"Merde!" Oshida shouted as the last Valentine tank gets destroyed. "Andou, we both are on our own!"

"Disengage!" Andou shouted to her crew inside. "Everyone retreat!"

"Oui!"

Both Oshida's and Andou's crew quickly turn their tanks around and began to run away in full speed. Now, they are in the full verge of panic. It's their first time to see a sniping tank could destroy three tanks without a miss like that, and it's 2 miles away! The only thing they need to focus right now is to make sure they avoid the shots the sniper make. Andou was pretty worried on who could do that kind of shot.

What they need to do now? Run and maneuver in the field and fuck all else.

Miho grinned in satisfaction after she manage to shot down the three Valentine tanks below in the field. With Andou and Oshida retreating away from the running away Echelon team, they won't know what the forces of her compound team looked like. Now… with those two tanks doing evasive maneuvers, she it would be a little possible to do the shot. Despite that, she'll send a couple of shells to those tanks down there to make they scared shitless.

*BOOM-WHIZZZ-DUUAARR*

A cannon shell has been sent out towards Andou's tank. Turns out, the shot is a miss. It landed right next to Andou's runaway tank, it barely get shot by the cannon shell. Miho just chuckled at that, as the rest of Sicari teams were awed of Miho's incredible aim to kill 3 previous tanks. Miho then changed her aim to Oshida's tank and pulls the trigger.

*BOOM-WHIZZZ-DUUAARR*

Her shot missed again as she watched Oshida barely avoid the shot. Maybe both of those vice-commanders are glad to avoid those shots. However, Miho is actually merely tempted to shot them. Miho lets them go knowing they might be sent to see where's Miho's main force is. But now, they might tell their teams that one tank just took out three BC Freedom's tanks.

*POOM-WHIIZZZZZZZZZZ*

Looks like Oshida got the balls to shoot at the sniping Panzer IV. It's a sad thing that her shot missed.

*BOOM-WHIIZZZZ-DUARRRRRRR*

Miho sent another round again to Oshida. This time, both BC Freedom's vice-commanders are off the killing field and able to get out of sight. Miho already had her part on shooting targets down, now it's Hana turn to takeover. She got off the seat and head over to Hana.

"Hana, you can take the gunner now," Miho said to her.

"Wha-um, right," Hana replied awkwardly before she then climbed inside the tank and takes the gunner's seat.

"How…?" Saori asked slowly, she's stupefied of Miho's aim with widen eyes. "Just… how?"

"Sniping animals before," Miho simply replied. "That's how."

They all looked at her momentarily, before looking back forward. Miho then climbed out the turret and looked to behind her. She then gestured to them by circling her finger in the air. The commanders behind her understood what she meant and they began to move east from their position. They slowly moved down the hill and followed where those vice-commanders have gone to. After a moment of going downhill and reached the open field, Miho then turned her head to behind her to see if there are tanks coming up to her.

There's the Echelon team, along with team Dekko is going to regroup with her team. Looks like Echelon team is pretty happy to have Miho sniped BC Freedoms' tanks. Naomi on the other hand, is actually impressed of Miho's aim in the distance of 2 miles. Miho stopped her Sicari team for a moment to let the other teams regroup with them. When they reached next to Sicari team's side, they continue to move on.

"Thanks for covering us," Echelon 1 said in the radio.

"No problem," Miho replied with a nod.

"How come you could shoot that far?" Naomi asked curiously in the radio. "Ever hold a sniper before?"

"Yep," Miho replied as she looked around them. "Shot 5 deer from that far."

Naomi whistled in the radio in impression. "Maybe I could learn something from you."

"Oh, want to be so cool like Miho?" Suzuki asked in the radio.

"Hey, Naomi is already cool than me," Miho added to the radio. "You don't need to ask that."

Alisa chuckled in the radio. "Really, Miho? You are more good in that than Naomi."

"Mate, I don't even care about it," Miho replied as they past a forest and another small hill. "All I care about right now is only to know right and wrong and to know what I'm doing right now."

"Sounds about right," Sangou added in the radio. "As long as you don't have any chainsaw around."

"I still have my pistol, remember?"

…

…

…

They all literally forgot about it.

"Nevermind."

They continue to move on through the path near the edge of the forest. So far, they haven't encounter anything on their path. But they traced the tank tracks that were made by the BC Freedoms' tanks ahead. They kept advancing throughout the path as they looked around them. So far, there's no sounds out here except for the engines of the three teams.

Miho then reached to her radio as they heard a low booming in a distance. "All units, report in."

"Team Foxtrot, got nothing here," Erika replied in the radio.

"Team Hammer, we encountered no hostiles and moving up," Mauko replied in the radio.

"Sicari 1, this is Romeo 1!" Kay replied quickly in the radio. "We are with team Bravo and we are engaging hostiles 1 miles north of your position. We got 6 Pravdas and 6 Glorianas shooting at us from all sides except for our rear! We gonna need assistance, we are sitting ducks here in the edge of the forest and we just lost 2 Shermans!"

"Roger that, stand by Romeo 1, we're on our way," Miho replied with a nod.

"Alright, you heard her, let's move out!" Naomi announced in the radio.

"Okay!" Sangou radioed with a smile.

"Yukari, ready the shells," Miho ordered casually as she took out her binoculars.

"Yes, ma'am!" Yukari replied enthusiastically and happily as ever.

They made a turning to their left and headed north to Romeo and Bravo teams. It's about 7 mikes out to Romeo and Bravo teams' position. So, they began to drive to full speed towards their position to speed up the time. So far they haven't encounter any hostiles or anything else that became their obstacle. Nothing happened with the sounds of their own engines driving through the path as the booming sounds produced by the troubled teams ahead.

*BOOM-WHIZ-BLAAAARM*

And a shell landed ahead of the teams, giving dusts to Miho's face who was irritated by it lazily.

"Ah, bugger," Miho lowly cursed as she calmly and lazily wipes the dust off her face. "Where did that come from?"

"Enemy tanks on our nine!" Satoko shouted, the turrets of the allied tanks soon turn at the enemies on their right.

"Keep moving and keep it together!" Miho radioed sternly. "How many contacts?"

"About 6 of them from the trees 700 yards away!" Dekko 3 KMM radioed back. "Two T-34s, one T-70, and three ISU-152s! They got tank killers on their side!"

"Copy, keep moving," Miho replied stoically. "Leave some potshots for them and then do not engage. We don't want to waste ammo on them."

Bravo 1, Maho.

Maho with her team and Romeo's are having a bad time with dealing the Pravdas and Glorianas right now. They have been surrounded from their left and right, but their rear is open. The good thing is, they are currently taking cover at the edge of a forest which gives them a good cover in return. The Pravdas and Glorianas, despite they were in the open, they also have their own covers with comprised of rocks, ground bumps in the field and apparently there's a couple of small huts that are in the field. Despite that, they've been sitting ducks there for a few minutes.

They returned fire as the enemies rapidly engaged them. Maho's tank was taking hits for three times from Glorianas' one Matilda and Crusaders, but she and her tank is still alright. The two Saunders from Romeo team were both shot down by the Pravdas, one of them which is Nonna. The enemy vice-commanders who were on-site are Nonna, Rosehip, and Klara. The dangerous part here is that the IS-2s that are in the field which Nonna commanded one of them and a KV-2 the Pravdas had in the field.

Ah, bugger. I forgot to mention the Pravda's Vice-Commander Nina is also on the field.

…

…

Yeah, they might get fucked up from their own tank because of its turret's weight.

They are returning with all they can to the enemies, even the Turtle Team had to change position to get a clear shot. So far, they manage to score 3 kills on the enemy. One Pravda for Anzu, One Gloriana for Kay, and one Pravda for Maho. The remaining 8 tanks are fighting against 4 Pravda and 5 Glorianas, but at least they were making progress.

*BOOM-WHIIIZZZZ-BLLLAAAARRRM*

And that's when one of the Bravo team's tank got shot.

"KYAAAA!" Noriko shouted in the radio. "We've been destroyed! Duck team is out the fight!"

"Scheisse!" Maho cursed to herself lowly, before going for the radio. "Miho, where are you?"

"We're coming in 15 seconds, right behind the enemy lines," Miho replied surprisingly calmly. "Standby."

"Affirmative," Maho replied worriedly before looking back on their fight.

The allied tanks are slowly backing up from the edge of the forest due to the volume of shells that the enemies have sent. Maybe Maho's tank could take more punishment, but that doesn't mean it's Invincible. They are backing up slowly from the edge of the forest as the enemies slowly advancing to their positions.

*BOOM-WHIZZZ-BLAAAARM*

Until an enemy Crusader get shot from behind, eliminating it.

"Bravo 1, this is Sicari 1. We got your back."

Crusader, Rosehip.

"Aah, we're out of the fight!"

"What?!" Rosehip asked aloud with full energy, before she flung out from the turret hole and looked around.

Until she spotted enemies behind their lines. "Nonna! We have enemies behind us!"

"Что?" Nonna asked calmly in surprise. "Klara, Nina, we got enemies behind our lines."

"Должны ли мы иметь дело с ними?" Klara asked in the radio.

"Rosehip, how many enemies you see behind our lines?" Nonna asked to her.

"Around 13 tanks behind us!" Rosehip replied, to which the vice-commanders took off-guard by that. "One of them is Miho's tank!"

"Miho's here?!" Nina radioed in disbelieve. "I thought Katyusha deals with them!"

"Katyusha here, and I know you would say that!" Katyusha interrupted in retort. "They somehow able to escape our grasp through the forest!"

"What should we do?!" Rosehip asked as her tank and her other teammate tanks returned fire on the flanking enemies.

"We should retreat now," Klara suggested as her tank fires on the surrounded enemies, before to the enemies behind their lines. "We can't take them all on like this."

"Do what Klara said!" Katyusha ordered sternly. "We can't afford to lose more tanks!"

"Да, товарищ!"

Rosehip and the surviving Gloriana tanks begin to move away from their position as the Pravdas did the same. Then the Glorianas followed the Pravdas toward their north east-east to escape the crossfire they're in. Thankfully for Rosehip and her teams, they didn't get shot and the shells are flying pass and above them. And since Rosehip and her teams are using the Crusader tanks, they manage to drive faster than the Pravdas out from the crossfire. To which they stopped for a moment and give Pravdas some covering fire.

Romeo 1, Kay.

"Good they are retreating!" Kay shouted happily. "Keep on them, gunner!"

"Keep the pressure on them!" Momo radioed as they opened fire.

"Push them back!" a commander of Bravo team shouted as she sent a shell to the retreating enemy.

"Come on, they are on the run!" Alisa announced in the radio excitedly.

"Keep firing!" Sangou barked in the radio, her tank nearly shot Rosehip's tank.

"Woah, look out!" Leopon warned with a shout.

*WHIZZZZ-BUAAAARM*

A shell went pass Kay's tank fortunately. "Thanks for the heads up."

*BOOM-BOOM-WHHIIIIRRRZZZ-BUAM-BUAM*

"Come on, eat lead!" Kay's gunner shouted happily as she sent the cannon shell.

They kept the fire on with the reinforcements joining in next to the trapped teams. Once the hostiles have retreated and are out of range, they stopped firing. Kay looked over to Miho and gives a thumbs up to her with a smile. As her Romeo team and Bravo's moving out from the edge of the forest.

"What's your status, Kay?" Miho asked from her turret hole.

"They kicked our ass," Kay replied, sigh with little disappointment. "We got three casualties. Bravo just lost Duck team."

"Copy," Miho replied with a nod, before looking to the path where the enemies have retreated. "We need to keep moving."

"Where were you, Miho?" Maho asked with a raised brow. "You're late for more than 10 seconds."

"We were on a hot chase with the Pravdas back there," Miho replied with her thumb pointing behind her. "So forgive me about that."

"What are your orders?" Kay asked again.

"Romeo and Echelon teams, go south to checkpoint Lima and hold that position until further orders. Make sure the hostiles don't use that path to flank us." Miho ordered. "Dekko team, follow those hostiles to the north-east but don't get seen. If you spotted their main force, you are to hide yourself and hold your position and do not fall back until I gave the order. The rest of you are to follow my team and cut through the mountains on our east."

"What about team Hammer and Foxtrot?" Anzu asked in the radio.

"They covered our north side. They will link up with Dekko team from the north to ambush the enemy's main force," Miho replied as she checked on her watch. "Once they are busy dealing with the bastards, my team and Bravo team will be moving pass their lines and find the flag tank."

"Sounds good enough," Sangou agreed with a nod.

"Alright, everyone move out," Miho ordered, waved her arm forward.

"After this match, the drinks are on Miho," Maho joked with a grin.

Everyone just glances at her, with Miho shows her irritated face. "You bloody Blue-Falcon."

Miho's tank just went forward with everyone perplexed on what she said, though not for Kay. "Blue-Falcon? What is she talking about?" Hoshino asked in the radio.

"Yeah… what does that mean?" Maho asked in agreement to Hoshino.

"Maho," Kay called, to which everyone looked at her. "She means you're a buddy fucker."

They were pretty taken back of the meaning, well… they took that meaning in the wrong way. Since they all blushed to hear that. Awkward silence engulfed them as they imagined on what she said.

"Don't even think about it," Kay quickly added.

"Alright, alright," Maho interjected with both open palms raised. "Let's keep moving, you got your orders."

"You heard her, let's go," Alisa added as they begin to move out.

The teams began to split up as Kay's and Echelon team are starting to move south from their position. Checkpoint Lima is a chokehold path that will give way towards the flag tank for about 10 miles to the west from that checkpoint. Kay turned her head to behind their teams as she watched the other teams separate paths to their positions. Kay just sighed as she turned forward to their objective.

"Hey commander," Echelon 1 called. "Do you think they'll be alright?"

"Honestly?" Kay asked back. "I'll be more worried if they are with Miho."

Sicari 3, Alisa.

"How far out 'till we get to the enemy's flag tank?" Alisa asked as they were halfway to the mountains ahead.

"Around 10 clicks from here," Miho answered to which Alisa nodded. "Assuming that they might hide the tank farther away from the main force."

"Are you sure about that?" Sangou asked curiously.

"Pretty much," Miho replied, then looked over to Alisa. "Alisa, contact Eagle and tell them to move out."

"Yes, ma'am," Alisa then channels her radio, and then began to talk. "Eagle, this is Sicari 3. Gold Raven wants you to go to checkpoint Lima, over."

"Got you loud and clear, moving out," Sodoko, who is Eagle 1 replied. "Over."

"Roger, keep your eyes peeled," Alisa then changed the channel to Miho. "They're moving out to Lima."

"Affirmative," Miho replied in the radio.

As they reached the bottom of the mountain, Miho reported in the radio. "This is Sicari 1, we're climbing the mountain now."

"We hear you, Miho," Hammer 1 radioed back, who is Mauko. "My team and Foxtrot are still on the north and enroute to checkpoint now."

"Copy, one," Miho replied with a nod.

"Raven Gold, this is Romeo 1," Kay called in the radio. "Didn't you say that you were able to escape from the Pravdas before reaching us and Bravo?"

"Wait, yeah we forgot about that," Satoko radioed in, she put a hand on her head.

"That's why I ordered Alisa to tell the Eagles to link up with Romeo and Echelon," Miho replied with her head tilted. "Alright, Romeo 1, once you reach Checkpoint Lima sent Echelon team to the Eagles and escort them to the checkpoint. You'll know what you need to do after that."

"10-4," Kay radioed back. "Be careful out there."

"Rog'," Miho replied as they begin to climb up the mountain.

"Climbing up now," Alisa said to her radio. "Good thing it's not pretty steep."

"Unlike that time when you got your tank flipped in a training match?" Maho recalling, who is behind Alisa.

"Yeaahh, that's another story," Alisa replied with a nod. "But hey, this match would be more fun than that."

"You're not a 'looking-for-fun' type as I recall," Miho added.

"Well, I am not that type," Alisa admitted with a shrug. "But hey, because I'm with Saunders, I think I need to go to that point of view."

"Sounds more like 'being forced to,'" Yukari radioed in, and Alisa just snorted.

"Alright, you got me," Alisa said in defeat with her open palm waved at Sicari 1. "I was forced to go to that point of view."

"Sounds pretty suck," Sangou commented on her sour tone.

"Glad to hear that from a KMM commander," Alisa added sarcastically and lazily.

And it seems it made Miho interested on one thing. "Why don't you go with the Glorianas?"

…

…

…

"Umm…" Alisa paused for a moment, before able to reply. "Nah, St. Gloriana won't fit for me. Being stringent with 'how to be a true lady' and all that."

"Huh, funny," Miho radioed back again with a chuckle. "I'm technically a lady because I know my own manners."

"Does that include that you're a British?" Anzu asked in the radio.

"Negative," Miho radioed back. "It actually includes my relationship with a couple of the British Officials."

Everyone in their tanks was taken back of what she said. Even Alisa had her eyes darted to Miho in disbelieve. It's normal for them to have a relationship with an official, which is Ami. But to hear Miho had made some friends with British officials is pretty outstanding. Alisa is curious on how Miho made friends with those officials aside the fact she was a former high-school student and might not have a job.

"Wait, you're telling me that you actually talked to them?!" Momo asked as if she demanded. "Were you so special to them or something?"

"Nothing special, Ms. Kawashima," Miho radioed again. "They went to a bar I was in and I told them that the drinks are on me. And then I got myself some friends."

"That's a shady way to make friends," Alisa commented with everyone discomfort of that thought.

"Yeah, just don't ask," Miho radioed back with a nod.

Their tanks soon reached the top of the mountain, and Satoko radioed in. "Alright, we're on top."

"We're going forward and then take a turn in the right," Miho stated in the radio. "Sicari 3, take the lead."

"Roger that," Alisa replied with a nod. "Driver, let's go."

"Alright, moving up," Alisa's driver said as she changed gear of the tank.

Alisa's tank moved forward through the path, with Miho's tank following up behind her and then the rest of them. They moved through the path in two straight files despite the wide area the top of the mountain has. Alisa, because she's in the front of her team with her crew, she needs to keep a keen eye around her. So far they haven't encounter anything but for sure they haven't hear any booming sounds from a distance. So they could say that Dekko team is not spotted yet or they just didn't hear that because the sounds were pretty far away.

"Do you reckon this is a safe route to go around them?" Alisa asked in doubt.

"Not really," Miho replied, Alisa turned to her to see her shrug. "This path meant for us to get past the hostiles, not go around them safely."

"That's comforting," Maho commented sarcastically.

"That should be expected," Miho replied in the radio as Alisa looked back forward.

Alisa scanned the area again noticing there are some bushes and a couple of trees around them. Nothing more obvious than that aside the dirt path they're on and the open fields where the bushes and trees are in. There was nothing out of the ordinary as their tanks drive down the path in a medium pace. But clearly, Alisa felt something off about this.

"This is Sicari 3," Alisa radioed as she narrows her eyes to her surrounding. "Keep your guard up, I think we're being watched."

"Affirmative," Miho radioed back. "Spread out, check the bushes and trees."

"Got it," Maho replied in the radio.

"Mako, keep it straight on the road," Alisa heard Miho in the radio.

The teams then spread out from the path onto the field. The only people who were looking out the turret hole were only Maho, Miho, Sangou and Alisa herself. Alisa pulled out her binoculars and scoped out the area ahead of them as they advance. When she looked to her front right, she noticed some on the bushes while she's on her binoculars.

There's something pointing at them.

"Enemy cannon, spread out!"

*BOOM-BUUUAARRM*

Alisa's tank evaded just in time to avoid the shot. The shot landed behind her tank and in front of Miho's. Alisa was able to recognized who's tank tried to shoot, and of course it was the BC Freedoms. Soon, more enemy tanks joined up from their hiding spots in the bushes and began open fire on the teams and blocking their way forward. Eventually, they got 6 BC Freedoms and 4 Glorianas blocking their way. Alisa along with her team and Bravo began to return fire at the hostiles ahead as they spread out throughout the field on top of the mountain.

*BOOM-BLAAAAR*

Eventually, they managed to destroy one of Sicari's tank right on its side.

"Raven Gold, this is Sicari 5!" the Elefant KMM Commander shouted. "We've been destroyed!"

"Another casualty," Maho stated in the radio.

"Yeah you got that right," Alisa replied back to her radio. "Keep firing on them!"

They keep open fire on the oppositions, until they noticed particular tank from Gloriana. "Hey guys, there's a Churchill here!" Alisa warned in to her radio.

"Yeah, that's Darjeeling for sure," Saori radioed in.

"I guess they know Dekko team will be following the retreating tanks back there," Sangou added as they returned fire.

"Possibly," Miho added in the radio and it was pretty stoic.

"And how are you so calm about this?" Satoko asked in the radio.

"I don't give a bloody damn about it," Miho replied. "Isn't Maho and Anzu also calm about this as well?"

"Well… yeah," Maho replied in the radio.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BUAR-BLAR-BLARRM-BUAAARMMM*

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BUAR-BAAAR-BLARRM-BUAAAR*

"Now I just noticed something," Miho stated in the radio, caught Alisa by surprise.

"What is it?" Alisa asked curiously as her tank shaken from the nearly shot shell.

"They got 10 tanks from BC Freedoms, right?" Miho asked, recalling that they had the time to hear how many tanks each team got for the match.

"Yeah, why?" Alisa asked again.

"We, I mean, me… took out 3 BC Freedoms' tanks back there," Miho stated in the radio. "Where's the last BC Freedoms' tank?"

It took them for a moment to digest this, but then one of them realized what she meant. "The last tank is the flag tank?" Helmet-chan, Alisa's gunner, asked with widen eyes.

"You got that right," Miho replied in the radio.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Alisa asked to her radio. "Let's kick them back!"

Eagle 1, Sodoko.

She, with her crew along with her escort are currently making their way to Checkpoint Lima which is a few clicks out from where they are. They are using the clean dirt road through the ground bumps and the thin forest. Knowing the reason was because the Sicari team had told them to move there. But also due to the fact that there are Pravdas got passed the allied lines and are searching for the flag tank. Maybe they can fight against them, but the problem was that the Pravdas got a couple of tank killers on their side.

Sodoko looks around the area as they advanced, looking through the port holes of the turret hole. They were driving in a medium pace so that they won't miss anything they pass. Though, the downside of looking through the portholes is that it limits her view to their surroundings. But for sure, Sodoko feels pretty uneasy to go through this path even with an escort with them.

"How is it out there?" Nozomi asked.

"There's nothing here, we're still in the clear," Sodoko replied as she was relieved to see no one is blocking their path. "How far until we get there?"

"Probably a few kilometers out," the KMM escort commander radioed. "Echelon team is on their way to us for extra escorts."

"Good, I feel pretty vulnerable here," Gomoyo said as she looked back for a moment before focusing on her tank driving.

Sodoko looked through the port holes to her left. "Yeah, at least we-"

*BOOM-BLAARRR*

A shell landed in front of them, obscuring their visibility for a moment by the dust as they drive forward with little maneuver.

"Oh, shit!" Nozomi cursed aloud as Sodoko and her crew is still surprised from the attack. "Where that came from?!"

"It's from our left!" Sodoko shouted as she saw Pravdas coming out from those thin trees, and then looked away from the portholes. "Hit the gas!"

"How many are there!?" Goyomo asked as she hit the gas, along with their escort.

"6 of them!" the KMM escort commander replied in the radio. "They have ISU-152s and Katyusha is here with them!"

"Tawagoto!" Sodoko cursed lowly to herself, remembering herself as the leader of Morals Committee member. "Keep moving and evade them."

Gomoyo nodded without looking back, Sodoko then quickly went for her radio. She remembered Miho had tell her what to say in case the flag tank is compromised. Sodoko still don't understand why she needs to say that, even Miho didn't tell her why. But she knew the word was something of importance.

"Raven Gold, this is Eagle 1!" Sodoko barked in the radio. "Code Black! I repeat, Code Black!"

Sicari 1/Raven Gold, Miho.

They are still busy dealing with the oppositions ahead. But of course, they made some progress. They manage to destroy two BC Freedom tanks and a Gloriana tank. They advanced slowly forward as some of the oppositions are backing up from their positions. Even Miho herself yawned because this fight is not finish that fast.

If not for Sodoko said something in the radio.

"Raven Gold, this is Eagle 1! Code Black! I repeat, Code Black!"

That got Miho up quickly.

"Miss your last, over," Miho replied, hoping she misheard that.

"Code Black! I repeat, Code Black!"

Well, she wasn't misheard at all. As they opened fire, Maho who was out the turret looked back at her in disbelieve. While the rest of team were pretty confused on what Sodoko had said. Her crew within the tank even look up to her. They confused as they opened fire on the opposing team.

"Code Black?" Saori asked. "What is she talking about?"

"The flag tank," Miho replied calmly to her and to the radio. "They're in trouble."

This shocked everyone. "What!?"

"What now?" Maho asked in the radio.

"I'm pretty sure Mallard Team could survive that attack," Suzuki added confidently. "They got Romeo and Echelon teams with them

"But that doesn't mean the flag tank could handle itself," Miho replied as she looked behind her, then looked back forward with her finger on her wireless earphone. "Alisa, Maho, with me. Tsuchiya and Anzu, lead the teams and keep pushing forward. We'll link up with you as soon as we have the flag tank with us."

"Okay, Miho-san," Anzu radioed back, though visibly worried. "Be careful out there."

"Copy," Miho replied with a nod. "Let's go, lads."

"Turning this thing around," Mako stated as she turns the tank in circle, facing to behind them.

Alisa's and Maho's tank did the same before Miho began to move from their teams. Miho, Maho and Alisa move their tanks away from their teams and headed back to where they came from. The teams are providing suppressing fire on the enemies as the 3 tanks left. They were thankful enough that the enemies didn't get to shoot their tanks. They kept moving back to where they came from and then move to south west downhill as the sound of the cannons booming are fading in distance.

"Do we need to save the flag tank?" Alisa asked in the radio. "I mean, they got Echelon and Romeo teams to back them up."

"I want to make sure there are no surprises waiting for the flag tank," Miho replied back. "And with Katyusha's squad passed our line, I doubt the flag tank could make it any further. Katyusha has tank killers on her side."

"Okay then," Maho replied in understood. "Do you think we could make it in time?"

Miho just grinned to the question, but replies. "Sure we will."


	46. Chapter 44 - Exhibition Match: Part 2

Miho, Maho and Alisa already have their tanks at the bottom of the mountain to where they came from. From there, they began to head out to south to where Checkpoint Lima is. Romeo team has been informed of their arrival and is waiting at Checkpoint Lima, armed to bear. They are driving as fast as they can to reach checkpoint Lima. But also they were driving at the same speed, which is around 22-30 MPH. And of course, hopefully the off-road terrain didn't give them any trouble.

They were about 3 miles away from their objective. And they need to get there fast. Miho, Maho and Alisa are all standing in their turret holes and watched the perimeter around them. And it was for them to hear a lot of booming shells from a distant ahead. And slowly looks like they are approaching Checkpoint Lima.

Hopefully the flag tank made it out alright.

It is not matter how many tanks that escort the flag tank. The flag tank is an Alpha Priority for Miho, and the team. If Katyusha or her henchgirls managed to shot their flag tank down, it's a game over for Ooarai and their school will be closed down. Their instructions if the flag tank is under attack, Miho and the said called commanders will assist the flag tank and protect it at all cost while the rest of the teams are to advanced at the enemy.

And the commanders that should assist the flag tank are only the said commanders that Miho called in. Because they are the best commanders to deal with protecting the flag tank, despite that Alisa ever cheated in the previous match. Maho's tank deals pack a punch to the bastards, Alisa's gunner is a good shooter, and Miho is the best leader in town. What's more better than a three-tank team to do the job?

Alright, maybe the 141 tank division would do well. But this is the wrong situation for that.

"Eagle 1, this is Sicari 1 Actual," Miho radioed as they drive. "What's your status, over?"

"Sicari 1, the Pravdas are still chasing us!" Sodoko barked in the radio with panic. "We're running back to Checkpoint as soon as possible!"

"Roger that, we're on our way to Lima," Miho replied calmly with her eyes watching the perimeter.

"Sicari 1, Echelon 1," Echelon 1 replied in the radio with a raised tone. "We linked up with the flag tank and getting the flag tank out of here."

"Copy, do not let them destroy the flag tank," Miho replied with a nod to the radio.

*BOOM-BLAR*

There's an explosion heard in the radio. "Woah, Sicari 1, they just took out Echelon 3! We need backup at Lima!"

"Standby, we're on your way," Miho replied stoically. "ETA 2 minutes."

"I don't think we have that much time!" Sodoko quickly radioed back. "We're already halfway to the Checkpoint!"

"Easy, Sodoko," Miho replied in the radio. "We'll be there, out."

After a minute, they nearly reached Checkpoint Lima by the forest, then Maho asked. "You said they got tank killers, right?"

"Yes, they have," Miho replied, then added by Saori. "But I'm sure you can handle those tanks just right."

"Dealing with those ISUs will be a pain in the ass," Alisa stated in the radio. "They might be enough to destroy Maho's tank."

"Don't worry about the ISUs, Alisa, Maho can deal with them," Yukari said aloud. "Just focus on the flag tank, they won't be able to save themselves from the Pravdas."

"Alright, we'll be right behind you," Alisa said back. "But I hope they don't shot my tank first after we got there."

"Heh, if you say so," Miho replied with a smirk, then looked back inside her tank and looked at her crew. "Hana, get the cannon ready. Mako, keep the tank steady."

* * *

Eagle 1, Sodoko.

To say they were in trouble is not enough, they were pretty much fucked up. They are under fire from the Pravdas right in their tail as they run and the Saunders shooting back to them. The ISUs managed to shot Echelon 3 down back there, and it was a deadly shot. Sodoko is starting to get real annoyed and worried with the Pravdas on their tail. The three ISUs and the T-34s are the ones who are giving heavy fire on them, due to their sick heavy shells.

They are halfway there to reach Checkpoint Lima. They quickly turned sharp right following the dirt path, before going sharp left. They then went through the woods ahead of them to make a shortcut to reach another dirt path ahead. The Pravdas kept firing on them as the Saunders stop firing for a moment, eventually the shot the Pravdas made only hit the trees to their left and right. Tearing the trees down like papers.

When they reached the dirt path, another shell headed straight for them.

*BOOM-BLAAAAAARR*

And the shell shot the rear side of Echelon Two, eventually crashing onto a tree.

*Holy smoke, they shot Echelon Two!" the Panzer III commander shouted in the radio.

"Tawagoto, we're not going to make it in time!" Nozomi shouted in panickedly.

"Moyoko-san, just keep driving!" Sodoko shouted. "Evasive maneuvers!"

"I'm trying!" Gomoyo shouted back as she changing gears of her tank.

*BOOOM-BUUUUUAAAAARM*

Then a shell shot a tank.

"AAAAKKKKKKH!"

Sodoko quickly reaches her radio. "What happened!?"

"We're down!" Echelon 1 shouted in the radio. "You are on your own!"

"Scheisse, are you kidding me!?" the KMM commander escort asked. "How far out to the Checkpoint!?"

"We're nearly there!" Sodoko shouted back in the radio. "Just keep moving and hold on!"

*BOOM-WHIZZ-BLAARRR*

They were fortunate to have an enemy shell few next to them, hitting a tree ahead of them.

"Damn, that was close!" Nozomi said as their tank rocked from the shot.

"Just keep moving!" Sodoko replied aloud as she looked through the portholes. "Romeo team will be waiting for us along with Miho and a couple of tanks there."

* * *

Sicari 1, Miho.

Miho, Maho and Alisa are just in time to reach the checkpoint. She could see Kay who's the leader of Romeo team waving her hand at her. Romeo team has already made a line at the Checkpoint, facing at the dirt road to Romeo's right. The three tanks looked pretty ready to shoot, and hopefully the gunners are not trigger happy to shoot someone. And so far they only heard the booming sounds made by the oncoming flag tank with its escorts and the Pravdas.

Miho, Maho and Alisa postioned themselves in between the Romeo's Shermans. With Miho and Maho parked their tanks next to Kay and aimed their cannons at the dirt road ahead. The line they made have spacing for about 3 meters from each other. It would give them a breathing room in case the bastards are putting rounds on them. Though, they still need to worry about the flag tank.

"What's the status on the flag tank?" Miho asked to Kay.

"They're having a bad day, they able to linked up with Echelon," Kay replied, gesturing her hand at the dirt road. "But the Pravdas destroyed the whole Echelon team."

"Damn, that's harsh," Maho commented with a sour tone. "What about its escort?"

"The escort is still fine thankfully and they are coming in hot," Kay replied with a nod. "Katyusha's team of 6 tanks are still on their tail."

"How far out?" Miho asked.

"For any seconds now," Kay replied, she then looked back at the dirt road with her binoculars on.

"Raven Gold, this is Sodoko," Sodoko shouted in the radio. "We're reaching the Checkpoint in 20 seconds!"

"We hear you," Miho replied with a nod to her radio. "After you see us, make a sharp left turn."

"Hai!"

The booming sounds are getting closer, meaning the flag tank and the Pravdas are getting closer. 15 seconds left for the flag tank to reach the checkpoint, and Miho had to make sure that the firing line is ready.

"Is everyone ready?" Miho asked to the line.

"We're ready, Miho-san," Alisa replied with a thumb up.

"Cannon at the ready," Maho replied flatly with a nod.

"We're ready to send some shells," Kay replied, giving a thumb up to Miho.

"Hold your fire, and check your fire," Miho ordered calmly with her serious look on the dirt road. "We don't want the flag tank get caught in the crossfire."

"Roger that," Kay replied in understood.

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BLARR-DUAR-BAAARM*

10 seconds.

Miho readies her troops. "Get ready on my mark."

5 seconds.

"Hold it."

*BVRRRRRRRRM*

The flag tank and the escort sighted in front of them after they did a turning. Both the tanks quickly saw the team and hastily made a sharp left turn off the dirt road into the trees. Then on the dirt road, emerged Katyusha's team after a turning from the forest. The Pravdas have failed to realize the enemies are right in front of them.

"Weapons free."

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM*

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZZZZZ*

*BLAR-BAAARM-BLUAAARR-DUUUAAAR-BAAAAM-BUUUUUAAARR*

The Pravdas have been caught off-guard from the attack by surprise. Katyusha's tank and the T-70 immediately made their evasive maneuvers from the incoming shells, saving their lives from the incoming shells. The two other ISUs however, were shot down with heavy shells and their tanks are smoking. A white flag on each ISUs were popped out in which they were declared inoperable.

"All units, keep firing."

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BLAARR-BLUUAAAR-BAAAAAAM*

After another volley of shells sent to them, they managed to take out another ISU with Katyusha's team. The shot has somehow literally blown off the ISU's cannon off its body. There's only three tanks left for Katyusha's team. Katyusha herself, and the T-70. They kept firing on them as the remaining Katyusha's team returning fire to them as best as they can. Katyusha herself seems to be angry to the outcome of this unseen attack and a little panic of this attack. And it's good to say Miho just breaks Katyusha's morale on this attack.

Katyusha, the other T-34 and the T-70 quickly turned their tanks around and went into the forest to escape. "Yeah, Katyusha is running away!" Alisa shouted in the radio with full joy.

"Keep on 'em," Miho stoically replied, ignoring Alisa's comment as Katyusha's team made a quick turn from where they came from and went deep into the forest. "All units, hold your fire."

After Katyusha's team is out sight. The flag tank and its escort then moved out from their hiding in the trees and regroup with the team. Sodoko is out in her turret hole along with the escort commander and they both gave a thumbs up to Miho and the relieve reinforcement. Mallard's tank then drives up next to Miho's and Sodoko faced at Miho.

"What happened to Echelon?" Miho asked flatly and straight.

"Those tanks have shot down Echelon in right in our rear," Sodoko replied with a defeat sigh. "The ISUs managed to shot two Echelons despite how awkward the tank is in cannon handling."

"The pravdas git a solid skill, ah gie 'em that," Miho commented with a tilted head, in her sudden Scottish accent. "Guid tae see yer daein' a'richt."

"Uh… thanks," Sodoko replied, a little awkward of Miho's sudden change of accent.

"Miho, why is your accent sounds like that?" Mako asked from inside the tank, everyone heard it by radio.

"Gotta learn some Scottish accent," Miho replied, suddenly changed to her normal accent.

"What is going on with you, Miho?" Maho asked slowly whilst her head shook.

"You can wonder about it later," Miho replied, waved her hand to her sister. "Right now, let's get the flag tank out of here with us."

"You're telling me you want to get this flag tank through the frontline?" Kay asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Don't worry, we won't be splitting up from the flag tank at all times."

"Well, sounds good enough for me," Yukari commented in agreement. "Let's get a move on then."

* * *

IS-2, Nonna

To hear what happened to Katyusha's team through the radio now, saying she was surprised was an understatement. She was in heavy disbelief to hear that Miho's team along with 3 Saunders tanks managed to destroy all ISUs that Katyusha had. Nonna could only widen her eyes to hear that, how could Miho got to the flag tank that fast before Katyusha able to destroy it is unknown to her. But still, they failed to destroy the flag tank. Now, it's a matter of time before OKS Compound Team sent in an offensive attack to them.

Nonna was with the Pravdas main force of 7 tanks, including the remaining of Gloriana forces of 2 tanks in the force. The flag tank is actually located behind the main force for about 500 meters away, and the flag tank is Marie's flag tank. Nonna, Klara and Rosehip are currently regrouping there and monitor for any updates from the teams sent in to deal with the OKS Compound team for a headstart. But, it was good to say it was a fair beating to them.

"Katyusha, how did all the ISUs with you destroyed?" Nonna asked, wanting to make sure she didn't hear it wrong.

"Miho and her team had set up an ambush right in front of us," Katyusha replied in the radio. "Right after we took a turn on the road. Maho was there as well."

Nonna just sighed to that. "You need to get back to us."

"I know," Katyusha radioed back. "I'll try to get back to you. Just keep an eye on your perimeter."

"Да, командир," Nonna replied with a nod to the radio, before switching channels.

Nonna looks out from her turret hole to her surroundings. They have already made a defensive line to their west at the rocks and the gaps near the rocks. Rosehip and Klara were both guarding their north side, in case the OKS Compound team decided to flank them there. And also, Nonna did some count on how many tanks they got know. 23 tanks they got left, including her tank. Still… the result looks plausible and impossible with Miho in the match.

Though, she didn't expect to have their tanks go down to that number that fast.

Nonna has her binoculars out as she looked around the perimeter. "Is there anything up?"

"Not yet, Commander Nonna," Klara replied with a shook.

"Commander Rosehip?" Nonna asked to her radio. "

"Nothing here!" Rosehip replied excitedly, Nonna shook a little of her energetic behavior.

"Alright, keep on checking the perimeter," Nonna replied to the radio as she faced to their west.

"Nonna, what do you think about the opposition force?" Klara asked curiously, wanting to know her opinion.

"They are doing this match extremely well," Nonna replied flatly as she took away her binoculars. "With Miho on their side, no less. But it made me feel so uncomfortable about it."

"Why is that?" Klara asked in the radio.

"Her rage back there," Nonna recalled to the radio.

"Huh," Klara paused for a moment in the radio. "From how it looks here, their worries about losing this match would be the least of their worries."

"I know," Nonna replied with a shrug. "But it's amazing on why didn't she get kicked out from this match."

"Same on me," Klara replied in agreement in the radio.

*BOOM-WHIIZZZZZ-BLUAAAAR*

And a shell landed behind the tank line. Caught everyone guarding the perimeter off-guard.

"Черт, where did that come from?" Klara asked in the radio.

Nonna was about to look around. "There they are!"

But Rosehip caught where the hostiles are first. "It's to our north and… crap!"

"What's wrong, Rosehip?" Nonna asked with a raised brow as she looked north.

"They got Maus, Mark IV, and Stug on us!" Rosehip barked in the radio.

"What?!" Klara asked in surprise. "How did they get those heavy tanks to our north that fast?"

"I knew I should asked someone to go to the north," Nonna replied with a sigh. "Return fire."

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BLAR-DUAR-BLUAR-DUUUUAAR*

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BLAAAAR-BUUUUAAAR-BLUAR-DAAAAAR*

They began to return fire as best as they can to the hostiles. Nonna and Klara managed to put a couple of shots on the Mark IV and the Maus, unfortunately it's just give them scratches on the front of their tanks. Nonna knew dealing with the Mark IV and the Maus will be hard, added with the trouble of the Ooarai's Stug III with them. They kept returning fire as both sides still miss their targets and near miss their targets. Nonna changed her targets on the heavy armored team.

*BOOM-BLAAAAAAAR*

She then managed to shot down a Sherman tank escorting the heavy tanks.

"I got one," Nonna replied with a smirk.

*BOOM-BLAAAAAAAR*

"And I got the other Sherman," Klara radioed in confirmation.

"Nice shot, ladies!" Rosehip shouted in the radio happily.

7 against 3 heavy tanks, it's unlikely but they could overpower them. But they still feared of the Maus that is engaging them now.

*BOOM-BLAAAAAAR*

And eventually the Maus managed to shot and flipped one Pravda's T-70, then followed with a popped white flag in between its tracks.

Nonna ducked from that shot and looked back at the Maus as they returned fire. "How are we going to deal with the Maus?" Klara asked in the radio.

"We could try flanking it, but it's going to need more shells to get through that armor," Nonna suggested in the radio. "We need to find its weakness."

"There are only heavy tanks here," Gloriana's other commander stated in the radio. "We can go around them to pin them."

Nonna like the idea in all honesty, it could give the advantage to her IS-2 tank. "Alright, then let's-"

*WHIZZ-BAAAAAM*

And a cannon shell unexpectedly landed next to Nonna's tank.

"Wow," Nonna replied flatly in surprise. "That was close."

"Nonna, are you okay?" Klara asked in worry and calmly in the radio.

"I'm fine, Klara," Nonna replied with a nod. "Where did that shot came from?"

"Guys, we got problem on our west," Rosehip announced worriedly.

"We got hostiles on the west?" Nonna asked with a slight surprise.

"Yeah, looks like Shermans and a Firefly," Rosehip replied in the radio.

"Where are they?" Nonna asked as she and some Pravda commanders looked onto their west.

"In the forest over there-," Rosehip paused abruptly for a moment. "Wait, I can't see them! They're hiding in the forest!"

"Argh," Nonna irritated a little to that. "I want some of us focus fire on the forest."

"Да командир!" some of the Pravda commanders with her replied, 3 Pravdas redirect their fire on to their west.

Nonna kept firing to the north, while at the same time she with all the commanders with her had to find a suitable cover for their tanks around their line. They kept returning fire to them as best as they could. Unfortunately, that wasn't all of them. Soon, Nonna spotted something on their north west next to the hill where the heavy armors are. Nonna could only sighed for that.

"We got a problem," Nonna said to her radio. "We got more coming in to our northwest. It's Erika and her team."

"Really?!" Rosehip asked in disbelieve.

"They're trying to box us in," Klara said in the radio. "Commander Katyusha, I don't think we can hold this line for long."

"Change of plans," Katyusha replied in the radio. "Get the flag tank to the city to the south. We'll try to fight in there. I'll meet you there."

"Alright, everyone fall back," Nonna radioed in. "We're moving the flag tank to the city."

"Да командир!" the Pravdas replied in acknowledgement in the radio.

"Commander Rosehip, get to the flag tank and escort it to us," Nonna ordered stoically. "Meet us at the road."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Immediately, they displace their position and turn their tanks in circle. They then quickly fall back through the open field before reaching cover of small rocks and bushes. It was followed by shells raining onto them as they fall back. But thankfully no one gets shot from any of those shell. Nonna even took a shell on her tank, but it was just a mere scratch as the shell only touch the side of her tank.

"Is everyone make it out alright?" Nonna asked in the radio.

"We're doing alright," Nina replied in confirmation. "We're heading for the road now."

"Good," Nonna replied with a nod. "Let's not keep the flag tank waiting."

* * *

Renault FT-17, Marie

Marie along with her tank is happily waiting for her compound team to deal with the situation on destroying the OKS Compound team's flag tank. But she frowned to hear that Katyusha failed to destroy the flag tank after Miho and her team managed to reach their flag tank in time. And also, she had heard from commander Nonna that Rosehip along with the Glorianas will be coming over to escort her. They changed their plans for now.

Reminding about Glorianas, Darjeeling have pull out the forces from the hill where Maho's and Miho's team were. Knowing that the main force getting shellshocked back there, they have to pull back in case they are making their way to Marie's tank. And honestly, it unnerved Marie on how OKS team could push her forces back despite the fact that they knew Ooarai would have a problem with KMM. Guess they don't have the time to ask that kind of question.

Marie heard that Darjeeling with her Glorianas, along with the rest of BC Freedom forces will be waiting at the road to the south of her position. Marie's tank needs to reach the Pravda's main force first so they can continue to go south to reach Darjeeling and her forces. After that, everyone will be heading into the city and spread out. So they can do an urban warfare inside the city, knowing that Miho's forces can somehow make an advantage in this area of warfare.

Marie's tank happens to be passing through the forests to reach the road ahead on her west. Her tank was driving in a fast pace after knowing that their main force are being chased down by the enemy squads. Must pressuring of all, was that the enemy heavy armored units are on Pravda's tail. It's ironic on how the KV-2 couldn't deal with them, or Nonna can't get a shot on them. She and her crew kept driving their flag tank onward out from the forest.

When they see the road ahead, they could only see two Gloriana tanks ahead waiting for them in the road. "Where are the Pravdas?" Marie asked to her radio.

"They should be coming in any moment," Rosehip replied. "They need to stay back for a moment to suppress the enemy."

Sure enough, she could hear a lot of explosions far ahead of them.

*BLAR-DUUAAR-BLUUUAAAARRR-BLITAAAAAAARRR*

*BLAAAAAAARM*

Even the KV-2 was pretty loud from a distance.

"Hang on, coming up to you now," Nonna radioed in.

Marie then could see two Pravda tanks belonging to Nonna and Klara enters the road from ahead. "Good to see you, how's the situation over there?" Marie asked in concern.

"Worst than I thought," Nonna replied in heavy tone. "They are shooting from all sides and we get pinned down."

"We're going to pull back into the city," Klara replied quickly. "We got the advantage in urban fight."

"I hope so, Klara!" Nina said in the radio. "We're losing tanks faster than them."

"Have faith, Nina," Marie assured her. "We're going to beat them for sure."

"What about Katyusha?" Rosehip asked in the radio.

"Yeah, what about her?" Marie asked curiously.

"Katyusha will be joining up with Darjeeling on the road," Klara radioed back as she was seen gesturing to her troops behind her. "We'll meet up with them first."

"Klara, They're closing in!" Nina shouted in the radio. "We need to move now!"

Nonna looked behind her for a moment before looking straight at Marie. "Let's go, Marie! We need to get you out of here."

Marie replied with a nod. "Alright, lead the way."

* * *

Sicari 1, Miho

Miho, Alisa, Maho, along with Romeo team along with the flag tank have managed to link with their previous teams and are heading south. They have passed the mountain and are heading to the south into the city. While they were consent that using the road would be faster for their tanks for travel, they have agreed to Miho that they should flanked in through the city off-road. They knew the opposition team still have control of the road despite the fact that Foxtrot, Hammer, and Dekko teams are kicking the enemies back there.

Other reasons on why they were heading south off-road was that Erika has informed that she spotted the enemy team had had move their flag tank down the road. And the road Erika was in had heavy resistance. If the road had heavy resistance, that means those who escorts the flag tank will be fewer in numbers. Or, the enemies on the road put up a good fight and those who escorts the flag tank could be in large numbers. Despite the possibilities, they are ready to catch up with the enemy's flag tank.

Miho has ordered to Kay that they and the flag tank to split from their main group. Miho wanted Romeo team and the flag tank further west before they got into town. The first reason was that they could prevent the enemies from moving further west, and the second was that Miho saw a possibility to hide their flag tank there hence that district has lots of alleys and buildings. But, Miho told Kay to keep an eye to their flag tank when they reached the west side of Shunan. Eventually, after a little thought on Kay's casualties, Miho ordered Bravo team to go with the flag tank and headed to west of Shunan callsigned Checkpoint Zulu.

After they split up, Miho tells the updates to her radio. "All units, this is Raven Gold, be advised. Our flag tank is moving up with Bravo Team to Checkpoint Zulu in the west of Shunan. I repeat, the flag tank is in the west of Shunan at Checkpoint Zulu. Make sure the hostiles do not reach west, over."

"Raven Gold, this is Hammer 1," Mauko said in the radio. "We're still stuck in the road and taking fire from the enemies with Dekko, we'll try to get through as fast as possible."

"Miho, it's Erika," Erika radioed in. "We're trying to cut through off-road to the southwest, we'll get there as soon as we can."

"Copy all, out," Miho ended the radio chat.

Sicari and Romeo teams are both driving in a fast pace so they can prevent the enemies from moving west and try to flank them there. "Commander, outskirts of the city is on sight!" Yukari said a loud to Miho.

"Alright," Miho said with a nod with her binoculars out. "And please don't call me commander."

"Oh?" Yukari asked with a surprised and stunned look. "Forgive me."

"It's alright," Miho replied flatly as she takes away her binocular. "No hostiles on sight?"

"Negative, one," Kay radioed in confirmation.

"I don't see any either," Alisa added in the radio.

"Guess they haven't reach here first," Satoko guessed in unimpressed.

"Maybe they don't want to go west first?" Sangou guessed in her questionable tone.

"Why do you think that?" Suzuki asked flatly. "They could've gone here if they were avoiding us."

"Maybe they don't want to get shot first, that's why," Sangou replied sarcastically with a bit higher tone.

"Very funny, Sangou, very funny," Saori replied in mild irritation.

"I thought you girls like me," Sangou radioed back in.

"Desperately," Miho replied coldly. "You're my favorite bastard."

They've been silent for a moment as they nearly reached the outskirt. "I'm your what?" Sangou asked again.

"Wait… Chrome was my first…" Miho paused with her finger on her chin. "You're my second favorite bastard, Sangou."

Everyone said 'aaahh' in sour discomfort as they looked away from Miho. "What is your- problem?" Alisa asked, wondering if Miho ended up more crazy.

"Ha ha ha, very funny," Kay chuckled with a shook. "You're done being sarcastic now?"

"Yeah, I'm just enjoying our monologue to the city here," Miho replied as she rested her hip on her turret hole.

Her answer made everyone perplexed. "What is she talking about?" Tsuchiya asked in the radio.

"I have no idea," Kay replied in her Texas. "And I don't want to know."

"Why did you became Texan all the sudden?" Alisa asked in mild annoyance in the radio.

"Learning to be Miho, I guess," Kay replied, Miho could see her shrug.

"Really? Never thought you're the one who is the tea drinking type," Miho added to the radio as she looked at Kay on her tank.

"Well… half of it," Kay replied awkwardly, her finger gestured what she said.

"Alright, we're reaching the outskirts now," Mako announced to Miho.

"Alright, let's roll the red carpet for the bastards," Miho announced to her radio with her two fingers gestured to move forward.

"Copy that," Sangou replied in confirmation in the radio.

"Move in, three meters spread," Miho ordered to her radio.

"Copy, Sicari 1," Kay acknowledged. "Three meters spread."

They are driving through the outskirts at their medium pace of speed. The outskirts had nothing except some urban houses around. And they are still in the clear for now as there are no hostiles on sight around the area. There's no one insight aside from the loud noises from the tanks made on their east at the road far away. Miho really wondered why Hammer and Foxtrot teams are still stuck at the road there.

They moving forward until they slowly reaching inside the populated area of buildings. Miho ordered Kay's team to move up head on to the south. Miho's team is staying here and should be heading east to the enemies. Sicari team should be looking ahead for where the enemies are and try to find the flag tank if possible. Kay's job along with her team is the same as Miho since she will link up with her later.

Miho is taking the lead of her team down a street in one file. Miho's tank might have been taken out first when she's in the lead on the front. But that would be no problem for her because she handled that kinds of things before (gladly she didn't mention anything about getting shot a lot to her body). Her crew is a good one so she wouldn't have any trouble about getting shot.

Miho won't even mind to get herself shot by a tank shell.

…

…

Yes, I mean it.

…

Nevertheless, They kept moving forward until they reach the end of the road and turned left. And then they turned right, and then kept moving forward passing an intersection. They are still in the clear as they passed through houses and second-story buildings on their left and right. They kept until they nearly reached an intersection.

That's when Miho felt something.

"Stop," Miho ordered with a raised fist.

"Stop?" Mako asked flatly. "Okay."

Her tank suddenly stopped, prompting the other tanks behind them to stop as well. "Why are we stopping?" Hoshino asked in the radio.

"Something's not right," Miho replied coldly in the radio, wincing her eyes upfront.

"Are you sure?" Hana asked, then continued by Yukari. "There's nothing in front of us."

"I won't be sure about that," Miho disagreed coldly.

Miho actually felt there's something hiding in the intersection ahead of them. She felt that there's something hiding behind the building on their right side of the intersection. Miho looked at that path, and then looked up at the building before that street of the intersection. That building is a second-story one and has a big view window. It is enough for her to send a tank shell there because a glass couldn't even blew the tank shell. She then looked behind her, and gestured at Sangou who is right behind her.

"Sangou, do me a favor," Miho said to her.

"Yeah?" Sangou replied questionably.

Miho then pointed at the window of that building. "Send a shell at that window."

"Why?" Sangou asked whilst wincing her brows.

"Just do it," Miho replied with a sigh.

"Alright," Sangou replied with a nod, then talked to her gunner. "Shoot that window."

"Ja, kommandant," Sangou's gunner replied in the radio.

*BOOM-BLAAAAAARRR*

The tank shell shot through the window and hit the wall on the other side. And the rubbles came down from there onto the right street. Once the rubbles hit the right road, they suddenly heard the rubbles are hitting something metal. Not forget to mention about half of the roof was fell to that street. And Miho's instinct is right.

"Hostile behind that building," Miho announced quickly in the radio, stoically.

Immediately, a couple of Pravda tanks came out from the right of the intersection. "Goddamn!" Even Sangou herself was surprised.

"Engage!" Miho ordered, flatly and solid.

*BAM-BOOM-BOOM-BLAR-BUAR-BAAAAAARRRR*

And they immediately took out two T-70s tanks ahead of them.

"That's two down," Satoko stated in relief. "Where's the rest of them?"

That's when suddenly a bunch of BC Freedoms including Andou's and Oshida's, and apparently Klara's tank popped out from their left.

"Bloody hell, Satoko!" Miho said to the radio in mild annoyance. "Pull back, now!"

"That would be the last time you'll be asking that!" Alisa added, who is pretty much annoyed than Miho.

"I didn't know that would happen!" Satoko shot back in the radio, they all reversed their tanks in high speed and returned fire at the enemies ahead.

"Let's just get out from here!" Sangou interrupted as they pull back reaching the road behind them.

"Go south!" Miho ordered as her gunner and her loader try their best against the hostiles.

"Copy that!" Kay replied in acknowledgement.

"Come on, pick up the pace!" Saori replied nervously. "We're going to be stuck here!"

"We. Are. On it!" Sangou replied in the radio angrily.

They reversed until they reached the street where they came from. They quickly turn their tanks around and headed south to escape the hostiles. Despite that, the damn Cheese Monkeys (Miho's slang for BC Freedomers) and Klara is still catching up on them on their rear. And boy, Miho had to ducked her head down for the incoming tank shell at her arse.

No… no I don't mean it's really coming for her arse. Argh, let's just forget about that.

"Foxtrot, Hammer, this is Sicari 1," Miho radioed in. "We got into trouble and in a hot chase with 5 plus hostiles. What's your status, over?"

"We managed to break through, but they gave us a rough time," Erika replied in the radio. "I just lost two tanks, Geshiko and Anteater team are down."

"Copy that, keep moving," Miho replied with a nod. "Dekko?"

"We're in the city but we're trying tracking you down to the south, over," Naomi radioed back.

"Affirmative, try to head west to us if you can," Miho radioed back again. "Romeo?"

"We're heading east now," Kay radioed back. "What's your status?"

" A bunch of bollocks are on our tail," Miho replied to her radio. "We'll handle this one, out."

Now, they've been having trouble to outrun them. They returned fire whilst running about around the streets ahead. And they have to drive in zig-zags around the streets. Now, they make a turn to the left and head straight to east. Not only some BC Freedom tanks are chasing on their six, but some of the hostile tanks are chasing them from across the road on their left to which Miho could see them when they passed alleys of that road. They also taking fire from their left since the tank shells are coming through the alleys, but thankfully it didn't hit any of her team members.

Their turrets returned fire to their rear as they drive. There are 4 tanks behind them, but Andou and Oshida were not with them. Alisa and Sangou quickly give a line of sight for Hana by spacing out from the middle street and-*BOOM-BLAAAAR* immediately shot BC Freedom's M4 Sherman (to Miho's surprise because she already noticed that now). The shot enemy Sherman quickly did a quick left turn and crashed into a house. The Leopon team whose Tiger is next to Miho's Panzer sent a heavy on their tail and eventually shot an M5 Stuart tank's turret. It immediately stopped in its tracks and left behind, whilst popping a white flag out the roof of the turret.

Sicari 3 and Sicari 4 quickly speed up their tanks and drive past Leopon and Anglerfish teams, implying that Miho ordered them to take the lead. As they dodged the incoming tank shells from their rear and the alleys on their left, they reached an intersection and immediately turn right. Now they have 5 hostiles chasing up their tails including the vice-commanders and a Pravda vice-commander. As they returned fire, Miho's tank was shot but thankfully it only scratched the Panzer's turret. But of course, it did made Miho to be irked for that.

"Not the bloody paint job."

That's when Miho raised a middle finger to her pursuers.

* * *

Sensha-Do Audience seats, Sensha-Do Department Box.

Everyone was already stoned face on what is Miho doing in the screen.

"Is she…?" Shiho loss of words of this.

"She raised a finger…" Ami started slowly. "In the middle of the screen."

"That's… quite inappropriate," Chiyo commented who is closing Alice's eyes.

"Okay… I hope she knows that she's doing on the screen," Renta added, agreed to Chiyo's comment.

"And she's doing that in front of the whole crowd," Megumi added who has her face pale to see this. "Okay then."

* * *

Sensha-Do Audience seats, Miho's men.

Royce, Chemo, Garhaaye, Ustin and Chrome are staring at the screen. They were quite disbelieved on what Miho is doing in the match. They only stayed silent awkwardly to that as the audience exclaimed on what they saw.

"Wow…" Royce commented with his eyebrows raised. "Never thought Miho would do something like that."

"And it's right on the big damn screen," Chrome added with a nod. "She knew she's on the screen, right?"

"I don't think she really paid attention to that," Chemo then reached out his hand at the screen. "They scratched her paint job."

"Is it really a big deal for her?" Garhaaye asked sourly.

"Hey, when you bought a Lamborghini and someone scratched your paint," Ustin answered with his arms crossed. "What would you do?"

"Hmpf," Garhaaye gave a flat smile before looking back at the screen. "Fair enough."

* * *

Sensha-Do Audience seats, Anchovy's group.

For her group unfortunately, They were pretty amazed and shock on what is Miho doing. Anchovy however, pretty much horrified a little on what is Miho doing. While Vicek only gives a surprised monkey-like face to the screen. While the rest of her group just frozen to watch that. Thankfully, the finger Miho gave has been censored in the screen.

"Did she just raised the middle finger?" Jajka asked the obvious.

"And it's right in the middle of the screen," Fondue added awkwardly.

"And in front of the whole crowd," Anchovy added slowly.

"Is she insulting her opposition team?" Éclair asked with confusion to watch the screen.

"No, she's not," Vicek replied solidly.

All the girls quickly look up to him. "Are you sure?" Mika asked.

"Yes, I'm sure," Vicek replied with a nod to her.

"Then why she's giving them the finger?" Nishi asked with her arms crossed and a raised brow.

"She's just angry," Vicek replied, reaching out his open palm at the screen.

"Angry?" Uzska asked with a confused look, then gestured at the screen. "I don't think she's getting used to get shelled like that could make her angry."

Vicek opened his mouth, then shuts it for a moment before looking at her. "That's not what made her angry."

They gave all their 'huhs' to him. "Then what made her angry?" Galatte asked with a tilted head.

Vicek just sighed, before continue to look at the screen. "They scratched her paint job."

It took the girls for a moment to process what he meant, before they understand and continued to watch the screen, to Anchovy's disbelieve.

"Oh… no wonder it's such a big deal for her."

* * *

Sicari 1, Miho.

"Did you just raised a finger to them?!" Saori asked in shock, managed to see through the turret hole.

"Yeah, why?" Miho replied stoically, but still showing her annoyed face.

"You do know we're being recorded here right?" Yukari added questionably.

Miho looked down her turret hole and looked straight at Yukari, seemingly in surprise. "I didn't know we're being recorded."

*BOOM-BOOM-BLAAR-BLAR*

As their tank shaken after avoiding a tank shell, Hana replied aloud. "What were you thinking, Miho?!"

"What are you angry about back there?" Saori asked, worried of Miho's insanity.

Miho just sighed, and replied. "They scratched the paint."

They gave a blank stare even if Mako is not looking at her. "Are you serious?" Hana asked slowly in disbelieve.

"Yes, I am," Miho replied with a nod.

"Why is it a big deal for you?" Yukari asked aloud as she loads in a shell for Hana.

"Long story," Miho replied plainly. "Let's just focus on this match."

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BLUAAAR-BAAAAM-BUUUUAAAARRRRR*

"Everyone split up," Miho ordered to her radio. "We'll meet up to the east."

"HAI!" all Sicari members replied aloud.

As they reach the 4-way intersection, they immediately split up into three directions. Alisa and Sangou splits up to their right, Leopon kept moving forward down south, while Miho's crew took the left street, moving to the east. As a result, Oshida and a BCF tank followed Alisa and Sangou, a BCF tank which happens to be M10 Wolverine which is a tank destroyer followed Leopon team. Klara and Andou followed Miho's Anglerfish team to the east, which is all according to plan. Miho could see that Mako is trying her best to evade their pursuers behind them.

The Panzer driving forward faster than their pursuers, but still, the incoming tank shells from their six has kept them off from moving much faster than before. Miho and her tank quickly make a turn to the left following the street as their pursuers did the same. From there, they kept driving and avoiding by moving left and right recklessly that they have hit a lot of light poles. Even though, the enemies tank shells are the ones that are doing a lot of damage to the buildings. But Miho could feel that the people who are watching now might be happy to have a lot of renovations.

And the renovations might have been paid by the department of course.

The driving looks pretty endlessly to them, until Miho spotted something in a distance in front of them. There's some kind of an incomplete building ahead near a 3-way intersection, a construction building. It's still a second-story floor for sure because it may have to make look that way. But she has noticed that the pillars of the building's ground floor looked a little thin, enough for a tank shell to destroy those pillars.

"Hana, see that building ahead of us?" Miho asked as she is pointing at the construction building ahead on their right.

Luckily the turret was aiming forward and Hana had the time to see it. "I see it!"

"Shoot the pillars down!" Miho replied. "It will make our escape."

"Okay, Miho-san!" Hana replied aloud, she then turns the turret at target Miho pointed as the tank reached closer to it.

And Hana pulled the trigger.

*BOOM-BLUUUUUAAAAARRRR* *BBVVVRRRRRRRRRRM*

The Panzer went past the construction building as the whole building are coming down the street. They made just in time until the demolished building has blocked the path behind them, leaving Klara and Andou blocked and lost their shot. The Anglerfish crew cheered as Miho only looked back at the blocked street behind them. But apparently, she didn't know Mako who is inside the tank and the one driving looked back at her crew for a moment with a smile. Miho then turned her head forward, to see something that took her off-guard.

There was another 3-way intersection ahead, the right path was open. But the other road that leads forward was a dead end. They were about to crash to the dead end in front of them when the Panzer nearly reached the intersection. And it was in high speed.

"MAKO!"

Mako reacted just in time after she shouts. Miho wobbled pretty hard after the driver made a sharp turn to the right and hit the brakes. And damn the turning and the brakes made an unpleasant noise.

*SSCCCCRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH-BRUAAAAAKK*

And they stopped after the tank crashed to a building by its left side, fortunately they are still on the street instead on the sidewalk or in the building. Everyone in the tank all sighed in relieve from that kind of stunt.

"Is everyone alright?" Miho asked to her crew as she went inside the turret hole.

"We're good, Miho-san," Yukari replied with a thumbs up. "We're still dizzy a bit, but we're okay."

"Good"

*PLA-TANG*

That loud metal sound caught everyone off-guard.

"What was that?" Saori asked.

"Hang on," Miho then climbed out the tank and looked around their tank. "I don't see an-."

That's when she saw something lying down on the ground behind the tank. "Bollocks, we got problem."

"What is it?" Hana asked as Miho jumped down the tank by the left side.

She took a closer look, and sourly confirmed aloud. "The left track is broken."

"WHAT?!" all her crew surprisingly including Mako were shocked of that. "How bad is it?" Yukari was also seen jumping down from the tank.

"Thankfully it's still in good shape," Miho replied as she examined the broken tracks on the back. "Must've been broken from that crash. Can you help me fix it?"

"Of course!" Yukari replied with a nod, then began to help Miho with the tracks. "We need to be fast before they come for us!"

"Okay, Hana!" Miho ordered aloud. "Keep your eyes on the streets!"

"Hai!" Hana replied from the tank, the turrets began to spin to check the two streets around them.

"It's going to take for about 3 minutes," Miho calculated, which surprised Yukari.

"Wha- 3 minutes?" Yukari felt that is impossible. "Are you sure?"

"I've done this a lot," Miho replied quickly. "Trust me."

Yukari nodded in confirmation. "Okay, let's fix this thing up before they come!"


	47. Chapter 45 - Exhibition Match: Part 3

Audience seats, Sensha-do Department Box

"Wait, their tracks just broken?" Megumi stated questionably, hoping she wasn't seeing things.

"Yeah, and they have a short time before the opposition team is coming to knock out their tank," Ami added in agreement and worry.

"How did that happen?" Rumi asked because she wasn't paying any attention to the screen.

"Must've been from the crash they made," Chiyo answered, fanning herself from the heat.

"How come a crash like would broke their tracks?" Alice asked in disbelieve. "It doesn't look fragile before."

"They just have a bad day," Renta replied with a smiling grin on his face. "Such a shame that kind of thing happened."

"Oh, don't even think about that, Tsuji-sama," Shiciro replied as he is pointing at Renta. "They're going to win this."

"What makes you think they could win this, Kodama-sama?" Renta asked with a hint of sarcasm. "They're going to get wrecked there!"

"I doubt it," Shiho replied, who is shown visibly irritated to Renta. "Miho is doing rather well about that kind of thing."

"But it doesn't explain why did she raised her finger earlier," Azumi added, which left everyone annoyed and groaned.

"Could we just forget about that part?" Yuko asked, then continued by Akashi. "I don't want to think anything about that. But really, why she was angry like that?"

Alice was silent for a moment, before she replied. "Maybe it's because they scratched her paint job?"

Everyone looked back at her with blank stares, though Ami agrees on that. "Well, she actually cared about that."

Shiho just looked back at her in surprise. "Oh, I didn't know about that."

"Well, that makes sense," Yuko added with agreement. "She might have take cares of her tank like an expensive car."

"I know," Akashi replied with a nod. "And she's doing well on fixing the tracks."

"But not for long," Renta replied with a shrug. "Their tank is going to be destroyed soon enough."

"Oh, I don't think so, Tsuji-sama," Chiyo added with a shook. "They'll get out from that one in time."

* * *

Sicari 1, Miho.

It's been about one and a half minute they've been trying to fix the damn tracks. They only have little time for themselves to get the tanks moving before the hostiles are coming up to them. Klara and Andou who they blocked back on the previous intersection had moved back from there to find another way to Miho's tank. If Klara and Andou found a fast way to get to her tank that means she has less than a minute to fix the track. Miho had waste no time to fix it along with the help of Yukari.

Albeit the tracks was a little heavy for them, it had been no problem for them to fix it. The real issue was that they need to assemble the track with one end to another, which is a little hard. They are thankful that the tracks didn't get any more damage than just get separated. Miho is lifting the end of the track on the ground while Yukari is trying to attach the other end to Miho's end. They kept attaching for it until…

*TA-CHANK*

It assembled.

"Alright, we're good," Miho said in relief. "Now I just need to bolt this thing up."

"Good, I will-" Yukari stated.

"Yukari, let me handle this," Miho cuts her off. "Get in the tank."

"Miho, wha-" Yukari about to asked.

"Just get in the tank," Miho quickly replied. "Leave this one to me. I'll be fine."

Yukari felt surprised of her reply, but nodded in reply. "Alright, Miho-san."

Yukari climbs back up on the tank, leaving Miho bolting up the tank with full effort. Now she has less than one minute until the hostiles reach her tank. She keeps bolting up the track as fast as she can. And then she suddenly felt something on the ground, a faint grumbling on the ground.

They're almost here.

She pushed the bolt inside the track as strong as she can, even she had to punch it to get in the slot of the track. Eventually, she did it and then proceed to tighten the bolt up with a wrench she brought in her jacket. She could feel the grumbling on the ground as starting to get louder.

20 seconds left.

She is still turning the bolt around, 5 times.

15 seconds.

She keeps spinning the bolt around. One final push until the bolt has tighten in enough.

12 seconds.

"GRRRRRRRRRRHHH!"

9 seconds

"AAAARGHHH!" *PLANG*

5 seconds.

The bolt has been tighten, she dropped her wrench and banged the tank. "Go"

"What!?" Saori asked aloud from inside.

"GO!"

3 seconds.

"We're not leaving until you're inside!" Yukari shouted back.

"They're already here, go!" Miho banged again. "Now!"

Times out.

Hana shouted from inside. "They're here!"

"Just go!" Miho shouted again, she banged one last time harder.

Yukari hate this so much. "Damn it, Mako, hit the gas!"

*PWUSH-BBBRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM*

The Panzer quickly make a run down the road to Miho's left. To which leaving Miho out there and she saw what was coming for her. That's when she saw Klara's tank's cannon was aiming at her, it was about to shoot the Panzer who got run away. Miho could Klara's face that far, she was incredibly shock to know she was going to shoot her. Though, it was inevitable.

Miho could hear her screamed. "HOLD YOUR FIRE!"

*BOOM-BLUAARRRR*

Miho quickly flies away from the blast, hitting the ground arms first before half of her face. She was stunned for a moment, but as she knew it, the debris were falling from above her from the resulting tank shell hitting the building. IT was quiet a lot came down upon her, but it was mostly no problem for her.

It's a part of her job.

* * *

Audience seats.

Everyone is in shock and horrified of what they just watched. They watched as Miho got threw away from the blast and the building's debris crumbled upon her. After the debris landed down to the ground as the debris produced the fog of war so the spectators and the players of the match cannot see if Miho survived that or not. This is the most eerie part of the match for them to watch.

Those who sit in the Department Box, most of them are all in shock and slack-jawed of what just happened. Shiho can't feel anything to lose her skin color into pale while Chiyo left her mouth open as if her daughter was there. Alice closes her mouth in horror, she even couldn't even dare to keep watching. Renta himself for the first time worried of Shiho's daughter after seeing that himself.

Those the soldiers who are loyal to Miho, all were surprised to see Miho let herself buried by those debris. They show worries about Miho, but they know Miho would survive that. Though the situation is different for them and they hoped that the judges have sent medevac to Miho's location. They hoped she survive that, if not, Ghost will be pissed to hear that.

Anchovy's group on the other hand, are beyond horrified to witness that. Those who grouped with Anchovy can hear her gasps a lot than she should, they could say that she was… pretty shocked to watch this and is about to cry. Mika cannot let her mouth and blankly stares at the screen. Éclair stood frozen as her eyes never leave the screen. Vicek, however, stood still in silent and what he witnessed remind himself of what was going on in Europe.

All just stood there, waiting for the revelation of Miho's fate.

* * *

T-34/85, Klara

She can't believe it. She's too late to hold their fire toward Miho. Thankfully the shot didn't hit directly to Miho, but it was still more problem since the debris have drowned her in the street. Klara gasps for a couple of times before she dropped the radio in her hand. Klara quickly jumped out from her turret hole and rush towards the debris. She has to save her, with Andou reporting the incident to make the match paused.

As Klara reached the debris site, she began to clear it out with the dust is starting to settle out from view. The crew of hers also jumped out from their tank and helped her on clearing out the debris. They quickly cleared out the debris as best as they can, one by one as the dust is no longer blinding them. Klara pushes herself to quickly cleared out the debris by throwing them away from the site to get to Miho.

But it seems Miho reached her first.

Klara and her crew were all surprised to see Miho suddenly emerged from beneath the debris. Miho just emerged as fast as a snake as she lifts herself up from the debris. Miraculously, Miho survived that and she didn't even get a scratch from that. Nothing more than Miho patting her own black shirt to scare off the dust from her. She shook it off from that debris like it was nothing for her.

"How did-?!" Klara asked but then quickly loss at words.

Miho walked off from the debris and walked towards Klara. "Thank you for trying to kill me, ya' bollock."

"Wha- hey," Klara interrupted. "I didn't mean to shoot you."

"I know, you're just too late to avoid that," Miho then patted Klara's shoulder. "I heard you scream."

"But… how did you survive that?" Klara asked, gesturing her hand at the a quarter-destroyed building.

"Luck I guess," Miho replied with a shrug. "Goes the same for the bridge."

Klara then patted Miho's front shirt from the dust. "Are you alright?"

"I had worst," Miho replied with an open palm.

"Pretty convincing," Klara replied with sarcasm, then looked over Miho's outfit again. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," Miho replied with a nod. "I guess we can get back on doing the match."

Klara and her crew stare at her with doubt, though Miho knew that kind of glare. "It's still paused?"

"Yes, after you got yourself buried by those debris," Klara replied with a flat nod.

"I prefer the word 'drowned'," Miho corrected half-sarcastically. "Who's radioing the judges now?"

"Andou there," Klara replied, pointing her thumb at Andou in her tank.

Miho turned around towards Andou's tank and shouted. "Andou, tell the judges the match is still on."

* * *

Audience seats.

Now all of them are spectating that Miho, only survived from the debris that buried her. She also survived that without a bloody scratch as if she was invincible. Shiho, Chiyo, Anchovy and Éclair were clearly deadpanned to see she survived that. And most of all, all of them except more Miho's men were plainly surprised that Miho shrugged that off as if that was her habit. Now they are wondering how the hell Miho survived that without trouble.

Shiho winced her eyebrows and stuttered in disbelieve to see that. Chiyo and Alice gave their blank stares to that. Ami, Akashi and Yuko tilted their heads in confusion to see Miho survived. The Trio Bermuda, Shiciro and Renta all sighed in relief and with little confusion to Miho's survival.

For Miho's men however, gave a pretty different reaction than the most of the spectators. They all suddenly cheered to Miho to survived that. Which achieved most of the spectators' disbelieve glares. Though, eventually they also cheered for Miho's survival as well.

Anchovy's group however, all were relieved to see Miho survived. Vicek even chuckled to see her survived, they were somewhat confused if Vicek knew she would survived. Anchovy puts her hand on her chest and breathes out gladly for her lover. Éclair and her vice-commanders were surprised on how Miho made it out. Mika and Nishi were both clapping to Miho to survive that. Jajka and Uzska were both gasp in relieve to see that.

But now they are watching that Miho is shouting at Andou, probably contacting the judges on site. It made Anchovy curious on what is going on there.

"What is she shouting to her about?" Anchovy asked to Vicek.

"She wants to continue the match," Vicek replied with a shrug.

"But is that possible?" Jajka asked with her narrowed brows. "Doesn't Miho need any first aid care?"

"Why would she?" Vicek asked back, much to their surprise.

"Wha- did you just suddenly don't care about her?" Nishi asked with her arms crossed.

"No, I didn't," Vicek replied with a shook. "I'm saying that she really doesn't need that."

They raised their brows to that. "Why she doesn't need any medical care?" Éclair asked in perplexed.

"Well, she can take care of herself quite well," Vicek replied with his hand pointing at the screen. "She can heal herself with only honey."

"I can't believe this but I have to agree with Vicek," Mika replied with a nod. "She even survived that without a scratch."

"But that was dangerous!" Fondue added aloud, pointing her hand at the screen. "Why would you say that?!"

"Hey, Miho is a tough girl," Vicek replied with his hands on his hip. "She handles this kind of things a lot."

"Huh…" Uzska and Anchovy paused for a moment, before Uzska continued. "Well, if you say so, Vicek."

*SIING*

That's when they heard the speakers turned on. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have to pause the match for a moment until we- wait, please wait for a moment."

They were confused on what was the speakers are saying, and direct their eyes up to the screen. That's when they noticed that Miho looks like arguing with the judges through Andou and her radio. From the looks of it, Miho was shouting and gesturing her hands at Andou while she replied to Miho with negative results. Though they can tell that Miho was still actually calm to shout to Andou instead of angry.

Though, while the speakers are off for the moment they could see that Miho is starting to get irritated of what the judges said through Andou. Anchovy could tell that the argument Miho had with the judges is starting to heat up. While the argument is going on, Klara could be seen trying to calm Miho down. But it seems it only make things worst for Miho.

They watched Miho is shouting to Andou, though they can't tell what she was saying because there's no audio is actually set to hear what the players in the match are saying. You see, Anchovy is not really smart on knowing what somebody is saying by understanding their mouthing. But she could understand a few words from that mouthing. Eventually, Anchovy caught on to what Miho was saying at Andou in the distance.

The only word she could recognized from her mouthing is only the word "chainsaw".

And honestly it made the speakers quickly turned on as if they were freaked out.

"Erm, ladies and gentlemen, the match is still on! I repeat the match is still on!"

"YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

All of the spectators cheered loudly to that, much to Anchovy's surprise.

"I didn't expect that," Vicek commented stoically. "What did Miho just said to the radio?"

"Don't know," Anchovy replied with a shrug. "But I knew she added 'chainsaw' to the judges."

All the girls glared at her in fear, but Vicek just chuckled to that. "Hah, good ol' Miho."

* * *

Sicari 1, Miho.

That was the easy to deal with judges who halt the match. Just enough intimidation to do that trick. Now the next problem is that getting back to her team while on the tank is on the move. She unfortunately can make a run for her tank.

I'm adding 'unfortunately' because the distance between her and the Panzer is more than 150 yards. And the tank is nowhere to be seen around the corner where they took off.

Miho quickly reached for her earless earphone with her fingers. "Yukari, where are you?"

"We're right around the corner where we ran off," Yukari replied, implying the path to Miho's left (when she fixed the track).

Klara and her crew looked at her in puzzled as to why she's talking to herself, while Miho replied to her earphone. "Alright, just keep moving forward and then head left. I'll catch up with you there."

"Miho, where you'll be waiting after that?" Saori radioed back.

"Just keep moving after you turn," Miho then quickly took a couple of step backs. "Don't stop for anything."

"Miho, what are you doing?" Saori asked back in worry.

"You'll see, just keep moving forward," Miho then quickly turned around bashed through the door of the shelled building behind her. "I'm on my way."

*BRRAAAKK*

From that part, she kept running as fast as she can to the floors above.

* * *

Audience seats, Department Box

They're not sure if their eyes are playing tricks or hallucinating. Now they're seeing that Miho is currently running on the rooftops right now. Running from the shelled building and kept running to the north through the rooftops. Miho could be seen even dare to jump a gap in between buildings where there are alleys below. The stunt she's playing is fortunately dangerous.

'Fortunately' because she didn't give a damn about it.

Shiho, Chiyo, Alice and the Trio Bermudas frankly bolted their eyes at the screen with extreme concern, shock, and left their mouths open. Yuko and Akashi were both giving their blank stares to such stunt Miho pulled. Ami only shook her head in disbelieve with what is Miho doing. Shiciro and Renta, well… let's just say they nearly wanted to call off the match for that.

"What is Miho doing?" Shiho asked slowly, her eyes did not leave the screen.

They all were silenced for a moment, before Ami replied. "I think she's trying to get back to her tank."

Everyone stared at her in disbelieve. "You know there's no way she gets back to her tank from the rooftop like that. She won't even have the time to go down through the stairs," Chiyo is certain about it.

"Well…" Ami paused for a moment with her head tilted. "Unless..."

Ami didn't speak further, but then their eyes widen in horror, Shiho got up by that first.

"You're not saying that she's…"

* * *

Sicari 1, Yukari

They already nearly reached a path to the left when Yukari asked in the radio. "Miho, where are you?!"

"Just keep moving like what I said!" Miho replied quickly. "I'll be there!"

"Jeez!"

Their tank quickly turned sharp left and kept a steady speed on the street. They were not sure where Miho will be coming from because Miho didn't say anything about where is she going to wait for them. They even have no idea what is Miho up to. Since Miho ordered them to just keep moving forward, the tank passed forward through an intersection where there's a path to their right.

"BOOM-BLLAAAAAAARRRR*

To have a tank shell came out from that right path after they passed.

"Whoa!" Yukari who is on the turret hole looked behind her, followed up by Mako asking. "Who's that?"

That's when Yukari saw Rosehip's tank along with two other Crusaders showed up behind them. "It's the Glorianas! Rosehip is here!"

"Oh no, where's Miho?!" Hana asked, she's began to be worried about this.

"Miho, where are you!?" Saori asked in the radio, she was began to panic.

"I'm nearly there, just keep moving forward!" Miho radioed back quickly.

"Miho, I'm driving the tank more faster with the Glorianas on our tail," Mako radioed emotionlessly by Saori's radio. "Where are you?"

There was no response from Miho as they drive faster with the Glorianas behind them, Yukari asked again. "Miho, where are you!?"

"OI, LOOK UP!"

Yukari quickly looked forward and then looked up. That's when she could saw Miho is running on the roof towards the street in front of them. Yukari wasn't sure why is Miho running on the roof top, knowing she doesn't have the time to run down the stairs. But Yukari watched Miho runs to the edge of the rooftop as the Panzer is nearly in front the building where Miho is on.

To Yukari's shock, Miho just jumped off the rooftop of the third story building.

"Nanite Kotoda!"

Miho was flying in the air for a moment in front of their Panzer. Yukari felt her brain shut downed after that. Though quickly snaps herself out when she realized Miho is going to land on their moving Panzer. She's late to do anything to help Miho after she landed on the moving tank, *B-DAK* and quickly rolled and nearly fell off the tank. Miho has already her right hand hanging to the right side of the tank as Yukari quickly got out the turret hole and help her up.

Yukari managed to pull her up after Miho gives her other hand onto the turret edge. Even the Glorianas have to hold their fire back there because they were surprised of that. Yukari got her up and then let Miho enters the tank first before she herself enters the turret hole. Miho sat down under the turret hole as Yukari quickly gets back to her seat as a gun loader.

"Are you CRAZY!?" Yukari asked loudly and angrily in extreme worries. "You could've killed yourself!"

Miho just sighed with a shook, then looked up at her. "You knew about that."

"Wait, you just jumped off a building?" Hana asked, disbelieve to hear that.

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod, calmly.

"Are you insane!?" Saori asked in shock. "I can't believe you would do something like that!"

"I'm sorry about that, I only got a little time to get back to your tank before you all get shot," Miho replied flatly and calmly.

"You are actually right about that," Mako added in agreement without emotion. "The Glorianas are zeroing us in."

*BOOM-BOOM-BLLAAAR-DUUAAARRRR*

Their tank shook from the incoming blast Mako managed to avoid. The whole crew in the tank shook from the blast they receive which thankfully didn't hit directly into their tank. Yukari got her head bumped a little onto the interior's wall. She groans in a bit pain and scratched her head before looking up to Miho again.

"That summed things up," Miho commented with a sincere sigh. "All teams, report in."

"Hammer team here," Ogin radioed in, surprising Miho. "Mauko is down. Mauko… is down, their KV-2 destroyed her. Only me and Hippo team are still standing. But we're chasing down the fleeing enemies with the remaining Dekko team of 3."

"Wait, with Dekko?" Miho asked in surprise. "Where's Foxtrot?"

"Raven Gold, Foxtrot 1!" Erika replied. "We just got ahead and tell Dekko team to stay with Hammer. We're with Bravo team here and we found the flag tank!"

The whole crew got up with that. "You found the enemy's flag tank?!" Yukari quickly asked to the radio.

"Yes, to your south, probably for about a click," Maho radioed in. "But we got a problem, our flag tank is with us."

Miho was the one who only breathes out sincerely, before reaching for her radio. "Why the flag tank is with you?"

"We just want to help, Miho," Sodoko radioed in with a begging tone. "Can you come to help us?"

"We'll try as best as we can," Miho replied with a nod, before acknowledging to her own team members who are separated and the other team. "All Sicari elements and Romeo team, link up with Bravo and Foxtrot and flank that flag tank."

"HAI!"

Yukari then looked back at Mako and ordered her. "Mako, lose the glorianas on our tail and make a rush to the south."

"Hai," Mako replied with a nod.

From that on, they have a hot run for the enemy's flag tank.

* * *

Foxtrot 1, Erika

On her end, her team along with Bravo team and the flag tank with its escort are chasing down the enemy flag tank ahead of them. The enemy flag tank were guarded with the escorts of Nonna, Katyusha and a couple of Gloriana Mk. VIII Harry Hopkins tanks aiding the enemy flag tank's (remember, it's Marie's) escape. They are already in a hot chase on them as they actually chased them down the road which let them into a wide park. Even send in a lot of shells to them as the enemies returning fire to them. This such heat could actually put any students in pressure, especially those who are Kuromorimines.

Erika is actually pretty pissed instead of over-pressured. Aside the fact that they are having a hot chase on the enemy flag tank, their own flag tank is in a much troubled spot. Sodoko, stupidly decides that her tank along with their escort should be in front of the teams for increasing their morale. What surprises Erika was that their own flag tank didn't get shot from there. She just hoped Miho doesn't know about this for this moment.

It is of course a long chase for them to get this far, but they were having a good progress so far. Erika and the teams managed to send shells at Katyusha's and Nonna's tanks, which forcing them both to split up when they reached the end of the park. Erika smiled as she watched Katyusha and Nonna promptly take the left street next to their flag tank where they had to take a detour for a while. There's only 2 Gloriana escorts with the enemy flag tank.

The Gloriana tanks quickly put their tanks behind Marie's flag tank to ensure that they fired to them first instead of directly hitting the flag tank. It was a good trick, considering that they got inside a street as the hot chase is going on with more heat. It's going to be tight for them to take the flag tank out. More importantly, Sodoko's flag tank is still in front of the fucking teams.

Erika just scoffed to that, but only to herself. She just needs to focus on protecting their own flag tank as well as they try to take out the enemy's flag tank ahead. Erika sent in some rounds to them as Maho did the same, might as well trying to avoid the incoming fire made by the escaping hostiles. Erika and Maho who were actually right behind their own flag tank., are trying to focus their fire on the escorts. Though, along the way…

*BOOM-BOOM-BOOOM-BLARRRR-BLUUUUAAARR-DDDAAAAAAAARRRR*

Erika and her teams managed to avoid the incoming shells. Unfortunately, Sodoko's flag tank's escort was shot and destroyed. Resulting it to be stopped in its track and gets left behind whilst the teams avoid getting crashed to it. The flag tank is now vulnerable without its escort.

"Scheisse!" Erika cursed to her radio. "Sodoko, get back here now!"

"Don't worry, we'll be fine!" Sodoko radioed back confidently.

"You just lost your escort!" Maho intervened in the radio. "Get back here now!"

"We'll be fine!" Sodoko insisted angrily. "Just shoot at that flag tank!"

"So stubborn…" Erika muttered to herself, before giving order to her gunner. "Feuer!"

*BOOM-BOOM-BLAAAAAR-DUUUUAAAAARRR*

Both Erika and Maho put their rounds on the enemy escorts. Erika was all happy trigger to watched the Glorianas' Mk. VIII Harry Hopkins destroyed by shots to their rear and quickly stop in their tracks. Erika and her teams passed the downed enemies as she didn't have the time to see the white flags poppin' out. Now, it was only the enemy flag tank left in front of them. Erika was pretty happy that they'll shoot the enemy's flag tank with no trouble.

"Come on, they're still running!" Anzu said in the radio in excitement.

"Yeah, put some rounds on them!" Erika added in excitement as well, with little arrogance.

"Yeah, shoot them down!" Ritaiko added in the radio, who is more concerned than excited.

"Don't let them get away!" Maho added in the radio, then continued by Sodoko. "We're going to win this!"

They kept chasing them down as best as they can as they make a sharp right turn following the target down. But that's when things just gone south. They have noticed that the enemy flag tank's turret was turning and aiming to its right. The enemy flag tank is not returning as it manages to avoid all incoming fire toward it. That's when they didn't realize there was a small ramp going up the street a level above them to their right. And the bastards took that chance.

The Marie's tank made a quick turn to the right up the ramp as it shot a scaffolding of a building next to that ramp street. The debris quickly came down and blocked that path, forcing the teams to stay on the main road to chase the enemy flag tank who is above next to them. Erika muttered and cursed to this, but they still have their eyes on the enemy flag tank. It was visible to them since the enemy flag tank is stuck to the edge of the street above because that path was tight for a tank, and it was guarded with metal fences.

Sodoko's flag tank was still in the very front when they tried to shoot down the enemy flag tank. They're still busy trying to shoot the enemy flag tank up there since all cannons except for Turtle team who's behind Erika are aiming their cannons at that flag tank. There's an intersection ahead of them for about 150 meters ahead, except for the enemy flag tank above which is showing that there's an intersection right before the teams reach that intersection. No one even bothered to aim their cannons forward, including Sodoko's team themselves.

Though, once the enemy flag tank and the allied teams drove forward for about 130 meters, that's when the shitstorm happened. All the sudden, 3 enemy tanks, Katyusha, Nonna and a BC Freedom tank suddenly popped out from the left and created and blockade in the intersection in front of the OKS teams. Erika, Maho and Sodoko were the first person to be shocked by that surprise and they immediately stopped their tanks before those behind them followed suit. While that happen, the enemy flag tank is still running forward and about to reach the intersection above there.

When the front teams stopped, they stared in horror to the blockade ahead. "Oh Gott, we're screwed!" Erika shouted in horrified.

"They're going for the flag tank!" Maho warned in the radio.

"They are going to shoot our flag tank!" Sodoko shouted in panic, ready for their impending doom.

"No, they're not."

*VRRRRRRRM-BRRRRRUUUUUUAAAAAAK*

Much to Erika surprise, they just witnessed that the Panzer IV quickly pops out next to Marie's tank and crashed to it. The crash was so hard, that took both Marie's and Miho's tank coming down from above and landed in between the allies and the hostiles.

*BRAAAAK-BRUUUUAAAKK-DRAAAAAAKKKK*

And then Erika heard the hostiles fired their cannons.

*BOOOOOOM-BLAR-DUAR-DLAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR*

And amazingly, their shots actually shot Marie's tank that was flipped to the side and Miho's tank that had landed on its track. Then, there are only smokes coming from both Marie's and Miho's tank. And after a while of silence, with everyone from both sides were in amazement and shock, two white flags pop out from the both of the tanks. Erika can't believe it, Miho just saved Sodoko's crew from getting themselves destroyed.

This is actually the best memorable moment of their life. They never had to watch someone like Miho would risk her tank like that to save the OKS flag tank. Erika can feel that even the spectators of the match must be awed to watch such stunt. And she was pretty sure that Miho made the Sensha-Do Department to be impressed. And pretty sure she knew Miho made her girlfriend, Anchovy, to be proud to witness that.

That's when the speakers and radios were heard. "OKS Compound team has won!"

Erika couldn't help but to smile while the rest of the teams cheered happily to this.

"YEAHH!"

"We won!"

"We did it!"

"Awesome!"

Erika, Maho and Anzu got off from their tanks and step down onto the streets. As they began to walk at the downed tanks in front of them, Marie's and Miho's whole crew were already out from their tanks and wipe themselves out from dust. Frankly, Miho was smiling there to know that plan worked out. Erika and other two commanders stopped in front of Miho and her team and sighed in relief.

"Miho," Erika called, unsure what to say for a moment before responding. "That… was incredible."

Miho just chuckled with a shook. "I know, mate."

"I can't believe that crazy idea we just pulled really worked out," Hana added, her face was still in some sort of heat stroke.

"I know, I can't believe we just did that," Saori added in agreement, she stills panic a little from that stunt.

Maho and Anzu both shook their heads to that. "Yeah, you're crazy than I thought," Anzu commented with her arms crossed.

"I take that as a compliment," Miho replied with a thumbs up.

"Miho," Marie called, who apparently comes up to them. "That was scary, but that was incredibly awesome. How did you know that could destroy our flag tank and not yours?"

Erika and the other friends just stare at her in silence with Miho only gave her blank face, before she just looked back at Marie with a flat face. "I didn't."

Their faces just went pale to hear that, but of course they manage to erase their concerns. "Okay then," Erika stated to break this awkwardness.

Miho just sighed to that, with Mako interrupted in. "Can we go back now? I really want to sleep."

"Alright, alright, we'll go back soon enough," Miho said to Mako, then patted her shoulder. "You looked like need to get some fresh air."

Yukari then looked to Erika. "Can you give us a ride?"

"Sure I can," Erika replied with a nod, then looked over to Maho and Anzu. "You two?"

"Yes, we can," Maho replied with a nod, then continued by the smiling Anzu. "Let's get some drink when we get back."

"That sounds great," Marie commented in agreement, then looked at Miho. "You're coming, Miho?"

"Sure," Miho replied with her hands waved wide. "Let's go."

* * *

Exhibition Area

Miho is already having a drink in her hand as the rest of the teams are cheering with each other on winning this match for the first time as a 3-team match. Miho is standing next to Anzu, Maho and Yukari near a drinking stand. They were relaxing for now after that nice match. Miho even happy to know that she just saved the school for winning this. She just hoped that she didn't flip off to hear Renta changed his mind to the school.

That's when Anchovy along with Mika, Jajka and Vicek come over to see her. Miho and her friends quickly stood up and greeted them. Anchovy looked so happy to know that Miho won the match. Miho just to see Anchovy is happy. Anchovy hugged Miho for a moment before starting their conversation.

"You won, Miho!" Anchovy commented happily. "I can't believe you would risk yourself like that."

"That's an incredible way to destroy their flag tank," Jajka admitted with a smile. "And to save your own flag tank."

Miho chuckled again at that statement. "Thank you, mate."

"Miho, you might be the first person who could really beat against Alice and her University team," Mika added with her index finger raised. "And it would be a no problem for you."

Miho just shook her head as Yukari added. "Yeah, you maybe could have a match with Alice."

"I know you all are eager for that," Miho replied with a couple of nods. "But that ain't happening."

Everyone groaned in disappointment before Miho added again. "Hey, I'm just here because I'm trying to save the school."

"Well, you just did that," Anzu replied with her hands raised as a shrug.

"Let's just hope that Mr. Renta there doesn't change his mind," Vicek added with sarcasm, coincidentally he was pointing at Renta who's with Shiho, Shiciro and Chiyo there coming up to them.

They all turned at them as Renta and his group stopped in front of them. "Minasan, Kon'nichiwa."

"Kon'nichiwa, Renta-sama," the girls replied, except for Vicek and Miho who only nodded at him.

"Miho-sama," Renta called, turning at her. "I must say, you have impressed us pretty well."

"Especially that crazy stunt you pulled on the flag tank," Shiciro added with a smile, pointing his thumb to behind him.

"You made Alice pretty scared when she watched that," Chiyo added, concern could be heard in her voice.

"But most of all, you made an amazing impression to us," Shiho added with a smile. "You're really an expert of tankery."

"Oh, that was nothing really," Vicek replied to them, landing his elbow on Miho's shoulder. "You should have see her how she could pimp a tank back in London."

Miho just sighed in annoyance, that reminds her that one time pimping a tank back at 141 base in UK. "Vicek, we are not talking about that."

"Alright, we're not talking about that," Vicek replied quickly, getting his elbow off Miho. "Anyway…"

"The school is safe, right?" Yukari asked in concern.

"Yes…" Renta then paused for a moment. "For a while."

That made everyone except Miho and Vicek groaned. "Seriously? After all that?" Maho protests angrily.

"I can't take this!" Yukari replied angrily. "Is this what you always do to Ooarai? Harassing us like that so you can shut down our school?"

"I suggest to revise your decision, Mr. Renta," Miho warned him with a quite could tone. "Because this is not going to be well than you think."

"Oh, I'm sure of my decision, Miho-san," Renta replied with a grin. "And it stays that way."

"Alright then," Miho quickly walked off to her right and passed by Vicek. "Vicek, WHERE'S MY CHAINSAW?!"

That one got everyone up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, alright, alright, I change my mind, I change my mind!" Renta quickly said to Miho, making Miho to stop walking away. "Ooarai school will not be closed down!"

Miho just sighed, then turned around at him, then walked up to him. She then tilted her head to the left as she stares at him in silence. Before she asked.

"Will not be closed down permanently?"

Renta quickly looked at Shiciro before looking back at Miho. "Yes, permanently. Ooarai school will not be closed down."

The girls sighed in relief to hear that, and Miho nodded at him. "Good, glad to make a deal and an acquaintance with you, Mr. Renta," Miho then give her open palm at him.

Renta only looked at her hand for a moment, then to her face, before he shook hands with her. "Okay, glad to make a deal and an acquaintance with you too, Miho-san."

After shaking hands, Shiciro then said to her. "Now, if you excuse us, we need to discuss some business somewhere else."

"Sure, I don't mind," Miho replied with a nod. "Have a good day, Mr. Shiciro."

"Miho-san, kon'nichiwa," Shiciro replied with a bow, then hugged Renta by his shoulders. "Come on, Renta. Let's get ourselves some business."

As Renta, Shiciro and Chiyo began to walk away, Shiho stayed back for a moment to say something to Miho. "That's a nice intimidation, Miho."

"Thanks, mother," Miho thanked with a smile. "Shouldn't you be moving on?"

"I will, have a good time with your friends, Miho," Shiho said with a smile, then began to walk away.

"Okay, mother," Miho casually replied as she watched her walked away, then looked back at her friends. "That really went well."

"Sure it is," Anchovy replied with a reluctant nod. "You got me scared when you said chainsaw."

"I'm sorry about that, my lady," Miho replied in her apologetically tone. "Had to make sure the deal is the deal."

"You're really good in doing that kind of job," Jajka added with nods, then tilted her head. "That's for sure, Pani Miho."

"Thank you, Jajka," Miho replied with a nod and a smile.

"Hey, Miho, should I get a cold one?" Vicek asked to Miho, to which the girls don't know what he meant.

Though, Miho didn't like it because Anchovy is around. "Nah, maybe later, just go ahead and drink up with Chemo and the others. I'll be here."

"You know what? I'm staying," Vicek replied with a grin.

"You don't want to have fun Chemo?" Maho asked with a raised brow.

"I don't really want to ruin someone else's fun, so I'm staying," Vicek replied again, with his arms crossed and a shrug.

"That's actually nice," Mika agreed softly with a smile. "I want to know more about you."

"Sure, I'm okay about that," Vicek replied with his palms widen to his sides.

"As long as you don't messing around with us," Anchovy added, wanted to make sure Vicek is not doing something bad along them.

"If he did, 'Chovy, I'm going to dump his arse onto the sea from Ooarai Schoolship," Miho joked in her serious tone, which made her friends and her girlfriend giggled.

As they giggled, Maho noticed there are other girls coming up to them. "Guys, we got company."

They all turned around to see who were coming to them. They were pretty happy to see Darjeeling with Pekoe, Katyusha with Klara, and Marie with Andou coming over to them. Miho and her group greeted them as they greeted her group back. Both sides greeted with a bow while Miho and Vicek themselves greeted them with a nod.

After that greeting, Pekoe started. "That was a great match today."

"And absolutely a thrilling one as well," Darjeeling commented softly, then drinks her cup of tea on hand. "You gave us a quite joyful time."

"And I have to admit," Katyusha added in with her sour tone. "I didn't think we would lose like that."

Klara only gave a neutral expression to this. "But you know how to play your cards in the match."

"I got to agree with Klara about that," Marie added with a nod, with her thumb pointing at Klara.

"And you nearly killed yourself out there when Klara nearly shot you," Andou added in a tone of concern.

To which all the girls including Anchovy who had watched the match had to look back at her. "I'll talk about that later, alright?"

"Well, you should be, Miho," Maho said to her assuredly. "I want to know what had happened to you back in the match."

"Alright, Maho," Miho replied with a nod, then looked back at the merry group of BPG girls in front of them.

"You know, I really hate it that we lose this match," Katyusha admitted, then paused for a moment to change her tone to soft. "But, you really deserved this victory from how I see it."

"What are you trying to say here?" Miho asked, she understands what she meant but she didn't get on why she's talking to her now.

"I'm trying to say that I'm complementing you," Katyusha clears up to her. "You play a fair game in this match, so…"

Katyusha looks up to Klara who is next to her, to which Klara continued. "I want to give you a gift from myself."

That made them pretty curious, including Miho herself who raised a brow to that. "What kind of gift?" Miho asked flatly.

Klara then pulled out something from inside her Pravda tankery jacket, she is showing a book to her. "I heard from Anchovy that you actually liked reading something. So… I kind of bought a novel for you, a Russian romance novel."

"Really?" Miho asked in surprise, Anchovy was surprised of this too. "What's the title?"

"White Flower," Klara replied with a smile as she looked over the book she brought. "It's written by Makarov."

When Klara looked back at Miho, she was surprised to see Miho is suddenly alarmed. Not only Miho who was alarmed, Vicek was also alarmed to what Klara just said. Both of them just looked at Klara with their solemn faces to her with an added expression of anger in their faces. Anchovy was completely terrified to see Miho and Vicek gave their looks like that. While the rest of the girls… one word to describe is 'paled'.

Miho just stared at Klara dead eyes, before asking. "Makarov?"

Klara was silent for a moment before replying. "Erm, yeah… Makarov Gevochik."

That seemed to calm Miho and Vicek down. How could a name could gave a wild reaction like that is unknown to the girls. Anchovy and Maho could sense hatred from how Miho said the name. Yukari, Mika, Jajka and Anzu were confused on why Miho sounded so harsh to repeat that name. Darjeeling and Pekoe, Katyusha, and Marie with their own vice-commanders actually wondered why Miho reacted like that. Though, Miho reluctantly took the book off Klara's hand and examined it.

"I see…" Miho replied coldly, she then sighed, but then she changed her tone to soft. "I'm… thank you for this book, Klara."

"Miho, are you alright?" Pekoe asked in concern.

"I'm…" Miho can't even speak a word after her sudden reaction before, she was a little panic about it.

"Miho?" Anchovy called in concern, she holds her shoulder gently. "What's going on?"

"I'm-," Miho couldn't even think a word to respond, instead she waved her hand to Anchovy. "I'm-I'm sorry, excuse me."

Miho hastily walked away from the group with the book Klara given to her. That made them confused on what just happened, while Vicek just stood there in silent and unfazed of the situation. For the first time, they saw Miho hastily walked away from the group after she gave an alarming reaction because of unknown reason. Vicek just sighed there to broke their attention to Miho. It of course startled them a little to change their attention to someone else.

"Is she alright?" Andou asked curiously, and worried.

"I'm not sure," Maho replied with a shrug. "She never reacted like that before."

"And she just reacted like that only because of a name," Darjeeling added. "I wonder why."

"Didn't Vicek reacted like that before?" Anzu asked, to which they changed their attention to Vicek.

"Vicek, why were you and Miho both angry before?" Marie asked, hoping that Vicek won't flipped in.

"I'm- it was nothing," Vicek replied with a shook with his head looking down, before he nervously looked at where Miho went off and then looked back at them. "I'll go check up on Miho."

Vicek quickly walked off from the group and headed for Miho. They all just watched him hastily walking away from them in silent. Now there is something suspicious with Miho and Vicek to see from how they react. Maho, who is a member of 141, even wondered why her younger sister reacted like that. And now, they were pretty sure that Miho and Vicek kept something else to themselves.

"Do you think they both are keeping a secret?" Mika asked, wincing her eyebrows to everyone with her.

"Looks like it," Andou added in agreement. "I think we should find out what they're hiding, especially about Miho."

"I really wanted to," Maho added in agreement, but then she's upset. "But I don't want to get on her bad side for the moment."

"Let's just give her some time," Katyusha agreed to Miho. "I don't want to have something bad from Miho herself."

"You're right about that," Anchovy replied with a consent nod.

Anchovy then turned her head at where did her girlfriend went off, wondering one thing in mind.

 _"Is she lying to me?"_


	48. Extra 3 - Stupidest Game Ever

Chemo is enjoying his time with his fellers while waiting for the Exhibition is over, exclude for Vicek who's still with Anchovy's group. It was real fun to watch Miho's match against other schools back there. But the only thing that made them bored was that since the match was over, they're trying to find another kind of fun for themselves.

I mean… it's not like they're going to call Bazarov over to get some fun.

Chemo is right now having some snack with the boys near the audience seats. Just something they had to hold off their hunger for a moment, even some of them brought their MREs. They also chatting with each other about how their days went well. While Royce is making sure the Exhibition is going well, Chrome is actually sitting and thinking on what they should do next. Just sitting down here looked pretty boring for them and they need something to cheer up.

Which Chemo noticed his expression. "Something's up, Chrome?"

"Well, I was just thinking," Chrome replied, leaning his body forward from his seat.

"What, thinking about that match?" Garhaaye asked with a raised brow, just turning his head next to him.

"Actually, I was thinking about getting ourselves some fun," Chrome replied flatly, then sighed.

"Didn't that match we just watched was pretty fun?" Ustin asked with a smirk. "The match was pretty awesome to watch."

"Yeah, but we just 'watch'," Chrome then give them two fingers from both hands and bowed them down twice. "We didn't anything about doing that kind of fun."

"So you're saying we need some 'physical' fun, mate?" Royce asked as he turned around and crossed his arms.

"Something like that, yeah," Chrome replied with a nod as he tilted his head a little.

Chemo just chuckled because he agreed to Chrome, he then sits down across him. "Okay, you're right. Because I'm getting bored here waiting for the Exhibition to go over."

Garhaaye just laughed for a moment at Chemo, before looking back at Chemo. "So, what do you have in mind?"

"Well…" Chrome began with a high tone, though sounded a little doubt. "We're going to play a game."

"Oh, really?" Royce asked, smiling as he raised an eyebrow. "What kind of game?"

"Well, that game," Vicek replied, confusing them of his meaning.

"What do you mean that game?" Chemo asked, narrowing his eyebrows to him.

Chrome paused for a moment, before replying. "Well, you know… That Game?"

They are still confused of his statement. Their brains are processing on what the hell he was trying to talk about. That game? They never heard any kind of name like that for a game. They could say that Chrome might forgot what the game meant was called. Despite that, they kept thinking what he meant.

Until all four of them suddenly widen their eyes at him.

"Oh, no, no, no." – Garhaaye.

"You're kidding me," – Ustin.

"The bloody hell, mate?!" – Royce.

"Aw, hell no!" – Chemo.

"What, it's more fun doesn't it?" Chrome added with a grin and his hands raised about to his shoulders.

"What the hell do you mean that's fun?!" Chemo protested, then gestured his hand to around them. "We're still in the Exhibition and you want to do that here?!"

"Yeah, plain and simple," Chrome replied simply, seeing it as no problem.

"Plain and simple my ass," Garhaaye replied in his funny Somalian accent. "It sounds like you wanted a deathwish to do That Game now."

"Oh, come on, let's do this!" Chrome quickly stood up and clasped his both hands together. "It's going to be fun."

"We're not doing That Game in here," Chemo protested.

"Come on, bro," Chrome convinced him. "Let's do That Game."

"That ain't happening."

* * *

3 minutes later.

"I can't believe this is happening."

Yep, at the end they are going to do That Game. The 4 men who are with Chrome were pretty nervous on what is he doing now. That Game is pretty dangerous even if it's labeled as 'fun' by Chrome. The reason for this was bloody apparent for them.

You know that game that Adam Sandler (acting as Lenny Feder) played in the movie Grown Ups, using only a bow and an arrow with his other friends? Yes, that's the goddamn game that Chrome is going to do right now. The so-called Arrow Roulette.

They have distanced themselves a bit far from where the Exhibition is. They're inside a small patch of woods not far… I mean, a bit far from where the Exhibition is. There was no one around the woods except for those men who are going to play that game. Stupidest, moronic, craziest and asinine are the perfect words to describe how's the fun in doing Arrow Roulette. Despite that, they kept doing that game anyway.

"Oh, boy this is so scary," Garhaaye nervously commented.

"I'm starting to have an adrenaline rush here," Ustin has already tensed a little to do this game.

"I hope you know what are you doing, mate," Royce replied, he calms himself to relieve his breathing.

"I gotta hate this if we made it out from this game," Chemo commented sourly, before looking up at Chrome. "What was the rule again?"

"After I shoot the arrow," Chrome explained happily, much to the men's dismay. "The one who's staying longer wins."

"What?!" Garhaaye asked, misheard what he said.

"The one who stays the longer wins," Chrome replied happily as a kid in a playground.

"Alright, why the hell are we doing this?" Ustin asked, though his question is ignored by everyone.

"Okay, on my count on three!" Chrome then raised his bow and arrow to the sky. "One, two…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait!" – Royce.

"Hangon, hangon, hangon, hangon, hangon, hangon!" – Chemo.

"Wait, wait, wait!" – Ustin.

"Oh, shi- wait, I'm not ready!" – Garhaaye.

"ONE!"

*TTCCHWWAAAKKK*

And the arrow has launched into the sky.

"Here we go!"

That's when something goes wrong.

Garhaaye was the first to spoke up.

"Wait, where's the arrow?"

They all kept looking up to the sky, they saw nothing in the sky except for the bright light of the sun.

"Oh no, I think I just shoot it straight to the sun!"

That set the panic to everyone.

"Oh shit!" – Chemo.

"The BLOODY HELL!?" – Royce.

"RUN!" – Ustin.

"Run like hell!" – Chrome.

"Wait, wait, where are you going?!" – Garhaaye.

Everyone except for Garhaaye ran from their spot in a hurry and in panic. None of them wanted to get shot by an arrow that's for sure. For Garhaaye however, he was a little certain that the arrow would shot him, or other of his friends involved in this game. Despite, those who had ran just keep running in all direction no matter if they get separated or not. Well, they shouldn't have agreed to do this game in the first place.

Chrome is running away and separated from his friends. As he runs, he looked back at Garhaaye who is still standing in the spot. While he's concerned of his friend he just had to kept running, he then quickly turns his head forward. And suddenly something hits him pretty hard. He just got his groin crashed into a small dried branch no taller than 2 feet. He ended up fell forward to the ground, holding his harmed family jewels with his both hands in pain.

As for Ustin however, he got much worse than Chrome. He didn't look behind him, but he got his right foot slipped. He quickly fell forward, face planting into the ground and just kept sliding forward like a ski. The moment he's about to stop is the moment when he got his coronal suture of his skull crashed into a boulder. He was sure as dizzy as a drunk man on the ground.

For Chemo and Royce, they ran together away from the site where they started their game. They didn't get any bad luck like Chrome and Ustin. But they are actually running toward where the Exhibition is, thinking that the area will be safe from that incoming arrow. They just kept running away in panic as they looked back, then looked forward again.

For Garhaaye, he just proudly stood there with a smile on his face. "Ha HAAAA! I win!"

* * *

"How are your tanks holding up after the match?" Carpaccio, who is with Alina, Teramoto and Oshida, asked with curiosity.

"Not bad actually," Alina replied with her sour tone. "I'm just glad that Miho and her teams didn't hammered us harder than we thought."

"But her teams were well organized despite how other schools there are holding up with each other," Oshida added, crossing an arm across her stomach.

"Well, it's Miho who dealt with them," Teramoto replied to Oshida's statement. "But, aw… Wish I was in the match to take photographs."

"Probably in the next match, Teramoto-san," Alina replied. "Then you can go ahead take pictures all you want."

"Though, I still think you should bought a new camera," Oshida replied, then looked to her left toward the woods in the distance. "And that should- wait, why are they running?"

They all turned their heads to where Oshida is facing. That's when they found two men, which none of them recognized the men as Chemo and Royce running toward them. Adding to their confusion was that the both men were waving their both hands at the girls. They didn't know what the men mean, but for Oshida it looked like they're trying warn them as their shouting getting closer. They are starting to wonder what's going on.

When the both men got too close with them, the black man, Chemo, shouted these words. "RUN, WE HAVE AN INCOMING ARROW!"

The both men just ran past them without colliding into them and running deeper into the Exhibition. The girls just watched them run in confusion and raised their eyebrows. After a moment of watching them running away, they turned their heads back to the woods in the distance. Wondering what the black man is saying about.

Carpaccio is the one who asked that. "Arrow? What arrow?"

*CCHH-TAAAANKK*

All the girls including Carpaccio herself paused for a moment in surprise to hear that sound. They then looked down to the ground.

That's when they found an arrow shot through and stuck in Carpaccio's left foot.

"Oh, that arrow…"

Carpaccio the lifted her head forward…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

* * *

Miho, Anchovy, Vicek, Shiho and Darjeeling were having a small chat with each other to spend their time in the Exhibition. That's when their chatting stopped to hear there are shouting in a distance. They were pretty shock (for Miho, disbelieve) to see that Alina, Oshida, Teramoto along with Chemo and Royce are carrying Carpaccio to them. Apparently surprised to see Carpaccio's left foot was shot with an arrow.

They immediately put Carpaccio down on an empty chair as the crowd around them watched in wonder and amazement to what just occurred. Doing awhile all of them are yelling at each other due to Carpaccio's condition. After they put Carpaccio down, Garhaaye, Ustin, and Chrome quickly come over and were surprised to see this. The most questionable thing was how did Carpaccio got her foot shot with an arrow.

"What happened?!" Anchovy asked worriedly as she examined her friend's foot.

"We've been attacked by an indian," Garhaaye replied quickly.

They all just looked back at him, and Shiho asked. "What?"

"What kind of Indian that live in Japan?!" Oshida retorted in disbelieve.

"How did she get shot like this?!" Alina asked them loudly, gesturing both hands to Carpaccio. "You two just ran up to us and shouted incoming arrow and then you just keep running like hell!"

"What do you mean incoming arrow?" Darjeeling asked, perplexed. "This arrow on her foot?"

"Yes, the arrow on my foot!" Carpaccio groans in pain. "Ugh, it hurts!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up for a second will you?" Vicek calmed them down. "Alright, let's clear this up first."

"I think I know what just happened," Miho sighed, then turned to the men aside from Vicek. "I don't think there was a man trying to shoot arrows at you."

There was a pause, before Miho continued. "Did you just played That Game?"

That brought the confusion to her mother, her girlfriend, and the girls with her. Not for the men however.

"Game? What game?" Garhaaye asked, playing dumb to Miho.

"The Arrow Roulette," Miho answered, they all stayed silent for a moment, despite that Carpaccio groans in pain.

The men didn't say anything, the only thing that comes out from Royce's mouth was: "Uummm..."

"Oh, you bloody kidding me," Miho sighed a little bit angrily, before continuing her hands widened to her sides. "Who thought playing that game in the middle of the Exhibition is a good idea?"

The men who involved in that game were staring back at her in silence, before their eyes quickly glared back to Chrome. Much to her dismay.

Miho just sighed in annoyance. "You bloody fool, why did you play that game?"

"Well…" Chrome paused for a moment with a hum. "We're bored."

"Yo-you bored?" that left Miho stunned for a moment.

"Unbelievable," Vicek just spins around in annoyance and looked back at them. "You could've killed someone. Now we got a girl here got her foot shot."

Miho sighed again and said to them. "That was the stupidest."

"Moronic," Vicek added.

"Craziest," Shiho added.

"Asinine," Alina added.

"Game you ever played," Anchovy added lastly, with a sigh.

"Well…" Chrome paused for a moment. "At least we-"

"Oh, don't you start," Miho pointed her finger at Chrome as the medics were on time to reach them. "Let's tend her wound first."

Miho then walked over to Carpaccio who's currently tended by the medics. Miho examined her foot for a moment to see what's the solution for her foot. The medics were pretty doubt a little on how to get the arrow out. But for Miho, she knew how. But Carpaccio won't like it.

"I can get the arrow out, Carpaccio," Miho replied flatly, though that give Carpaccio a hint.

"I sense a 'but' there," Carpaccio said, groans in pain for a moment.

"Yeah, I'm going to do it the hard way," Miho replied with a nod, surprising the medics and the group with her.

"Whoa, wait, are you sure?" Teramoto asked in concern.

"That's going to be painful, Miho," Shiho added, despite being Miho's mother to have Miho pulled out the arrow from Carpaccio's foot the hard way is terrifying.

"I don't know if you could do that," the male medic replied in doubt.

"Miho, that's a bad idea," Carpaccio said to her nervously.

"Unless you want to have an arrow in your foot in the next 24 hours I'd say you got no choice," Miho added flatly.

"Oh, okay, okay, just pulled it out now," Carpaccio replied with a shaky nod, she lay her head down against her chair.

"How are you going to pull it out?" one of the two medics, a female one asked.

"Chrome," Miho called, then turned his head at him. "You got a pen?"

Chrome then pulls out the big pen with a size a little big than her mouth, and give it to her. "Good, Carpaccio, bite this."

Carpaccio then bites the pen in her mouth and Miho readied herself to pull out the arrow.

"Alright, this is going to be hurt."

*PRAAK* "GGRRRRRRNNNHHH!"

Miho broke the arrow, leaving the part that is inside Carpaccio's foot.

*ZLEB* "GRRRNRNRNNNHHHHHH!"

And Miho pullet out the last part of the arrow from underneath her foot.

Carpaccio dropped the pen from her mouth and exhaled. "Oohh, God… I hate that."

"I know that, mate," Miho replied with a consent nod. "Let's get patch you up."

But then Miho reminded about something, and looked straight to Chrome. "Chrome."

"Yeah?"

"Remind me to get your bloody head right after this."

"Oh… okay."

Miho then continued to help the medics to tend Carpaccio's wound, with Vicek interrupting in.

"At least no one get shot in the head from that."


	49. Chapter 46 - Confessions To Make

Kuromorimine school, 09:00

Miho is standing near a window, looking out as she leans against the wall next to it. She is inside the meeting room of the school where she pulled out her shotgun before. She's looking out the window, watching how are the students out there. Whilst she's controlling her own breath in a good pace to calm her mental pain. Though, her sleepy bag eyes gave way on her exhaustion because she didn't until 2 AM before due to some business with Ghost via her laptop.

Miho is wearing her white long-sleeve buttoned shirt and her brown pants. She wasn't wearing any of her boonie hat for now. She is wearing a grey vest on top of her shirt, the one with a V-neck, four pouches on front with an M9 Beretta pistol inside the vest, and made of thin fabric. And there's her usual belt pouches on her left of her waist.

Miho is actually waiting for someone to come over to the room. And by 'someone', she means it's Erika. Miho still remembered Erika's request to talk to her for a long time, and she granted this time for that. There's no need to tell that the conversation that they're going to have is of course, personal. Thankfully, Miho is actually tired a little and in no mood to be angry, wanted to be calm as she can.

It was just for a few minutes for Miho to wait for Erika. She heard the door behind her opened, she doesn't even need to look to behind her. She could see Erika from her little reflection on the window she's looking through. Erika then proceeds to close the door, with Miho unfazed and kept looking through the window. And not even changing one kind of emotions from herself.

Erika looked pretty… agitated upon meeting with Miho. Erika was expecting some kind of unpleasant reaction from Miho, instead she got Miho still unfazed of her presence. Erika huffed softly to herself that Miho is somewhat in a… pretty unknown mood. Erika patted her own chest for a moment to erase her nervousness. She then began to walk up to Miho.

Erika then stops when she's right behind her, and greeted. "Kon'nichiwa, Miho-san."

"Good morning to you too, Erika," Miho greeted back, didn't even nod to her and her pose is still the same.

"H-how are you doing?" Erika asked, felt a little uncomfortable of Miho's reaction.

Miho stayed silence for a moment, before she turned her head a little to her left through her shoulder. "I'm fine. You?"

"Erm, same as you, I guess," Erika replied with a doubt as she scratched her own neck.

"You sounded not so sure," Miho stated coldly.

"I know," Erika admitted with a frown. "I never thought you would have the time to talk to me about…"

Miho turned around after Erika trailed off, then Erika continued. "…What happened a long ago."

Miho sighed to that statement, before looking the table and then back to her. "Let's sit down, Erika."

"Oh-uh, right," Erika awkwardly replied with a nod.

Erika and Miho then sit down at the table in front of them. Miho has already prepped up some drinks on the table. Two small glasses and a bottle of wine (which made Erika concerned to be drunk). But Miho seems confident to talk about their pasts while drinking this.

"You're alright?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"I'm hoping that you don't have a plan to put me drunk," Erika replied, pointing the bottle of wine.

"Don't worry, I'm not," Miho then takes the battle and pour the wine to both the glasses. "You need three bottle of this if you want to get drunk."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, Erika."

That made Erika to gave a sigh of relief. "I see."

"So…" Miho started, then sips her drink for a moment. "What you want to talk about?"

"Well… I just want to talk about our time back in Kuromorimine," Erika stated. "How I treated you back that time and…"

Erika can't help to not notice that Miho is glaring at her. "Erm… I… I know you hate to talk about this."

Miho only just nodded at her coldly. "Keep talking."

"Okay, I…" Erika seems can't to find the words for it for a moment. "I treated you so bad that you're nothing but a pawn for me. I hate you because I saw you're not like Maho and… you're soft."

Miho actually frowned at her last words. "Soft? You hate me because I'm soft?"

Erika felt herself disappointed to say that, at least Miho is not yelling at her.

Miho just sighed and looked away, before replying. "You're right, I'm soft. If I'm not, I'm no longer a human."

Erika confused as she stares at her. "What do you mean?"

Miho looked away for a moment, before looking back at her with her sleepy eyes. "How you treated me that time… I actually hate it. I had to take the consideration for living in this school with you and the others who looked down on me. If it's not for my sister to look after me…"

Erika frowned that Miho said that. "I… I know, Miho."

"So… are you trying to say that I should become a 'machine' to your school so that you'll be satisfied?" Miho asked coldly.

Erika was pretty taken aback of that. "N-no, I didn't mean that! I mean-"

"You mean what, Erika?" Miho asked, her tone is starting to get sour. "You treat me like so I can be broken and to see I'm nothing for my family and Kuromorimine? You want to see how naïve, arrogant and how much a fool I am? You want to me to become like my mother always do for your school?"

Erika was about to say something to her, but nothing came out. Miho only continued. "Is that what you want me to become?"

"I-I…" Erika stares at her for a moment, she was upset to hear that from Miho. "No."

Miho just breathes out as she looked down, tis was making her frowned. "All of you blamed me, because I had to abandon the flag tank to save Akaboshi and her crew from drowning. And have my mother shouting at me implying I'm not her daughter no more. I was about to think of killing myself before I had to go to Ooarai."

Erika couldn't help but to look at her with pale face and widen eyes. Erika can't believe what she just heard, this was unbelievable. Erika knew that she treated Miho pretty hard long ago, but she had never intended to put Miho to the point where she will… thought of that. Right now, Erika can felt she's already put her on an edge.

"I knew Maho had think this was her fault that I've gone for a year because of that incident, but she's not," Miho then sips her wine again, leaving a half-full glass of wine. "It's my fault for it."

"What?" Erika was surprised to her answer. "N-no, you're not."

"Why you're so sure about that?" Miho asked.

"It's my fault for all the things that happened to you, Miho," Erika answered, she leans forward to her in upset. "You didn't deserve this."

"Erika, it's not your fault," Miho replied, her frown gets darker along with her eyes.

"It is my fault, Miho!" Erika protested softly. "You didn't deserve all of this."

"You think?" Miho asked, then looked up at her with her cold face, then shook. "I'm no longer a girl, Erika."

Erika gazed at her with her pitiful eyes as she listens her. "No longer after that massacre."

Erika narrowed her eyes at her. "Massacre? What are you talking about?"

Miho just heavily sighed to herself, before looking back at her. "The first reason why I joined up."

Erika suddenly taken back from her answer, Miho just continued. "The London Massacre. 354 men, women and children died in the massacre. 179 people survived. I was one of the victim of the massacre."

Erika frowned and uncomfortably covers her mouth with her hand, as Miho continued. "I wish things were different, and I shouldn't have become like what I've become. I don't know if I should die or just… live on. Even I had to come back here because this is my true home, it's not worth it for me. I'm no longer human."

Erika felt her heart broken. Miho was right, if things were different, Erika wouldn't put Miho to what she has become now. She was late to realized this was all her fault from the very beginning to make Miho choose this path. And the time where she nearly pushed her to suicidal path, she was very sorry to nearly made Miho killed herself. She never wanted all of this to happen to her.

Erika could only just gulped, sighed silently, and looked up to her and say… "Miho… I'm sorry. I'm… very sorry, Miho. I… never wanted this to happen to you. I'm sorry."

They both couldn't do nothing but to look away from each other. Erika was very pitiful for Miho after hearing what she had experienced. Erika felt herself so ashamed that she made Miho to choose her dangerous path. If she had treat her well and didn't care about pride of herself and the school, all of this wouldn't happen. They both stayed silent as Erika could only put her right hand on the table between herself and Miho.

And Erika felt surprise to feel Miho placed a hand on her hand, Erika glanced at her with her surprised look. "Erika… I forgive you."

Erika widened her eyes in surprise and relief. "You… you really meant it?"

"Yes, I am," Miho replied softly with a gentle nod. "I forgive you."

"I…" Erika was at loss of words for a moment, before she could reply. "T-thank you, Miho."

Miho only nodded in silent, before putting away her hand from Erika's. Miho only glanced at her for a moment, before asking. "So… you're not going to drink it?"

Erika looked back at the glass, and replied awkwardly. "Ah, y-yes, yes, Miho."

Both Erika and Miho then drink together at the same time. While this is the first time Erika drinks this wine, it tasted real nice for her that she gulped it down in one glass. Miho finished up her drink and pours in another one. Erika was glad that she didn't immediately went drunk after first shot, and she asked Miho another one. Miho gladly poured her another one, and didn't even say a word.

Erika stayed silent for a moment as she glances at her for a minute, before she asked. "So… by the way…"

Miho raised an eyebrow to her, and asked. "What is it?"

"How are you holding up?" Erika asked, leaned her upper body forward to the table. "You know… with Anchovy."

Miho looked pretty surprised to that, though she retains her flat look. "Fine, I guess."

"Well, did you call her today?" Erika asked, clasping her own hands to each other and landing her elbows on the table.

"No, I didn't," Miho replied with a soft shook. "Why'd you ask?"

"I heard that you've been avoiding Anchovy including her calls, Miho," Erika replied, she was concern on what was going on with her. "She's worried if there's something up with you, Miho."

Miho just sighed with her eyes closed. "I'm actually alright."

"Miho, it's been a few days after the Exhibition, you know?" Erika then leaned back against her chair to look at her. "And you haven't made a single call for her for those days."

"There's nothing troubles me, Erika," Miho replied softly, she looked away from Erika.

"Miho," Erika called in concern in her tone. "I know you've been troubled about what Klara said that time."

Miho just looked at her with dangerously sharp eyes, something that had Erika felt unnerving. But then Miho just looked away from her hastily and leaned back against her chair. She stays in that pose for a few seconds, before she looks back at her glass of wine and sips it. She gently puts it back down on the table and wiped her own mouth. She only looks down as Erika only stare at her in silence.

Miho then lifted her head, looking straight forward into blankness. "I don't want to talk about it."

Erika paused and pondered of her answer, then she replies. "Do you think she should know the truth about yourself?"

"I'm…" Miho has been thinking about this for a long time after the Exhibition. "I'm not so sure… I doubt that she wants to hear it."

Miho then turns her head to Erika and added. "Not after how I reacted back in the Exhibition."

Erika frowned to hear that, but she understands why she doubts it. "I see…"

(Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (Instrumental))

Erika felt odd to hear a song like that came out of nowhere. However, Miho then pulled out her phone and reveals that the song was her ringtone. Erika was rather surprised that Miho changed her ringtone. Though, when Miho looked over to her phone, she didn't expect on who's calling her.

"It's Anchovy."

Erika is surprised as well that she called her right now. "Oh, I think you should answer her."

Miho stayed silent for a moment as she looks over her phone. "Alright, I'll answer it."

(Stop the song)

Miho the puts her phone next to her ear. "Hello?"

"Kon'nichiwa, Miho-san," Anchovy greeted in her phone. "How are you doing today?"

"I'm… I'm fine, Anchovy," Miho replied softly. "How do you do?"

"Well… I have a good day here," Anchovy replied in her unsure tone. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"No, no, you're not," Miho replied with a shook. "It's just… it's good to hear you again, Anchovy."

Miho could heard Anchovy sighed in the phone before continuing. "Miho, I know there's something up with you."

Miho frowned at what she said, with Anchovy continued. "I have noticed that you've been trying to avoid me, Miho. So I just want to ask."

Miho looked over at Erika, mentally uncomfortable of the conversation Anchovy gave. "Are you… well… are our relationship here is all a lie? I mean, you haven't talked to me for days and you didn't even answer my calls."

Miho just sighed as she looked away from Erika, with Anchovy asked. "So… do you already had another lover with you?"

"No, Anchovy," Miho replied softly. "I would never do to have someone else aside you."

"You're not lying?" Anchovy asked in unsure.

"I'm not lying," Miho confidently replied. "I won't lie about that, Anchovy."

"Then why you haven't talking to me for days, Miho?" Anchovy asked. "Do you hide something from me?"

That put her in the corner, Miho got no choice but to tell her. "Yes, Anchovy. I do hide something from you."

"Is that why you reacted so strange back in the Exhibition?" Anchovy asked curiously.

"Yes, Anchovy," Miho replied with a nod. "But… I… I don't like to talk about it for now."

Anchovy just hummed in the phone. "I see… by the way, I'll be coming over to your place today, Miho."

Miho was surprised to hear that. "You'll coming over?"

"Yes, I will," Anchovy replied in the phone. "I just wanted to have an overnight in your place so I can figure out what's up with you. I hope you don't mind."

It was concerning, but as far as Miho can see it… Miho didn't have much a choice to keep things for herself. "Don't worry, I won't mind. I… I'll be glad if you do so we can talk over about… what's going on with me and our… relationship."

"Alright," Anchovy heavily sighed on the phone. "I'll be coming over by the evening, probably at 5 to 6. Goodbye, Miho."

"Goodbye, Anchovy," Miho responded, with that Anchovy closed the call.

Miho puts her phone back in her pocket, then looked back at Erika who showed her concern to Miho. "You're going to tell her?"

"Soon," Miho replied flatly, then looked down to the table. "Now… I just need to figure out on how to explain it to her."

Erika observes her expression in silent, before she asked. "Are you worried about her?"

Miho could only lifted her head and looked back at her with her pale eyes, before looking away again. "I do. I… I'm afraid if there's something happened to her if I stay around her for too long. I don't want any danger befalls her because of me."

"Hey," Erika then holds her hand, Miho glances at her. "She will be alright, Miho. Whether you are a soldier or not. What makes you think she will be in danger if you are around?"

"Myself, Erika," Miho replied slowly in concern. "What if I… lost control, Erika? I could have hurt her."

"You won't hurt her, Miho," Erika assured her softly. "Because you know you loved her. She's the only reason why you are still a human, Miho. To be who you are right now. She's the reason why you could control yourself from getting worse. She loves you too, Miho. And you will do anything to protect her from harm and to win her heart. And that is enough for you."

Miho didn't speak a single word, only staring at Erika in doubtfulness. "You will be alright, Miho. She will hear you out, no matter who you are."

Miho is ponding over what Erika assured her, to which Miho gave with a soft smile to her. Erika hoped that Miho and Anchovy will be getting along alright again. Miho is very comforted of Erika's words. It sounded like a very good and terrific advice for her. Erika prays in her heart for Miho that she able to work things out with Anchovy.

Miho only looked up to her with a smile on her face. "Thank you."

"Your welcome," Erika replied with a nod, before looking back to the bottle of wine. "Now, why don't we finish up this bottle?"

"Sounds good to me, maybe I'll bring a lager next time."

They both then spend their peaceful time to drink the wine.

* * *

On the way to Nishizumi Residence. 16:30 PM.

Anchovy is currently on her way to Miho Nishizumi's house. After taking a trip by sunkus ship to reach KMM school ship, she took a bus trip to get there. It's really a short trip for her since her schoolship and KMM's were close by. But what is the word to express her trip to come over here? Boring, that's the word she used now.

Anchovy is in her casual wear clothes. She's wearing her black collared t-shirt and yellow brownish short jeans. She also wears her buttoned white sweater which its shoulders, arms and bottom of the sweater has red and green colors to represent Italian nature of the sweater. She wears two hair band and ribbons which colored black and white for her pigtails of her hair. She also brought a backpack too because she had a plan to stay overnight with Miho. Something she needs in case she had to change clothes tomorrow morning.

As she is waiting by sitting on the front of the bus and leaning her face against the window next to her, she was ponding over on what's going on between her and Anchovy. Kept wondering why Miho didn't answer her calls for the past few days. And also kept wondering why does she trying to avoid her when she got the chance to see her. Anchovy had to sleep a little late because she can't stop thinking about it.

While she was kept thinking about it, the bus came into a halt when it reached the bus stop next to it. She paid the fine and got off the bus, and followed down the road ahead. Anchovy know where to find the residence because she had the directions to it from Maho herself. It took her no longer than 5 minutes to reach the residence. And she reached the front door of the Nishizumi Residence.

She looked over to the front gate of the Nishizumi Residence before her. The gate is actually open for her. She merely observing the residence from the gate and wondered how lucky Miho is to stay in this Residence. Anchovy then sighed, not sure whether coming over here is a good idea or only giving another troublesome to Miho.

"WOOF, WOOF!"

Then she startled by a dog that came up next to her. She turned her head to her right, and found Maho Nishizumi with her dog on the leash. From the looks of it, Maho looked a little surprise to see her still standing at the front gate. Maho then walked over to her along with her dog, and greeted her.

"Kon'nichiwa, Anchovy-san."

"Kon'nichiwa, Maho-san," Anchovy greeted back with a smile and a nod. "I didn't expect to see you out here."

"And I thought you'll be coming over at 5," Maho added with her arms crossed.

"I actually thought I better came over a little faster," Anchovy replied with a shrug. "I just don't want to be late, y'know?"

"Your responsibility as the Duce commander of your school, I know," Maho replied with a chuckle.

Anchovy let out a chuckle as well, but then looked back at the gate again and points her finger at it. "So… is Miho home?"

Maho's face suddenly changed to concern look. "Uh, yeah, she's in."

"Is everything alright?" Anchovy asked, noticing the face Maho made.

"You know?" Maho said. "I never saw her to be so silent and… so hang up for a few days."

Anchovy raised an eyebrow to that. "What do you mean?"

"Well, how do I put it?" Maho thought for a moment. "She's… pretty cold about something."

Anchovy was surprised of that. "Cold about something?"

"Yes, something that makes herself wondering what she has to do for herself," Maho replied as she looked down for a moment. "I'm not sure if she's angry or she felt guilty for herself."

"Did you try to talk to her?" Anchovy asked curiously.

"Well, I did," Maho replied with a nod. "After the Exhibition we both talked like we were okay, though I remembered she was concerned about something. After that, she talk quite a little and spends her time either locking herself in her room, sitting out the garden in silent or go out the house alone. Me along with our mother have some trouble to try to talk to her because she wanted us to leave her alone for these few days."

Anchovy is starting to think that her relationship with Miho is not the actual problem. "Did you asked her what is really bothering her?"

"I did, but…" Maho paused for a moment as she rolled her eyes. "She keeps saying that there's nothing bothering her. But… you remembered what Klara said to her that time?"

"Something about Makarov?" Anchovy replied questioningly. "Yeah, I think Miho asked that straight to Klara that time."

"Well, when I asked the name Makarov to her…" Maho trailed off for a moment, before replying. "She just glared at me."

This made Anchovy confused. "She glared at you?"

"Not just any glare," Maho dropped her arms to her side. "She was showing her black eyes to me as a sign for final warning."

This answer made her pretty uncomfortable. She still had no idea why the name Makarov could made Miho angry. It seems Anchovy is wrong if she had to think that Miho might have another lover, maybe. She couldn't feel but the shiver in her mind to hear her answer. The Miho she knew won't be like that. Though, she needs to understand more about her from Miho's own word.

"I see…" Anchovy distracts herself by kneeling down and rubs the dog's head. "Good doggy. What's his name?"

"It's Jiro," Maho replied. "Miho and I agreed to name him that a long ago."

"I see, cute~," Anchovy then stood up and looked at Maho. "Let's go inside."

"Sure," Maho agreed with a nod.

They both along with the dog entered the gate and headed for the Residence ahead of them. If she wants to be honest, this is her first time visiting the Nishizumi Residence by herself. She did wondered how living with Shiho Nishizumi herself felt like, but she thought that might be not a good idea for her because… well… Shiho Nishizumi herself. Though, she'll be more glad to meet up with Miho inside.

Maho is leading her around the residence instead of walking through the front door. Maho had said that she wanted to go to the gardens so she can have a fun time with her dog for a moment. To her surprise, there was indeed an open door on the side of the Residence that was facing the gardens. They approached the door and stood there for a moment.

"Okaa-san!" Maho called at the open door.

"What is it?" Shiho responded from inside.

"Anchovy-san is here," Maho replied aloud, this time her head went through the door.

"Really?" Shiho responded in surprise. "Give me a moment."

Sounds of documents shifting were heard from inside, from Shiho emerged out the door to meet her. It felt a little odd for her to see Shiho is still wearing her formal outfit, well less formal without the black coat over her shirt. But it was nice to see that Shiho's face wasn't look so serious when she met her. Shiho was giving her poker face look. Anchovy awkwardly smiled and immediately bow down.

"Kon'nichiwa, Nishizumi-sama!" Anchovy said quickly as she bowed.

"Kon'nichiwa, Anchovy-san," Shiho replied with her head bowed, and surprisingly with a smile. "And don't worry, don't be nervous."

"Forgive me, i-it's my first time to be here," Anchovy replied with a slight embarrassment, massaging her own neck after that. "I hope I'm not bothering you."

Shiho just chuckled with her mouth closed. "Don't worry you're not, I was expecting you. But… not this early, I thought you said you'll be coming at 5 or 6."

"Well, I just don't want to be late I guess," Anchovy replied with a shrug. "I don't want to be a bad example for my school you know."

"That's quite an achievement you do for your school," Shiho complimented with a smile, then changed the subject. "Well… you're here for Miho, right?"

"Ah, yes I am, Nishizumi-sama," Anchovy replied with a nod. "Where is she?"

That's when Shiho shows her concern as she glances to Maho for a moment. "She should be in her room right now."

Anchovy shows her concern as well when Shiho frowned. "Is everything alright?"

"Well…" Maho stayed silent, prompting Shiho to continue.

"She's not out from her room now," Shiho replied with a sigh. "I hope she's not in a bad mood now."

Anchovy then looked over to Maho who was uncomfortably rubbing her own arm. Though, the expression Maho had is more worrying. Something that Anchovy won't forget to notice.

"Maho, is there something else up with Miho?"

Maho only glanced at her with a serious look, then looked up to Shiho. Maho was implying to her mother if it's alright to tell her what she doesn't know. Shiho sighed at Anchovy with her eyes closed, then looked back at Maho with a look of consent. Maho directs her eyes down to the ground for a moment, before looking back at Anchovy. Anchovy was pretty bewildered on what those looks mean.

"I think we should warn you about something."

Surprised of Maho's reply, she looked back at Shiho. "About what?"

Shiho didn't really like to say it, she sighed softly first. "She has… suicide tendencies."

At this point, Anchovy was beyond shock to hear that. For all she remembered Miho was charming, polite and determined girl she ever met. But never for once Miho would have that kind of problem. What kind of trauma she had gone through to have suicide tendencies? It just doesn't add up.

"Why she had suicide tendencies?"

Shiho and Maho fell silent to the question. Which making them both to look at each other for a moment before looking back at her.

"I'm afraid we can't tell you about that," was Maho's frowned reply.

Anchovy became perplexed of her answer. "But why?"

"We can't, Miho told us not to, only Miho herself would tell you about it," Shiho replied with a small shook. "The term Miho used for it was… 'classified'."

That indeed surprised Anchovy, why Miho marked this reason as classified is something odd to hear.

"I see…" Anchovy replied with a slow nod. "Can I… meet her?"

Shiho nodded in reply, then Anchovy looked at Maho. "I'll be outside if you need me."

"Alright, Maho," Anchovy replied with a nod, then looked at Shiho. "Nishizumi-sama?"

"Right this way," Shiho said to her, before they both headed inside the house.

Anchovy felt pretty comfortable with the residence she's in now. Anchovy could see how nice the interiors of the Nishizumi Residence is. Though, she might don't have a chance to look inside Shiho's office, probably. She followed Shiho around the residence, and then went upstairs. Miho might has a good room to be on the second floor.

Anchovy followed her around until they a certain door at the end one of the hallways. It was a wooden door in front of them. The door was pretty much plain, but there's something Miho add to the door. A symbol she has never seen before, and a symbol that surprised Anchovy for Miho to have. A symbol that might terrified a girl.

The symbol all colored in gray. There's a small skull above the winged-knife below, with a laurel wreath encased them. It made Anchovy's heart to feel a little panic to see it.

 _"Why does Miho has that symbol?"_

She can't leave that thought from her heart, as Shiho turned around to look at her. "Well, this is it. If you need anything just let me know."

"Hai," Anchovy replied with a nod.

"And one more thing," Shiho raised her index finger to her. "Try to be gentle with her will you?"

"Like always, Nishizumi-sama," Anchovy replied with a smile.

Shiho nodded and then went off to downstairs. Leaving Anchovy at the front door of Miho's room by herself. Anchovy watched her left, before looking down to the ground and then back to the door. Anchovy frowned because what the door had, but she puts her hand on the knob. She sighed, close her eyes, and then with a relaxed heart, she opens the door slowly.

When she opens the door fully, she was pretty upset on what she didn't expect to see. Miho is seen sitting on her bed, with a frowned sleepy face that is looking down to the ground with her hand supported her head as if she was dizzy. Even if the room she had still tidy, Anchovy couldn't leave her eyes from the table in front of her. There were 2 empty bottles of alcohol there, a vodka kind of alcohol. Anchovy looked back at Miho, she was worried if she's drunk.

Anchovy closed the door behind her, and then slung her bag down to the ground next to Miho's night table. She kept her eyes trained on Miho as she slowly and gently sat down next to her. Keeping her calm and worries but no panic and fear against her. Looking over her outfit of black T-shirt and blue pants, to say the good thing was that her hygiene is still okay. Still, they both are still silent, with Anchovy thought that Miho might not noticed her.

Unsure what to say, Anchovy began. "Miho?"

Miho let her hand that supported her head fell down, then turned her head a little to her. "Anchovy."

Miho just sighed, then slowly straightened her back and cleared her throat. "I'm- I didn't thought you'll be this early."

"I'm just afraid if I'm late to come over," Anchovy replied as she scratched her head. "I'm sorry if I-."

"No, it's-it's fine," Miho quickly responded, placing a hand on Anchovy's thigh. "I'm... pretty glad you're here with me."

"Ok," Anchovy then turned her head to the empty bottles right beside them, and pointed at them. "Miho, why are you drinking?"

Miho just looked up to the empty bottles, sighed, and replied. "I… I needed them for…"

Miho can't find the words for it, prompting Anchovy to continue. "Dispersing your anger?"

Miho silent for a moment, before nodding at her. "Yes, for that."

Anchovy sighed with a frown on her face. "Oh, Miho."

Miho just shook to her comment, then looked up to her. "I'm sorry."

"Miho, what's going on?" Anchovy asked, leaning forward a little to see her face.

Miho stayed silent, didn't even say a single word to her question. "Miho, what's wrong?"

Miho doesn't answer her, still no single word came out from her mouth. "Miho, come on, talk to me."

Miho is still not answering, only looked away from her as she asked. "Miho, please. Talk to me."

Not even an answer. Miho and Anchovy stayed silent for 20 seconds. 20 bloody seconds. It was quite discomforting. Since Anchovy is waiting for her answer and Miho didn't what to answer.

Anchovy sighed in upset, then asked her again. "You kept a secret from me, you told me yourself. Just please… say something to me."

She said that before. She got no choice. She swore on that. She hoped that Anchovy won't hate her of who she actually is. So Miho could only bowed her head down for a moment, before lifting up and looked forward.

Miho then replied to her softly. "I want to show you something."

Anchovy caught up to that, she's expecting an answer, not that. "What is it?"

Miho only turned her head at her, then stood off from her bed. "Give… me a moment."

Miho then crouched and reached out her arms onto something under the bed. Anchovy wondered is she hiding under the bed, residing the fact that it's pretty common for someone to hide something under the bed. But when Miho is pulling something out from there, Anchovy swears that she heard Miho is actually pulling out something solid like a box. Miho managed to pull out something from under the bed. Though, the thing she pulled out did surprised Anchovy.

It was a green crate that was from under the bed. It was not just any crate, it was an interesting modern-like rectangular crate she had there. She never see that kind of crate before. It has two locks on the front that could be open by opening the bolts of the locks. Miho just stood up and took a step back away from the crate before looking up to Anchovy.

"You should open it," Miho said to her as she gestured at the crate.

"Why?" Anchovy asked as she stood off the bed.

"I think you should see it yourself," Miho replied, no emotion she used in her words.

Anchovy looked at the crate in doubt, then looked back up to Miho. She wasn't sure if she's ready to face the secret Miho had right now. But she needs to know, right now. So, she crouched down and opened the bolts of the crate. Before opening the top cover of the box fully to see what's inside.

That's when her shock went from 0 to 100 percent.

There's a rifle inside the crate, along with its own ammo underneath the rifle. The rifle was not a model she'd ever seen before and it's modern. But she realized that was Miho's rifle. She quickly stood up and steps back from the crate and quickly turned around to Miho. She expects the worse, but it seems that didn't happen as Miho only stared at her with her sad eyes. Anchovy stood frozen in front of her as they didn't even say a word for a mere 10 seconds.

"Miho, is that a gun?" Anchovy asked, shivered a little as she asked her.

"A rifle," Miho replied emotionlessly. "M4A1 variant one."

"M4 what?" Anchovy then looked back at the gun, then looked back at her. "Are you… are you a killer?"

Miho only stared at her in silence, and she shook at her. "No, I'm no killer."

"Then what are you?" Anchovy asked, she felt she was lying.

Miho contemplates on what she had to say for her, but then, only one answer that crossed her mind. "141."

…

…

…

1-4-1.

…

…

…

Anchovy heard that before, long after meeting up with Miho. And something has crossed her mind after that. She slowly comes to the realization about who is standing in front of her. She really can't believe it at all. The girl she's in love with is actually a member of the 141.

"Wait, you're a part of the 141!?" Anchovy nearly asked that aloud.

"The commanding officer of the 141, to be correct," Miho corrected without hesitation.

"Wha- commanding officer?" Anchovy asked in disbelieve. "That's impossible."

"I know," Miho nodded in understood. "You're talking to Captain Miho Nishizumi."

Anchovy widened her eyes to the rank she got, then added to her. "You have a lot of explaining to me, Miho."

"I know," Miho agreed with a sad nod. "Let's just… sit down, will you?"

After the next minute, Miho and Anchovy sat down back on the bed. Not even bothering to tidy up the rifle that Miho showed her. Miho explains her all the things she kept secret from her, including her involvement with the 141. It is pretty long and hard to take it. But Anchovy managed to take all what she said, even though she was a little disbelieve about it. And Anchovy even knew where did she have gone disappeared for a full year.

Though, what made her baffled the most was that her Task Force is actually came from an alternate-future. Anchovy thought and said that she must be joking. But Miho managed to tell her it is not a joke by proving the date of the rifle she had and there's no Sensha-do from where she came from. Though, that part was the thing that made her shock the most. Even when Miho explained there's no Sensha-do on that said timeline.

Anchovy soon found out that Miho was not the only girl in the Task Force. She was pretty shocked that Maho and Kay were also involved with the 141, with their own reasons of course. Miho admitted why she had to let them join. Miho also even admitted how was she doing until now as a soldier. Anchovy could tell, things could go under pressure for Miho. And now, Anchovy had noticed that the day is going to be night soon, it was nearly at six.

Though, Anchovy still could sense that Miho is angry and… sad of something. Something that may have either broke her heart or burn her hatred. Something that left unchecked for so long, that she didn't have the time for it. It disturbs her, haunting her, hurting her. Anchovy had one question left for her.

"Miho," Anchovy began, she looked away for a moment. "I… want to ask you about one thing, last question."

Miho closed her eyes, sighed, and then stare into blankness. "What is it?"

Anchovy stayed silent for a moment, gulped a little if her question might set her off, then asked.

"Why are you angry when someone mentioned 'Makarov'?"

…

…

…

…

Pure silence…

After she asked that dangerous question, only silence filled the room. Anchovy didn't anything more than that, and she held her breath to stay calm. Miho, on the other hand, could only froze on her sitting pose. Then took a very deep sigh to herself, and turn her head very little to Anchovy. Then Miho rubbed her mouth with her right hand.

That's when Anchovy heard her sniffed.

She would have never thought to hear her become sad. This has surprised her a lot, knowing Miho is actually a very tough girl she ever met, nothing like Nonna or Murakami. To see Miho to be upset about something was very pitiful for her. The problem right, is she willing to answer her question or not.

But it seems… Miho slowly opened up to her about it. "He's my enemy."

It is a good start for Anchovy. "Why is he your enemy?"

"Because he's the most wanted international terrorist across the globe."

That gives the shiver up to her spine. Wanted International Terrorist.

"His name is Vladimir Makarov."

So that's why Miho was so alarmed when Klara mentioned Makarov to her. Klara didn't know who was that, but Miho went auto-angry to hear that name. Knowing he's an international terrorist, Anchovy for sure most of the people will try to stay away from him. But for Miho, she would've made a contract with the devil to kill him. Remembering she's a soldier with a rank of captain.

Thought, even Vladimir Makarov is her enemy, she didn't know why Miho hates to hear his name. "Why are you angry of him?"

"Back in London," Miho paused, then continued. "He was the one who's responsible for the massacres in London, and all of Europe. He killed more than a million people. I swore my revenge on him of what he did."

If Anchovy wants to be honest, she nearly puked to hear that. "But most important of all… he killed one of my best friend."

Anchovy deadpanned on what she just said. She lost her best friend. What had happened?

"What's his name?"

Miho was reluctant to answer. She glances her eyes at her lover, and then looked her eyes away from her. She sniffed again, because honestly it's hurtful for her to talk about it. But, Anchovy needs the truth about it.

"Soap. John "Soap" Mactavish. Makarov… Makarov killed him."

Anchovy froze to her answer. An international terrorist had killed her best friend. Anchovy shook her head to that. She knew that Miho is still enraged about Soap's death.

Though, she wondered how did he die. "Could you tell me what happened to him?"

Miho quickly sighed, she turned her head away from her. Miho really hates to talk about what had happened to him. She felt guilty about it, including if she talks about it. And Anchovy knew she was pretty uncomfortable about it.

Anchovy then holds and squeezed her shoulder gently, and convinced her. "Miho, there's no one here would judge you on what you are doing. Who you are, why you do it and what you talked about. I'm here for you. Can you tell me about it, please?"

Miho stayed silent to her question. Noting that Miho is turning her head into a blank space, pondering on her thoughts for the moment. Anchovy knows that this will be hard for her to talked about it. Her loss is very hard to take, especially for a soldier.

But it seems Miho is willing to say it. "Alright, I'll tell you. Just promise me one thing?"

"And what is that?"

Miho paused as she stares to her lover's gleaming eyes. Silent for about 5 seconds before replying.

"Keep this as a secret between us."

Anchovy knew the reasons why Miho wanted all this information in secret, to which Anchovy happily obliged.

"Don't worry, Miho. I can keep your secrets in between us."


	50. Chapter 47 - Blood Brothers

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141 - Disavowed

.

[Time advanced quickly to morning, clocktower turns]

Soap: Which vehicle will he be in?

[Another scene of the target building, APC in the area]

Yuri: They constantly rotate for security. We won't know until he steps out.

Soap: You seem to know a lot about Makarov.

[Scene changes to the church]

Price: Alpha One, radio check, over.

[View changes multiple times, where a hole is on the building]

Soap: Bravo One, copy. We're dug in with line of sight.

Price: Right. Kamarov's our eyes and ears inside the hotel. Once he gives us the nod, we'll kick this off.

[View changes to inside the church, facing the target building through the window]

Price: What do you see?

Soap: Bugger-all, mate. Looks like Makarov's late for his own funeral.

[Mi-24 Hind flies towards the target building]

Price: Sit tight until we get a clean shot. Then you can put as many rounds on him as you like.

[Target building viewed from destroyed part of the building,]

Soap: It'll only take one.

* * *

"Blood Brothers"

October 11th 2016, 07:01:36

Yuri

Task Force 141 – Disavowed

Prague, Czech Republic

.

"It's almost time, Yuri, Miho. The meeting will be on the second floor." Soap told Yuri and Miho as he cocked his gun.

Yuri loaded his gun's magazine and faced the clocktower as an Mi -24 hind flew towards the place. Yuri attached the magazine, while Miho was on the lookout with her binoculars. Since she was in a bad position, she just decided to inform where to shoot. As the two focused on the cars moving, Price suddenly called using the communicator. In which the old man was nowhere to be seen for now.

"Heads up. Makarov's convoy is arriving now." He informed the group as two APCs and 2 SUVs arrived in the area. The two SUVs were between the APCs. As they arrived in front of the doors, they stopped.

"They're stopping in front of the hotel." Soap informed Price as Yuri aimed the gun at the front SUV.

"Do you see him?" Price asked.

Yuri aimed his scope at the second SUV as Soap did the same. They saw an Ultranationalist approaching the second SUV by walking up to the SUV's passenger window. And then there he was.

"Aye. There's the bastard. Third vehicle." Soap replied in the radio, some relieve could be felt from his words.

Yuri and Miho was staring at the SUV, seeing Makarov talk to the guard and looking at them temporarily. That nearly alerted them to know they've been spotted.

"Shit. I think he's looking right at us." Soap cursed as Makarov looked at them for a bit, right before the car started moving and he looked away.

"Phew, that was close," they heard Miho whispered gladly.

"Easy. Just sit tight." Price reassured Soap, who wasn't convinced. The entire convoy began to move. Seeing the convoy, Yuri saw as the vehicles enter the garage to their left.

"They're pulling into the garage now." Soap informed Price as the cars disappeared.

"Alright, Kamarov. You're up." Price called Kamarov in the radio.

Though, they waited a bit for him to reply. But he didn't reply.

"Kamarov, do you read me?" Price asked again.

"Probably forgot to switch it on." Soap told Price as the soldier who was outside entered the compound.

It may be true about he forgot switching his radio on, sometimes Kamarov could be a little clumsy from what Soap told hm. But forgot to switching the radio on while taking down Makarov. It was not very assuring for Yuri.

"Doesn't matter. Makarov's here. We move forward with the plan." Price replied as he got into position, near the window.

"I'm in position. Ready?" Price asked Soap, as Yuri and Soap aimed their snipers at the windows upstairs. Miho also looked there, to make sure that they had visual in case there was other stuff happening.

"Yuri, find Price in your scope." Soap informed Yuri, who aimed his sniper towards where Price was.

"He's on the top of the hotel." Soap told Yuri.

Yuri aimed the sniper where Price was, who was using a strobe light to indicate his position. He was seen standing on top of the clocktower next to the statue of the hotel.

"We got you." Soap informed Price, who began to rappel down towards the window.

"We got some activity on the balcony." Soap informed Price.

Price began slowly rappelling down from the top of the hotel's clocktower down onto the balcony. As Price rappels down, Miho used her binoculars, spotting the two ultranationalists patrolling the area with assault rifles. With Yuri's and Soap's scopes, they saw there were more than two.

"Four men. Lightly armed." Miho informed Yuri as Price stopped rappelling right above the balcony.

"We'll take them out together, Yuri. On you." Soap told Yuri, who aimed at the man on the left.

*PEW-PEW*

The silenced sniper sounded as the man on the right was shot in the head killing him. Soap shot right a second after Yuri, killing two of the four men. The others got alerted and began to look around as Price managed to rappel down fast. *BAM-BAM-BAM* Price's assault rifle sounded as he killed the remaining two.

"Breaching," Price informed the group as he broke the glass of the balcony.

Some Ultranationalists rappelled down from above behind Price, but Soap saw them. *BAM* the sound of the sniper was heard as the Ultranationalist fell down, dead.

"Got 'em." Soap said as Price entered the room and began to kill the people inside.

*TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT*, Price shot at the men inside, killing every single one of the Ultranationalists, and those who began to enter.

"Enemies at 8'o clock!" Miho informed Yuri as he shot at them with the sniper. *BAM* with that, that Ultranationalist soldier died.

"Target down." Soap informed as Yuri killed another man.

"Enemies 6 o'clock of Price!" Miho informed Soap and Yuri, who shot at the two approaching Price from behind.

*BAM-BAM* both were shot in the back, the two fell dead like ragdolls.

"Thanks for the save." Price informed the two as he reloaded and got out of cover of the table.

Suddenly, the elevator door opened. Who they expected wasn't the person who appeared however. Someone is tied to an office chair, bruised and injured. And there was something else planted to him.

"What the hell?" Price, who is that?" Soap asked as Price examined the man tied to the chair. He was covered in C4 bombs.

Miho was somehow off the radio, but they can heard her shouted. "What the- is that?"

"Kamarov." Price replied as he was dumbfounded.

"I'm sorry, Price." Kamarov replied as he sat on the chair, beaten and covered in bruises.

"Captain Price. Ад ждет тебя." Makarov suddenly said on the communicator channel, and as soon as he said that, the C4 bombs on Kamarov immediately were armed and about to detonate.

"Price! Get out of there!" Soap shouted as Price got out of the room. [Boom!] The bombs detonated, making a large explosion in the building. Its explosion vibration reached the church, making Yuri and Soap feel the explosion. Suddenly, Makarov contacted the group on the communication channel.

"Yuri, my friend. You never should have come here." Makarov told Yuri and Soap using the communicator. Miho's wasn't on, so she didn't hear this. As soon as he said that, the bombs planted in the church area immediately got ready to detonate.

"What the hell's he talking about?" Soap demanded. Sadly, the bombs were about to blow as it sounds, which Yuri, Soap, and Miho realized that they were about to blow up.

"Get out! Now!" Soap shouted as he pushed Miho and Soap out the opening.

*BOOM-DING* Soap managed to push everyone out, with him being last. With that, the three began to fall, hitting the church's rooftop, with Yuri and Miho hitting the construction platforms. Hitting several of them to slow down their landing and the three hit the ground hard.

The bell from the church tower fell right near Miho and Yuri, a close call. A lot of the church's rubble fell on Soap, with large ones and mostly wood falling on him. Yuri and Miho tried to reach out for Soap, who was unconscious due to the drop. They saw Price arrive to them.

"Soap!" Price called out as Yuri's hearing blurred. Price send out a grenade launcher to the hostiles behind him after narrowly avoiding a gunshot behind him.

He reached for the debris and moved the debris away quickly. Soap was stabbed by a construction pole which was sticking out from the ground, which Price gently lifted up Soap to make sure it wasn't sticking out anymore and flip right side up. Due to how the bulletproof vest was designed like a jacket, the steel pole stuck through the small gap, making him get a stab near the heart.

"Look at me! You're alright!" Price shouted as he tried to move and look at him him. He saw Miho and Yuri near the area, helping Miho up next.

"Damn. Makarov was ready for us." Miho said while dizzy, amidst the sound of gunfire.

"We got to go!" Price shouted as he then finally went to Yuri, who was staring at Price. He grabbed Yuri and helped him up.

"Yuri! Grab him! We have to move now!" *Pew, Pew!* several bullets shot the group as Miho loaded her G18. Forget loading the assault rifle, they have to move.

Yuri went and grabbed Soap, who was lying on the ground, heavily injured. He was bleeding badly due to the hole in his body, but due to their current situation, they couldn't patch him up.

"Yuri… Makarov… he said…" Soap began to say, as Yuri picked him up. Miho went into cover and reloaded her assault rifle, to provide covering fire as Price and Miho started to shoot at the Ultranationalists currently shooting at them.

It was time for their hardest part, they need to get out from that open area. They are gunned down by enemy foot-mobiles and BTRs from their right. They put up a heavy fire upon them. But it seems the Lord Himself is on their side because they didn't get shot from all that.

*WHOOOOSH* an RPG almost hit Yuri, as Yuri managed to avoid it. Seeing who shot it, Miho took the assault rifle and aimed at the guy. *RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT* her assault rifle was used to kill the men shooting, with those men lying dead immediately as they moved up to the next cover of cars.

*DAKKA-DAKKA CLANG-CLANG*with the sound of machine gun fire, Yuri hid behind a car, with Price and Miho shooting back to make sure it was safe.

"Assholes!" Miho was shouting as she started to shoot like mad at them, reminding her of the time in Afghanistan. With less men shooting, the group began to move.

"Don't stop! Keep moving!" Price ordered after launching a grenade launcher into an incoming SUV car as Yuri kept following.

An Ultranationalist shot at the gas tank of a car, exploding it. *BOOM* That wasn't a good thing, but Yuri managed to make sure Soap and he wasn't caught in the explosion, quickly moving him.

With Miho covering Yuri's six and Price covering the front, Yuri managed to move Soap away from the area. Sustaining injuries from the explosion of the car, Yuri struggled.

Due to the explosion and injuries, Yuri fell to the ground, collapsing along with Soap.

"Pick him up!" Price shouted, throwing a grenade to behind them as Yuri struggled to move. Miho caught up to Yuri and gave a hand.

"Let's go, Yuri!" Miho shouted as she helped Yuri up, who had Soap leaning on him. They were able to stand up and keep moving, despite the intense gunfire.

"Pick up the pace!" Miho shouted. Yuri nodded as she began to move faster.

*BOOM* Another explosion came from the left as another car exploded nearby. Despite the situation, Yuri was able to keep moving.

"We can't stay here. C'mon, this way." Price ordered as the four moved, Miho, Yuri, and Price moving. Soap was being carried by Yuri after all. Yuri saw the Mi-28 in front of him and rushed, seeing how the helicopter was there.

*BAM-BAM-BAM* The Mi-28's guns were shooting at Yuri, which made it hard to move. Price was waiting for him in an alley, and due to Yuri slowing down, Miho immediately provided support.

"Enemy bird! Get off the road!" Miho was supporting Yuri, who at this time decided to carry Soap on his back instead.

"We have to get off the street!" Price shouted as Yuri and Miho ran faster. They managed to follow Price and enter a building, making them safe from it.

Entering the apartment building, Price lead the duo through, and they were lucky, as there were no Ultranationalists in the building. They kept moving. They eventually went to the exit, where Price stopped.

"Put him down." Price ordered. Yuri laid Soap on the ground near the dumpster, Soap immediately leaned on it painfully.

"Just patch me up. Get me back in this." Soap said as he was groaning in pain.

"Shouldn't we patch Soap up, Price?" Miho asked. Soap was bleeding a lot from the injuries that were made due to being stabbed by the sharp steel poking out of the ground in the church.

"It's not safe here. We have to move." Price told him as he gave his rifle to Yuri and picked up Soap himself.

"Damn it, Price!" Miho shouted.

"We will be found by the Ultranationalists while we are patching Soap up. This place isn't very secure." Price replied. Miho wasn't happy with it, but agreed.

"C'mon." Price said as the two followed Price.

"We need… Nikolai… get us out…" Soap was trying to say something.

*CRACK* the door was kicked open by Price, who slung Soap on his shoulder.

"That chopper's circling back around! We have to move!" Price shouted as he started to move fast. This made Soap stumble and crashed onto a pile of boxes.

"C'mon Soap, you can make it!" He encouraged the heavily bleeding Soap as he leaded on the wall behind him.

"Yuri, Miho! Take point and cover us." Price ordered as the two went out of the room first.

*TRRRR* Yuri and Miho saw the Ultranationalists searching for them, so they took them down without difficulty. The men who spotted them behind the glass was killed, with them having no time to respond as Miho and Yuri killed them quickly.

"You two, clear the store! We need to get the hell out of here!" nodding, the two killed everyone and looked around, spotting more Ultranationalists.

*BAM-BAM* Miho used her Desert Eagle as she didn't have time to reload her rifle. As Miho was reloading her rifle, one of the Ultranationalists aimed at Miho, but he was killed by Yuri, who shot him.

*DOR* Soap used his pistol to kill one of the soldiers who just in time came through the door whilst he saved Miho, effectively killing everyone in the store. Even Price didn't see that coming.

"Nice shot, son," Price compliments him.

"I can still teach you a thing or two, old man," Soap replied.

*CH* Yuri's gun had no bullets in the magazine, so he switched to his USP.45 and shot at the guy who was about to enter the building ahead. With that dealt with, Miho and Yuri exited the building first, but immediately faced gunfire.

*BRATAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT* The machine gun fire was coming from in front of them on their right, which Miho and Yuri narrowly managed to get to cover without being hit ahead.

*TAKKA-TAKKA* Yuri shot back, killing them.

"We're moving up to the statue!" Price informed them as he exited the building and ran to the statue left of Yuri and Miho.

"Keep'em off of us!" Price shouted as he went into safety behind the statue. Yuri and Miho continued to fire at the Ultranationalists coming towards them.

"Yuri, window on the second floor, 1 o'clock!" Miho warned as she killed other 2 hostiles in front of her.

"Got him!" Yuri shouted, he shot the bastard right in his neck.

"Frag out!" Miho warned as she threw her frag.

*BUAR* it killed the last 3 hostiles in the area, such a shame they didn't able to avoid it in time.

"On the roof! Right side!" Soap shouted as he was bleeding heavily. This made Price concerned.

"Shite!" Miho shouted as she and Yuri immediately ran up to Price and took cover behind the statue, shooting back at the bastards who are on the roof. "We're pinned down!"

"We can't stay here. C'mon, this way," Price said as Miho and Yuri followed. Miho looked back to see an Mi-28 fly right behind on top of them, starting to shoot. They managed to enter the building, avoiding to get shot at. Soap stumbled again, but Price caught him. Soap's condition was getting worse by the minute, but they kept going.

"Through here! Let's go!" Price shouted as Yuri and Miho exited the building first, killing the Ultranationalists on the street who was vaulting over a concrete wall.

They immediately took cover behind that concrete wall and aimed their weapons to the left down the street. They spotted some ultranationalist coming up to them ahead through a short tunnel. The bastards quickly took cover behind an abandoned van and a gap in that tunnel. *BRATATAT* Miho and Yuri's guns sounded as they kept shooting at the ultranationalists approaching their way, as these men were killed quickly.

"Why don't they give up!?" Miho shouted as she switched to her G18. *BRATATAT* She shot the last 3 men, clearing the street.

"Keep moving!" With that order, the group kept moving. This was bad, as multiple SUV arrived, with more Ultranationalist soldiers getting out of the cars.

"There's more… on the street!" Soap informed them.

"Yuri, take care of 'em!" Price ordered. Yuri nodded as he loaded his grenade launcher.

*BOOM* Yuri used his launcher to kill these guys, killing all 8 hostiles quickly and destroyed both of the SUVs as well.

Miho was getting worried, her concern on Soap's condition getting worse every second. He was bleeding heavily recently, and with them continuing to move instead of patching him up, he might not make it. Yuri noticed how worried Miho was, but he prayed for the best for Soap. Yuri and Miho keep a look out on the street ahead where the SUVs destroyed.

"Go left! Cut through the building!" Price shouted as Miho and Yuri entered the building nearby.

As soon as they entered the building, an SUV arrived and 4 men got out, in which Miho used her grenade launcher, killing all 4 of them along with the SUV.

"They'll just keep coming." Soap told them. He knew that they will be pursued relentlessly.

"Don't stop! Keep moving!" Price ignored Soap's words and picked Soap up, ready to move.

"Just leave me, Price!" Soap demanded.

"No! I'm getting you out of this!" Price replied as the group began to move. They were moving across the street, with Ultranationalists arriving more in numbers.

"Head for that building to the northwest!" Price shouted as he kept moving.

They kept through a basketball court to the northwest, with Yuri and Miho temporarily returned fire to the hostiles coming up behind them. Soap was bleeding heavily, the blood spilling to the ground, due to the explosions causing even more damage to his body. Miho and Yuri nodded as they followed Price and Soap. *PEW-PEW* Gunfire was coming from their rear, catching the group by surprise with one bullet passed next to Yuri's shoulder.

"Cover our six!" Price ordered the two, who retaliated against the attackers currently shooting at them. With the Ultranationalists coming from where the two crashed SUVs were, Miho and Yuri took care of the men who were shooting at them.

*TAKKA-TAKKA* The soldiers dropped dead, not going back up again. With the Ultranationalists dead, Yuri and Miho ran to catch up with Price, who dragged the bleeding Soap towards another building.

"Price! UAZ!" Soap warned. At least the two managed to get to a safe position from the next wave of men arriving.

"We made it, Soap! Just hold on!" Price shouted as he put Soap down near a low wall and got his pistol out.

He joined Yuri and Miho, who was currently engaging the second wave of men that arrived in the area. They could thank that the UAZ Soap warned about were actually for transporting troops. But new problem appears, there are BTRs pinning them down hard and they were giving them problems, and it was approaching them. However, when it got close, several rockets were launched at the vehicle, making the BTRs start shooting at the attackers.

*SHEW* rockets were heard flying towards the BTRs, which some hit, some destroyed, but some missed. However, the a couple of BTRs were still in commission, still being able to engage in combat.

"It's the resistance!" Price informed them as he and the two-man group concentrated their fire on the foot-mobiles.

"Really! At least we don't have to deal with every single man here!" Miho shouted in relief as she continued to fire on the Ultranationalist soldiers.

"Hold them back you two!" Price shouted as he helped shoot at the men, cutting down the amount of soldiers.

"We need to move Soap! Miho, get over here and cover us!" Price shouted as Miho put her gun away and went to grab Soap. She picked him up gently, worried that he will have his condition get worse.

"You'll be all right, Soap! Hang on!" Miho encouraged as she picked him up. Suddenly, a medic arrived to their assistance. "Someone help me!"

"We've got wounded! Get him inside!" Price informed the medic, who nodded. Miho and the medic carried Soap into the building, with Yuri and Price providing covering fire till the two was inside the building.

"We'll get him! Just fall back!" the leader of the Resistance informed them as he got out of the building. With that, the men outside continued to fight, while Price and Yuri entered the building.

"Clear the table!" Price shouted as Miho and the medic put Soap down on the table. Doing that, Miho immediately pulled open the vest that Soap was wearing, with Soap groaning in pain. The blood was spilling outwards from the table, falling towards the ground.

"Price… Yuri… Miho…" Soap began to say.

"Not now, Soap. Just rest." Price said as he tried to make Soap feel a bit more calm. "Get a medic!" Price shouted, as the medic left to treat the other wounded.

"C'mon, stay with me son!" Price was trying to do whatever he can to make Soap not die. Miho watched helplessly as Soap was dying, the blood coating the table and spilling to the floor. She knew yet denied that Soap can die, as he was always there for her when she needed him.

"Price…" Soap was trying to say something. "You need to know… Makarov… knows… Yuri…" Soap said as he finally succumbed to his wounds and breath his last.

Miho was now struck with Post Stress Traumatic Disorder at that moment, relieving memories of the times she had with Soap.

* * *

Many months ago. In a 141 base.

"Are you alright, Miho?"

Miho only looked up at him with a frown on her face. "No… I'm not."

Soap sighed, then sits down next to her and gets himself comfy as he can. "You want to tell me what's wrong?"

Miho looked away from him for a moment, and bows her head down. "I… I don't know."

Soap raised an eyebrow to her. "What do you mean you don't know?"

Miho ponders for a moment on what to say to him, before looking back at him. "I… it's been quite a while for me to be a soldier here but…"

Soap kept staring at her in silence, before adding her sentence. "You felt bad about it?"

Miho nodded a bit slowly. "We kill people, Soap. And we've been hunting Makarov for long. But… but what happened back in Afghanistan… I kept thinking about it. I feel so wrong about it, I was not myself that time. I lost control."

"But yet you know the risk," Soap added.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod. "Maybe I shouldn't have join up. It's… hard for me to be myself on this one."

Soap just smiles at her, then holds her shoulder. "Don't worry, Miho. Ya' will be alright, mate. I always got your back Miho. I always be. I will make sure nothing bad happens to you until we get the bastard."

Miho stared him back, and smiled to her best friend.

* * *

A second later, anger struck Miho as she just remembered what Soap managed to say before he left this world.

"Oh, no, no, no no no! SOAP! NO, NO! NO! SOAP!" Price was shouting as Soap lay dead on the table. Suddenly, the leader of the Resistance came to Price.

"Price! You have to go! Now!" the leader said as he holds his shoulder. But Price is still angry, he pushed the leader away harshly.

"Get off me!" Price shouted as he looked at him.

Then Price looked back at Soap, lifeless on the table as he slowly approached him with respect. He then pulled out his pistol, the one that was used to kill Zakhaev. He put it on Soap's chest and bowed his head with grieve. He can't believe he died.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly. Miho watched silently, tears coming out of her eyes. Price was trying to hold his tears, as he didn't want to show it to Miho who was there. Taking Soap's journal, he would put it in his pocket. As he still mourning of the death of his friend, a son if he could call him, the shadow of the BTR was seen at the windows. It started firing its machine guns in the area where they were. Surprising the whole lot of people inside including Price and Miho who were grieving his death.

"Price! This way!" the resistance leader shouted to them as Price and Miho looked up to Yuri with anger on their faces, before moving up down the hallway.

Yuri followed Price while avoiding the bullets of the BTR that was firing at the building. They ended up in an area where there was a door on their front right. With Miho and Price covering at the corner walls near the door and shooting back at the BTR.

"Yuri! Open it!" Price shouted as Yuri went to the door unscathed and opened it.

As soon as he did, he felt his shoulder forcefully turned around to see Miho punching him in the chest and falling down the stairs hard. Yuri didn't really see that coming, and honestly the punch was something else he could feel apart from a usual grunt's punch. As soon as he managed to sit up, he saw Price coming down, with Miho following him.

"Soap trusted you. I thought I could too." Price said as he went down, cocking his pistol up. With Miho pulled out her G18 as she went down the stairs.

"So why in bloody hell, does Makarov know you?" Price asked afterward, watching from behind Miho.

With Miho, crouched down and puts her pistol up to his face. "Why does Makarov know you, Yuri? Tell me!"

* * *

Pripyat, the day that Zakhaev lost his arm

" _I was young and patriotic when I first met Makarov."_

"Yuri, wake up." Makarov said as Yuri was awoken by Makarov from his slumber.

"Zakhaev wouldn't want you to miss this. This deal will generate millions for our cause." He continued.

"Money can buy many things. Even power. The road to our future begins here, my friend." Makarov said as Yuri saw the deal happen next to him out the window.

"Yuri"

Winter – 1996

Pripyat, Ukraine

"Что значит, "маловато"? Я думал, мы договорились!» Zakhaev said to the arms dealer. He was pissed off, as the dealer demanded more. Unfortunately, it was going to get worse.

*BAM*

Zakhaev was shot, his arm flying off and he fell to the ground. Yuri got down, away from the open window and narrowly avoid a sniper bullet to him. Getting back up, he saw Zakhaev enter the car in the front seat. Makarov immediately started to drive, to get Zakhaev to safety. He drove fast, running over an Ultranationalist soldier.

" _Zakhaev never forgot what we did for him that day. Our reward was power. But power corrupts."_

* * *

"Year – 2011"

Al-Asad's Safehouse

Middle East

"Today, we show the world our true strength. Perhaps it will give you some as well." Makarov told Yuri who caught up with him. The two were overlooking the city, with American forces flying into the area. Suddenly, Makarov's phone rung.

"Is everything ready?" Makarov told the person who called him, something shocking that was going to happen next. "Do it."

 _Thousands of souls extinguished by the push of a button._

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM*

The nuclear device, a warhead detonated in the middle of the city, killing countless American soldiers and servicemen. As they watch the escaping helicopters are dropping off the sky like flies. And the only thing that's left in the view, is only the grim landscape of a destroyed, ruined city.

"Understand, Yuri. This... is only the beginning." Makarov told Yuri as he started to enter the safehouse once again.

" _This wasn't war. It was madness."_

* * *

Yuri had been captured and is in hold by two gunmen who are Makarov's men. They caught him as they happen to know what was Yuri up to. The goons managed to hold Yuri and awaits for their leader.

"I know what you have done, Yuri. I know what you have told them." Makarov said as he approached Yuri from the shadows.

"My friend. My ally. My betrayer… What happens here today, will change the world forever. Nothing can stop this. Not even you." Makarov told Yuri as he pulled out his Desert Eagle, lazily aimed it at him.

*BAM*

Being shot, Yuri groaned in pain and collapsed to the ground. Makarov and his two associates walked over him as Yuri slowly lost consciousness. He woke to realize that the attack started when the walkie talkie was talking about the attack. He slowly made his way by crawling to the only open elevator in front of him. He was determined to stop this. He entered the elevator, with the doors closing behind him.

"Year - 2016"

Zakhaev International Airport

Moscow, Russia

* RATTA-RATTA-RATTA-RATTA-RATTA-RATTA-RATTA-RATTA *

Yuri stood up as the doors opened to see civilians get shot and killed. Walking to the dead security employee, he stumbled due to his injuries. He picked up a gun nearby and despite his injuries attempted to shoot the 4 that was causing the massacre, trying to shoot and kill them. Because of his injuries, none of his shots hit, and soon he ran out of bullets. He fainted due to blood loss.

" _I was a soldier of Russia, not a taker of innocent lives. But in his eyes, this marked me as the enemy."_

"Эй! У нас есть один выживший!" Waking up, he saw a security guard find him alive and call for a medic, who put an oxygen mask on him.

* * *

Miho was still pointing her G18 at Yuri. Hearing this, she put it away reluctantly. Price walked over to him, and offers his hand to him.

"Okay, Yuri. You bought yourself some time…" Price then lifts him up to his feet.

"For now." Price said, he then left him. Leaving Miho with him.

Yuri looked up to Miho, who is giving her conflicted and emotional face. She can't believe why Yuri never tell them about this for a long time. It costed them Soap's life, just for Yuri's secret. Yuri could see that Miho still has her tears leaving her eyes.

"Miho…" Yuri called softly, he paused for a moment to gather courage to speak to her. "Мне жаль... Я не хотел, чтобы это случилось."

Miho just stares him down in silence, before replying. "Я доверял тебе, Юрий. Я доверял тебе... Что вы наделали?"

Mih just sighed with a sniffle, before hastily left Yuri alone. Yuri could only watched her left, with guilt in his heart. She's just a girl. And he has broke her heart.

* * *

Present.

Anchovy couldn't feel anything but to be dejected of her past. Why Miho never liked to talk about her past that could've pain her. Why Miho been avoiding her after hearing the word 'Makarov' after a long time. From what she could see now, Miho is trying to get away from her past. Miho tried to face it, but it's been hitting her hard.

After Miho told her the tale she had about Makarov and Soap, she then looks away. Not in embarrassment or anger, but in sad and guilt. Anchovy knew the looks she made, the only look that tells people that she's looking for a redemption. And Miho really needs help.

Miho then looked back forward with a blank stare. "So… that's my story… what happened to Soap."

Anchovy can't help but to embrace her by hugging her shoulders around. "I'm sorry, Miho. I'm very sorry to hear that."

Miho just shook her head, then bowed her head down. "It's my fault."

"Don't blame yourself, Miho," Anchovy said to her softly in concern. "None of what happened that time is your fault."

"I should've knew that sooner, 'Chovy," Miho replied sadly. "He could still be alive until now."

"I know," Anchovy agreed with a nod. "But it's not your fault, Miho. You've done everything you can. I'm sure this Yuri has his own reasons why he kept it secret."

"He did," Miho replied with a nod. "A rational and good one."

Anchovy stared at her for a moment, before she gets closer to her by landing her head on her shoulder. "You need to relax, Miho."

"I…"

"Shh," Anchovy shushed her. "There's no need to say anything else, Miho-chan. You've been through a lot, and I know you're tired from it."

Miho only turned her head gently to her lover, with Anchovy began caressing her face with her left hand. "Anchovy…"

"Please, Miho," Anchovy quickly replied softly. "Don't say anything."

"I just want to say…" Miho paused as she looked at her gleaming eyes, then continued. "I love you…"

Anchovy stayed silent to her reply, before responding with passion. "I love you too."

They both slowly close their eyes, and get their faces closer to each other.

And they both passionately kissed. Producing their stifled moans from their kiss.

So tender, so cute, so strong the desire of each other's hearts. Both of their minds went blank as they kissed and played their tongues with each other. As they making out, they slowly lying down onto the bed with Anchovy on top of her. They won't hold back from their desires. They kept kissing, as they both began to undress their clothes.

Though, as they are making out, Maho accidentally entered the door. "Miho, are you-"

Maho immediately froze to see Miho and Anchovy are making out. Thankfully, they both didn't notice Maho since they are busy with each other. Maho blushed in embarrassment and with widen eyes to know she invaded their privacy. Maho watched them making out for a few seconds, before immediately and silently back out from the door. The memory of that accident won't erase from her head, but it made Maho to feel a little bit lustful about it.

Maho immediately went back to her mother, who is apparently on the same floor with her in the hallway. Shiho was pretty surprised to see Maho blushed redder than a strawberry. Maho stopped in front of her as Shiho wondered what the hell happened to her.

"Why… are you blushing?" Shiho asked with an eyebrow raised.

"I…" Maho trailed off for a moment, before able to continue. "I just saw Miho making out with Anchovy."

Now, it was Shiho's turn to blushes to hear that. "W-what?"

"D-don't mind that," Maho immediately replied awkwardly. "Let's just move on."

"A-alright," Shiho replied awkwardly with a nod, before they headed back down to the ground. "Sheesh… I didn't see that coming."

* * *

For those who wondered what Miho and Yuri said.

"Мне жаль... Я не хотел, чтобы это случилось." ("I'm sorry... I didn't want this to happen")

"Я доверял тебе, Юрий. Я доверял тебе... Что вы наделали?" ("I trusted you, Yuri. I trusted you... What have you done?")


	51. Chapter 48 - Metaphorical Day

As the sun slowly began to rise and shines into the residence. Miho slowly opened her eyes, and took a deep breath for the new day to come. She then turns her head to her left, seeing and remembering that Anchovy is sleeping next to her, with her arm hugging over Miho's belly. Anchovy was rather cute to see her still sleeping, snoring softly like a sweet child she loved with her gentle cheek is on her shoulder. It's so pleasant for her to have her lover by her side.

Miho then slowly and lazily gets her back off the bed, whilst carefully moving Anchovy's arm off her stomach. Then she turns around, and lower her legs off the bed. She bowed her head down as she sits on the bed, knowing she's still sleepy a bit after all of that making out with her. She then looked up and turned her head to her left straight at the open window. Wincing her eyes for a moment to adjust to the brightness of the rising sun.

After a moment later, she then looks back at Anchovy behind her to know if she's up. Miho sighed a little to know she's not up yet, and then decided to look over herself. Well… she is barely naked after all of that making out, but she didn't mind about it right now. The only thing that is only concerning her right now, is only her hygiene. Alright, Anchovy's hygiene too.

It was really worth it and really fun yesterday night. Miho can't believe she had did that with Anchovy, making love with each other. How tender, how awesome, how passionate, how zeal was that. She wished she could do that again with her one day. Even if that was tiring for her.

As she was musing into blank space, she felt a soft touch on her shoulder, before she felt a hug from behind her. "Mornin', Miho-chan~."

Miho just made a little smile as she turns her head to behind her to look over her shoulder, where Anchovy put her head on. "Morning, my Emerald."

She blushed a little to her reply. "Ah~, how's your sleep?"

"Soundly better with you, 'Chovy," Miho replied to her softly, holding her arms wrapped around her.

"Oh, I'm happy to hear that," Anchovy replied, the shyly looked away as she hugged her. "I… I can't believe we just did that."

"I know, Anchovy," Miho then jerked her head back a little then kissed her cheek. "I love it."

Anchovy quickly blushed as she flustered and made a cute embarrassing smile. "Miho-chan~."

"I know, I know," Miho replied with a couple of nods. "How's your sleep?"

"Very comfy with you, Miho," Anchovy replied, landing her cheek back on her neck. "It's been nice to be with you."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "By the way, shouldn't we clean ourselves up?"

Anchovy just chuckled and sat next to her. "I hope you're not thinking anything else, Miho~."

"Don't worry, my Emerald," Miho then rubbed her head, making Anchovy flustered to it. "I just want us both to be ready for our day."

"Alright, if you say so," Anchovy replied with a smirk on her face, letting Miho go from her hug. "You go ahead take the showers first."

"Alright," Miho replied with a nod, then stood off the bed.

Miho took her towel and headed for the bathroom. To her relieve was that she met up with Maho near the bathroom, telling her that Maho and their mother already took their baths before Miho. After a small chat with her, she entered the bathroom and began to take the bath. Only took her for about 3 minutes to take her bath, before walking out with her towel over her body. She headed back to her room and looked over to Anchovy, who apparently got her towels ready to take bath.

Pretty much surprising for her because Miho thought she just go home after waking up. And because Maho said that their mother told her that it's okay for Anchovy to take a bath.

Miho told her that the bathroom is still vacant, which her lover nodded in reply and calmly walked out the room. After she left, Miho dried herself up and then get to choose her clothes in the cabinet. But not after she tidies up the opened weapons crate on the floor, she forgot to hide it again when she was making out with her. Ugh, never mind.

She already wore outfits in two minutes flat, basically as if she was already wearing something out from the forest. But at least she wore her clothes pretty neat. She's wearing a white sleeveless buttoned shirt and black jeans. She has her dark grey trench coat of London Fog model heighten for about under her thighs on her shoulder, which she would wear later. She had the same belt she used for ammo and small tools. And her M9 Beretta pistol prepped on the table near her.

As she patted her own outfit, she noticed that Anchovy has finished her bath and stepped in the room. Though, she could see Anchovy is pretty unnerved to see her pistol is on the table. Miho just looked away with a sigh and her eyes closed. Then looked back at her with an assuring look.

"Just for safety precautions."

Anchovy sighed agitatedly to that, but replied with a nod. "Alright."

At first, Miho thought that Anchovy had her school day for today. But to her surprise was that she told her that her school has a three day vacation from today, which means she free for today. But Anchovy told her that she has to go somewhere in high noon. Miho had assured by Anchovy that she'll be alright by herself because Miho worried about her. Anchovy told her to go on ahead to get some breakfast first, she'll catch up with her.

Miho holstered her pistol on her belt before heading out the room. She then headed downstairs to the dining room to find her mother. Like as always, foods already served and ready on the table. And Maho and Shiho are already there waiting for her. She walked over to the table and sat down on the floor. Putting down her trench coat down on the floor next to her.

"Ohayōgozaimasu, watashi no kodomo," Shiho greeted with a warm smile.

"Good morning, mother," Miho politely greeted back. "Mornin', Maho."

"Morning, Miho," Maho replied with a nod. "How was your sleep?"

"It was nifty, Maho," Miho replied with her head tilted. "Very nifty."

"Really?" Maho asked with her eyebrows raised. "Especially when you're… umm… making out with her?"

That did make Shiho blushed and embarrassed to hear Maho asked that, Miho on the other hand blushed a little but didn't bother to feel shy about it. "Did you watch us making out yesterday?"

"Umm…" Maho forced a smirk as she looked away shyly. "Yeah… by accident."

Miho chuckled, though wasn't actually amused about it. "Of course."

"Minasan, kon'nichiwa!" a voice greeted them, it was Anchovy stepping into the room.

"Ohayōgozaimasu, anchovy-san," Shiho and Maho greeted her happily with a bow.

"Can I…?" Anchovy question came to a halt, not sure if eating along with the Nishizumi family is ok.

"Sure, come join us," Shiho invited with a smile. "We sure don't want you to go out with an empty stomach, don't we?"

"I… t-thanks!" Anchovy nervously and slowly sat down next to Miho, trying to be comfortable as she can.

"Hey, no worries," Maho replied, waving her hand at her implying a shook. "It's good to have you coming over, Anchovy."

"I appreciate to hear that," Anchovy replied happily as she picks some for herself. "How are you doing there, Miho-chan?"

Miho chuckled of what her lover called her, then replies. "Doing fine, emerald."

"Aw, that's cute~," Maho teased, which annoys Miho. "Starting to get along just fine?"

"You could say that," Miho replied, then continued by Anchovy. "Of course we do, Maho-san."

Shiho sips her tea for a moment before saying. "You both should keep your relationship as steady as always."

"I agree," Maho added as she points her chopsticks at Miho. "Who knows you both would get yourself in trouble with a love consultant."

Miho just shook and chuckled at that. "That would be on my gravestone."

Shiho laughs to her respond with Maho was taken aback from that, as Anchovy elbow-punched her softly and whispered lowly. "Miho..."

"Alright, alright," Miho replied to her lover with an open palm at her. "Calm down."

"Miho, you're making me nervous, you know that?" Anchovy asked back at her in discomfort and jumpy look.

"Sorry about that, my lady," Miho replied politely to her, with a nod.

"So…" Shiho began as she eats her food for a moment. "You… you talked her about it? About… who you actually are?"

"She told me all of it, Shiho-sama," Anchovy replied, then sips her tea. "Especially why she's trying to avoid me."

Maho only stared at her for a moment, and wondered one thing. "And… what about that 'Makarov' thing?"

Miho tensed up a little to that name before hastily looked away, Anchovy felt the conflict Miho had right now. "I rather not talk about it."

Shiho and Maho both surprised of her respond. "You really don't want to talk about that too?" Shiho asked.

"I know you want to know but I can't tell you about it," Anchovy replied with a shook. "It's… real personal for both of us."

"Woah, you too?" Maho raised her eyebrows to that in surprise along with Shiho who did the same, before taking a chopstick of her food. "Alright, we'll leave that question out."

"Thank you," Miho said with a nod, finally able to erase the thought of vengeance for a moment.

"So, what do you think, Anchovy-san?" Shiho asked curiously, putting her chopsticks near her face and points them at Anchovy. "After figuring out she's the leader of 141?"

"If you want me to be honest," Anchovy began, pointing her thumb to Miho next to her. "We need more people like her around."

"Anchovy-" Miho interjected, but Anchovy cuts her off.

"Miho, I'm serious!" Anchovy replied back to her with a smile. "I mean, you and your friends are good people, Miho. It's nearly hard to come by around here."

"I know, emerald," Miho replied with a nod.

"And I feel safe to be with you, Miho," Anchovy added happily.

Miho frowned to Anchovy statement. "I… don't think that just it."

"I know what you meant, Miho," Shiho said in understood. "I know it's hard, but… you'll be alright. You sworn that you make sure no harm befalls her right?"

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod.

Shiho smiled to her daughter, staring at her for a moment. "You'll be alright, Miho. I believe you still have faith of yourself. And I still have faith for you without a doubt."

Miho warmly smiled to her mother for her encouragement. "Thank you, mother."

They chat warmly as they eat their breakfast. Shiho and Maho were both surprised to know that Anchovy has her vacation from school for today until the next two days, because Maho is still having a school-day for today. They were happy with Anchovy's presence in the residence. Not forget to mention it was Miho's lover in the house. Made mother of the Nishizumi to wonder who's the next lover for her eldest daughter.

After the breakfast, Anchovy packed her things up from her room as Miho accompanied her. Miho then accompanies her to the front door of the residence. When they reached the front door of the residence, Miho and Anchovy looked over on the road before them on their left and right. And then Miho and Anchovy looking back at each other.

"Are you sure you want to go back home by yourself?" Miho asked worriedly.

"I'll be fine, Miho," Anchovy replied with a nod.

"But… but what if something happens to you, Anchovy?" Miho asked, really concerned of her lover's safety.

"You worry too much, Miho," Anchovy assured her with a smile. "I can take care of myself. I will be alright."

Miho sighed deeply to calm herself down, before looking back at her. "Okay, be safe little emerald."

Anchovy blushed a little to what Miho called her. "I will, Miho-chan~."

Anchovy then did a quick kiss on her lips, one that nearly took Miho off-guard. Then Anchovy and Miho looked at each other with their gleaming eyes, smiling to each other. "Goodbye, Miho-chan~."

"Goodbye, Anchovy," Miho responded, to which Anchovy bid her farewell by walking back home and waved her hand at Miho in the distance.

Miho only watched her left, walking down the road away from the front gate of the residence. Miho waved her hand at Anchovy when she got the chance to look back. When she was out from her sight, she closed her eyes and deeply sighed to herself. It was really great to have her around, she really wants her to come over more often. She's the only person who able to suppressed her haunting past and her emotions.

As she was staring to where Anchovy had gone, Maho and Shiho came up from behind her. "You okay?" Maho asked.

Miho stayed still for a moment, before turning her head to her left and looked through her shoulder. "Well… I'm just hoping she'll come over more often."

Shiho snorted a little with a smirk. "Why don't you go on another date with her?"

Miho slowly turned around to them both, and shrugged. "I'm not really sure I'm going to have another date with her. I can't think about a thing about where we should go for date."

"Take your time about it," Maho replied confidently. "I'm sure it will turn up eventually."

"Thanks for your encouragement," Miho complimented her with a nod, then she's wearing on her dark grey trench coat and buttoning it up. "You need any help at the school, mother?"

"Sure," Shiho replied with joy and a nod. "Let's go then."

* * *

Kuromorimine School. 12:30 PM.

Miho is in the cafeteria of the school with the 4 tank commanders, Erika and Akaboshi. Maho was not available in there because she has some unfinished business in her office, something about cleaning up her office and printing photocopies. Her mother on the other hand, is doing her job to make sure everything in the school is going smooth as it should. Oooh, Miho pretty sure everything is alright in the school.

Unless something kicked Miho's edge.

Aside that, they are currently having a lunch after they finished their study for the moment. Miho is also having after she helped Shiho on what was up with the KMM's security section. There was no fight happened of course when Miho checked on the security section, it was just a misunderstanding between the section and some certain of students. The trouble had ended with peaceful diplomacy.

No, diplomacy and politics are not the same thing. And yes, Miho hates politics.

They are currently having a nice chat with each other. Miho was quite happy that she can talk with her friends now, instead of lollygaggin' around the school. She just felt a little empty that Anchovy is not here to join their chat. At least, they're talking with each other could keep Miho's sanity on check. And keeps Miho away from her own isolation.

Both Miho and Erika are getting along just fine after their small conversation yesterday. Though, Erika had complained that she felt a little drunk from that wine. She was pretty lucky that the teachers didn't notice about it. It made Miho wondered if Japanese girls can get drunk so easily than the girls from other countries. It was just a half of the bottle she drunk.

"How come you got drunk a little that fast, Erika?" Miho asked in disbelieve. "It was just a bottle."

"Half… a bottle," Erika corrected, pointing her finger next to her. "I guessed I'm just not used to it."

"It was a good thing that the KMM Morals Committee didn't see you drunk," Ritaiko added with a tone of relief. "If they did, you'll be in trouble."

"I know, Ritaiko-san," Erika hastily replied in annoyance. "I was just smart enough to see them coming."

"So, what were you two talking about yesterday?" Akaboshi wondered, lazily landed her head on her hand. "It seems pretty private yesterday. Asking Erika to come over to a room and have a drink together."

"We both were talking about our own past," Miho replied as she leans forward the table.

"You mean about our time back in 62nd National Tournament?" Sangou asked with a raised brow.

"And the time before that," Miho added, nodding her head a bit for a moment.

Everyone is a bit upset that Miho mentioned it, even Erika herself felt guilty about it. "We were wrong to treat you that way, Miho," Mauko said with her frowning face.

"Say that to the girl who nearly died in London," Miho half-sarcastically replied, before sipping on her drink.

Everyone was taken back of her respond, only Erika who understands that quiet well. "Woah, calm down, Miho-san," Geshiko is immediately concerning her mood.

"I'm calm," Miho assured her flatly. "I'm just stating the fact."

"I'm sorry about what happened in London," Erika pitied her with a sad face.

"Don't mention it," Miho responded coldly whilst staring at her.

Everyone else were pretty flurried on what Erika said. "What do you mean what happened in London?" Akaboshi asked, leaving her head off her hand.

Erika was pretty doubt to answer her question, to which she looked up to Miho. "Miho, should I-?"

"No," Miho replied quickly. "Just no."

"Alright," Erika replied again, then looked away from her awkwardly.

It's either she's still pissed about it or really don't want to talk about it, they go with the latter. "Aw, that's a shame," Geshiko commented with disappointment.

They all continue to eat their lunch excluding Miho who is just drinking her soda, to which Ritaiko asked in curiosity. "Hey Miho, may I ask something?"

"What is it?" Miho asked after sipping her soda.

"Well, you're-," Ritaiko paused, looking around themselves before leaning forward closer to her so she can whisper. "You're the leader of 141, right?"

"Yes, I am," Miho replied back with her normal voice. "Why?"

Ritaiko leaned closer to her, basically leaning across the table. "Well… could you teach us how to use the weapons you have?"

This took Miho off-guard of her request, basically staring at her with widen eyes and a sense of discontent and whispering at her back. "What makes you think I could teach you how to use rifles, SMGs and pistols I have at my disposal?"

Ritaiko made her cringed face to her. "Umm… well… I just need something to… protect myself."

Miho just stared at her for the moment as everyone else did the same, before Miho sighed and looked away from her with her expression of 'oh God'. "Look, I know you want to get your hands on the weapons I have in my disposal. But giving weapons to students especially commanders like you is very unwise."

"Why would you think it's unwise for me to get my hands on the weapons?" Ritaiko asked with a smirk. "I mean, we all handled a lot of weapons on our tanks."

"Because I don't want risking one of you to start a school-shooting."

It was actually a true fact why she wouldn't dare to give weapons to any students unlike Maho and Kay. Maho and Kay are both soldiers and can be trusted on handling and using weapons since they are 141. Students on the other hand can't be trusted for various reasons. Miho heard a couple of school shooting incident when she had a chat with Ghost, and it happened in America back in the future. It would a major impact for the 141 to be in trouble with the JSDF.

Everyone actually taken back from her respond, they really didn't expect that. "What-what makes you think we could start a school-shooting?" Erika asked, suddenly agreed to Ritaiko's request.

"You all are students, and there are various reasons to why," Miho stated to them. "I can't trust you to handle the weaponry I have."

"B-but, we need it for self-defense and for good things," Ritaiko added, protesting her disagreement.

"For good things?" Miho asked back with an unconvinced look. "That's no good reason for me to hand over weapons to you."

"Miho, you know we all here handle the weapons on tanks well fine," Geshiko added, now not only Geshiko and Erika agreed on having weapons for themselves, everyone else with them agreed to Ritaiko's request.

"Its just on... tanks," Miho slowly stated on Geshiko's sentence. "And it's for Sensha-do. Having firearms to shoot on people, that's another story."

"But Miho, I know you won't like it," Sangou added hastily in understood. "But you may need our help just in case."

Miho narrowed her eyes at her. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Miho," Akaboshi paused for a moment. "What she's trying to say is that you could get yourself into trouble if it involves something that is really bad. You might need us to be armed if it comes to that."

Miho felt half of her part agrees to what she said, the other half felt that she doubts that. "You know not all conflict should be ended with firearms. You know that, right?"

"I do," Akaboshi replied with a nod. "But if it involves something that you could risked your life, you're going to need some backup to get you out from that."

"You might also asked us for help," Mauko added with a shrug with her hands did the same. "Who knows you have a trouble with dealing with people who are trying to shoot at you."

Miho can't say anything but to sighed. She can't believe they all are really eager to get their hands on the weapons the 141 had. And she can't believe that they would risked their necks only if they had to help Miho on something she can't get done with by herself. Yes, they all are her friends but Miho doesn't want that kind of thing to be happened to them.

"Look, I understand why you really want to get your hands on the weapons right now," Miho replied in discomforted tone. "But I don't want to give you firearms for it."

"Why Miho?" Erika asked curiously.

"Okay, you all are my friends here," Miho replied, gesturing her hand to all of them. "I can nearly call you as a part of family. I don't want you to risk yourself to get shot if you're going to help me or shoot someone who would try to kill you."

"We can take care of ourselves, Miho," Geshiko replied in confident, stood off from her seat. "And just like you said, we are friends here. We need to take care of each other if you're in trouble."

They are right on one thing, friends take care of each other. Miho really hates to put their lives at risk if she had give them firearms just to save her arse. Miho really wanted to argue about this, but since they are in a public area, which is the cafeteria, they can't do it. If they argue about it now, everyone will overheard conversation.

Miho just sighed again to herself, before looking back at all of them. "You all won't stop asking me about getting firearms don't you?"

They all gave their damndest stupid smiles straight at her. "Eeyup."

Miho just sighed again, automatically made a forceful smile as she shook her head. "Hah, alright, alright. Fine, I'll give you the firearms."

They all quickly got up by that, stared straight at her with Ritaiko asking. "Wait, really?"

"I'll need to ask Ami about this and train you about using firearms," Miho quickly added with a raised index finger. "And also one condition."

They immediately froze on spot as they stare her down. "Which is?"

"You use them for the good of all people," Miho replied sternly. "If you use the firearms for the wrong purpose, I'll make sure I settle things with you about it. Understand?"

They looked at each other with feeling of a nit uneasiness, before Ritaiko replied. "We all understand, Miho-san."

"And please," Miho said in a tone of concern, surprising her friends. "Try not to get yourself killed from using firearms, alright?"

"Ok, Miho-san," Erika responded with a nod.

As they were about to change the topic, they suddenly heard a loud call. "Miho!"

They were surprised as they look at who was calling her. It was Maho, running up to her with her phone in her hand. Maho looked pretty afraid of something when she got close enough to them. Maho quickly stops at the table next to Miho who's still sitting.

"Maho, what's going on?" Miho asked calmly.

"Miho," Maho quickly said. "It's about Anchovy."

Miho suddenly became alarmed, she quickly stood off her seat and sharply stare at her. "Something happened to her?"

"She-," Maho halted for a moment, took a deep sigh before continuing. "She's in the hospital."

Miho walked away from her seat and stood in front of her elder sister, with a dark glare. "Why she's in the hospital?"

"She was robbed and got stabbed," Maho replied, worried of her sister's reaction. "She had a deep wound in her stomach."

All of the KMM commanders, including Akaboshi and Erika, gasped in shock. Miho however, there's a fire burning inside of her. Something that Maho knew about it very well.

"Where… is she?" Miho asked grimly, she really can't believe she heard this.

"Giovanni Osanna Hospital in Anzio," Maho replied quickly. "She's currently in surgery."

"Good," Miho quickly walked away from her and her friends, almost in a jog before she was a distance from Maho.

"I'll go with her," Maho said to her friends. "I need to make sure she's alright."

"Alright, be careful," Mauko replied with a nod, before Maho hastily left them at their table and follow up with Miho.

After Maho left, they all still can't believe what they just heard. Anchovy is in the hospital because of a deep wound. What happened to her that time? They… they just can't comprehend to what they just heard.

"I can't believe that happened," Erika commented in heavy worry, the rest of her friends shows the same expression she had.

"I know," Sangou added with a nod of consent. "I hope she's alright."

"What of Miho though?" Geshiko concernedly asked. "She's pretty angry to hear that."

"I'm not sure,"Akaboshi admitted with a frown. "I hope for the best for them both."

* * *

Giovanni Osanna Hospital, Anzio schoolship. 14:00 PM.

Miho and Maho reached the hospital with haste. Aside of a couple of Anzio students who were checking on their own sick friends, there's quiet a few people who are doing visits to their sick or wounded relatives. The nurses and doctors in there, some of them are in haste and some of them are taking it easy on their job. All the while the weather outside the hospital there is a bit cloudy.

When they reach the reception, Miho immediately asked the receptionist about Anchovy. As the receptionist asked about who's checking in on Anchovy at Miho, she was taken back by the dark glare she gave. Though, both Miho and Maho were both surprised to know there is someone else visiting Anchovy than themselves. And there were two persons who were visiting Anchovy before Miho and Maho came.

After the receptionist told them where Anchovy is, they immediately headed for the elevator and went to the 4th floor of the hospital. Maho wanted to try calm her down, but considering the situation right now and how Miho's mood right now it might be not the best idea for now. They both didn't say a word when on the way to Anchovy's hospital room. First, because Miho has drowned too much in emotion that she can't speak a word, even if her face is straight. Second, because knowing Miho is too angry for now, Maho won't dare to say anything unless she wants Miho to be going for her arse.

When the elevator reached the desired floor, the doors open and the two sister immediately fast walk down the hall to their right. The number of the room Anchovy was in was 411. When they walked down the hallway until they found the said room ahead on their right. Miho was the first to reached the knob and immediately opened it as they both stormed in.

And there she was… Anchovy is there, lying on her soft and cuddly white bed with a blanket covers her wounded stomach down to her feet. Excluding her arms that were placed outside the blanket and clutching to each other. Morphine cable was attached to her right arm along with the cable to the 1960 EKG Machine to scan her heart rate. Aside from the visible bandaged stomach wound, they noticed some bruises on her arms that were presumably resulted from the previous beating.

There were two persons inside the room and are sitting beside the sleeping Anchovy. It was the blonde Anzio girl, Carpaccio. And surprisingly, Captain Ami Chouno is there as well beside Anchovy. They both show the same concern they had with Anchovy. When they both saw Miho and Maho came in, they were beyond surprised to see them here. But knowing that Miho is the room, who is Anchovy's girlfriend. Things will be getting worse from here.

"Miho-san, Maho-san," Carpaccio began as they both stood off from their seats. "You're here."

"Ms. Carpaccio, Ms. Chouno," Miho greeted them with her head bowed. "I never thought you'll be here."

"I know," Ami agreed with a nod.

Miho stepped forward, approaching the sleeping Anchovy as Maho stood back from her sister. "Is she alright?" Maho asked.

"She's fine," Carpaccio replied, sighed in relief. "She just passed out from the wounds she got. Well… she's already passed out before I got her here."

Miho only stood idly to hear that, her eyes never leave Anchovy's tired and sleepy face. "What happened?"

Carpaccio and Ami looked back at Maho who stood back, they can tell that Miho's presence here is really unnerving them. Alas, Carpaccio tells her what happened. "She's nearly a way back home after she's onboard Anzio. But she got mugged by some thugs."

Miho able to look at Carpaccio after she told her, before looking up to Ami who has her laptop on her thighs. "I got the tape recording of the mugging in my laptop. I got it from the surveillance camera in one of the alley halfway to Anchovy's home."

The surveillance camera in this year, unlike the future she was in before had a slight historical difference. Aside the fact that the future timeline Miho had in the VTR (Video Tape Recorder) was developed in 1963 for Television show purposes. The VTR of this world's year had a development to become a CCTV camera. The VTR of the CCTV version is to be used on a said location and records everything it sees in that direction. Despite the fact that the VTR-CCTV could record everything in 24 hours span, it has its own downsides. After the 24 span, the tape has to be replaced in the CCTV so it can be functioned again. Hence the tapes for the VTR-CCTV Only has the limit for 24 hours to this day, and it needs constant replacement to do it which is exhausting.

Miho took her seat as Ami opened up her laptop. Ami finds the file for a moment before she's giving it to Miho who is ready to look the video. After the laptop is sitting on her lap she sighed to herself to be ready for what is she going to watch, with her sister, Carpaccio and Ami stood and sat close to her. Miho stares blankly at the laptop for a moment, before at last playing the video that Ami gave her.

It shows a recording of a wide alleyway next to a road, the camera was in the alleyway. The day was bright in the CCTV which could give a clear insight on who involved in this recording. And that's when they saw what happened in the CCTV. They could see Anchovy hastily went inside the alleyway, along with two stalkers right behind her. Though, she stops on her tracks to know that there were other two muggers in the alley in front of her.

That's the mugging began. Them muggers began to pinned her down to a wall and demanded to give them everything she had. As those muggers are trying to rob her, Anchovy fought them back by either punching them and pushing them away. Miho was glad to see that Anchovy was struggling hard against the muggers in that video. Though, that's when one particular robber pulled out his knife.

The man was a 5' 3" tall, white skinned man and has a distinctive golden piercing on his left ear. The bastard had a lean face with a softly shaped jaw, a pointed nose, and medium lips. His dark orange eyes are wide and he has thin eyebrows. He has a short black slick hair that styled to Asian Undercut. He has a thick neck, slanted shoulders, toned arms and slender hands, a broad torso, round hips, long legs, and large feet. He was wearing his punk outfit consists of blue jeans jacket, dark brown pants and black T-shirt with a sign of Anarchy on it.

He knife-pointed at Anchovy, but still Anchovy resisted. Anchovy kicked him back in his stomach as she struggled against the other muggers who tried to hold her down. Though, that's when the bastard with the knife took his chance. He immediately stabbed Anchovy deep into her stomach. Everyone who watched this recoiled in shock, but for Miho, her face stayed cold to watch this. This set something else up inside her.

The fire inside of her.

They watch the bastard pulled out his from her stomach before they let her drop to the ground, succumbing to her wound. Before the muggers even got the chance to rob her, they heard a loud whistle from outside the alley way near the exit. They all looked that way and found out that there were about 4 cops along with Carpaccio herself running up to them. The muggers were pretty surprised to see them coming, and they immediately dispersed away from the alley to reach the other exit of the alley and out of bounds from the camera. An officer and Carpaccio immediately try to tend the bleeding Anchovy as the other officers ran off after the bastards, they were out of sight from the camera. And then… that's it… the record ends.

The silence filled the room, no other sound than the old EKG machine itself. So that's how it all happened, that's what had had happened to Anchovy until she's in the hospital right now. Miho can't believe it in her own eyes. She should have come with her to escort her home. She should have been there to protect her. And she had left her to her own device.

This was all her fault.

Miho only stares into a blank space, whilst asking a dreary question to Ami without looking. "Do you recognized any of them, Captain Ami?"

Ami didn't say anything for a moment, before slowly replying. "The man with the knife. Mayoki Tanosuke. He's a criminal who is with a dangerous gang."

"I see…" Miho simply replied in her cold voice.

Miho only stood off her seat, giving the laptop back to Ami. Miho give a long glance at the sleeping Anchovy and then looked over to everyone else in the room. Before she turned around slowly, and headed for the door. Maho, Carpaccio and Ami began to worry about what is Miho doing.

"Miho, where are you going?" Maho asked, making Miho to stop in front of the door.

Miho only turned her head a little to her left, looking over through her shoulder. And she replies coldly. "Finishing what had happened today… that had Anchovy to be wounded in her bed, right now."

Miho then slowly looked back to the door, and then walked out the room. Carpaccio and Ami slowly began to stood off from their seats as Maho looked at Ami before looking back at the door in concern. Carpaccio didn't know what Miho actually meant, but Maho and Ami are starting to worry about what Miho is up to.

"Miho, wait!" Ami called out as she and Maho quickly ran out through the door into the hallway.

Though, when they reached the hallway, she's already gone. It was impossible for Miho to disappear that fast because the elevator is pretty far away from Anchovy's room. Ami had to admit that she's gone just like Ghost. They actually don't know where the hell she went.

"Where did she go?" Ami asked as they looked around.

"I don't know," Maho replied with a shook. "She never gone off like that before."

Ami just shrugged as Maho endlessly looked around them from their spot. They've been in that spot for 10 seconds before they gave up to find Miho. Carpaccio then seen leaning out the door behind them. She's already concern to know Maho and Ami lost her.

"She's gone?" Carpaccio asked.

"I'm afraid so," Maho replied with a frowned nod. "Just get back and sat down near Anchovy."

"Alright," Carpaccio replied with a nod, before she returned back into the room.

Ami just sighed before looking at Maho. "Now what?"

*BRI-RI-RI-RI-RI-RI-RING*

Both of them surprised of that sound. It was Ami's phone after she pulled it out from her jacket. When they checked who's calling them, they were amazed to know it was Ghost that is calling them. Ami immediately answer the phone and put it on speaker due to the empty hallway.

"Ghost?" Ami called in question.

"Captain Ami, I just want to ask," Ghost began immediately to the point. "Captain Nishizumi just called me and immediately asked for Mayoki Tanosuke's profile."

Maho and Ami widen their eyes and opened their mouths to the revelation. "Along with the known dangerous gang called the Moeru Okane, or Burning Money in English and I had to give her the location of that gang. Before she suddenly close my call. What the bloody hell is going on with Miho, Ami?"

Maho and Ami looked at each other for a moment, before Ami replies. "Something happened today, Ghost."

Ghost just gave a 'huh' in the phone, he was actually surprised. "Is there something happening today that made Miho angry?"

"Ghost…" Maho paused for a moment, contemplating for a moment to answer this. "It's about her girlfriend, Anchovy."

"What?" Ghost already knew this was bad. "What happened?"

"She's been robbed. She's in the hospital now, had a deep stab-wound before she passed out. Thankfully she's alive," Ami answered, trying to stay calm according to her posture. "Apparently… the one who stabbed Anchovy is actually Mayokai Tanosuke himself."

There was only a pause from Ghost, before he said something in fear. "Oh no."

"What's with the oh no?" Maho asked with her eyebrows raised.

"She's not with you?" Ghost asked quickly.

"No, she just gone from this floor for like 5 seconds," Ami replied with a shook. "Why?"

"Bloody hell…" Ghost commented apprehensively. "She's going to retaliate."

Maho raised an eyebrow to this, with her eyes narrowed. "Retaliate? What do you mean?"

It took Ami for a moment to realize what he meant. "Maho, she's going to kill everyone in that gang."

Maho froze as she stares at her in shock, what the hell she just said? "What!?"

"Kuso!" Ami cursed to herself. "We're going ahead for Miho."

"No, don't," Ghost immediately responded. "She's already long gone by now. I'll get someone else to find her."

"What?!" Maho protested on this. "And what do you expect us to do!?"

"I want you to keep an eye on Anchovy," Ghost replied calmly. "Make sure nothing else happened to her. Do that for your own sister, Maho. I'll handle on finding her."

Maho reluctantly looked up to Ami with half-disagreement. But because the case was that Miho is angry about what happened to her girlfriend… He's right, they need to keep their eyes on Anchovy to make sure she's still alright.

"Alright," Maho replied at last with a nod. "We'll keep an eye on her. Just make sure she gets back alright."

"Okay, Maho," Ghost replied. "Be safe." Then he closed his call.

Ami pocketed her phone with a sighed. Can't believe all of this happened in a day. But they both really hoped for the best for Miho, hoping that she gets back unharmed. They both only looked at each other in discontent.

"I really don't like this," Maho frowned to the thought.

"I know, but I'm sure Ghost will find her before everything's too late," Ami assured her with a small smile. "Let's get back inside."

Maho nodded to her. "Alright, I hope there's a drink inside."

The only thing they can do only to supervise Anchovy's recovery. Maho cannot to stop bother about her younger sister. She wasn't sure if she will be get back unharmed. Though, there's one thing that might be right about Miho.

Her rage is burning.


	52. Chapter 49 - One Girl Rampage

Somewhere in Pravda School Ship. 16:30 PM.

*BADUUUM-DUMM… CTAR!*

Angry dark clouds looms over the Pravda School Ship, in which no light shone from above. Heavy tears of the nature came falling down onto the streets of Pravda, banging and hitting onto the cars, streets, rooftops and buildings. Breezing winds flying along the streets and alleys of the building as if the calm has passed into the coming storm. And most of the streets are empty due to the storms and how unwilling people are to drive their vehicles around in this storm.

Looking over to a very particular empty street in the middle of the Pravda city, a lone active black car is parked on the edge of the road. Its headlights are on to indicate a certain person is waiting on that street in this rainy day. A person, a predator, waiting for the prey to come out from its hiding. That person, the scarred-eye girl, sitting in the driver seat as she looked through the window next to her. Patiently spying around the area from her car and patiently preparing herself to kill her target.

Her cold, fury, relentless figure could not be affected by the storm of the day nor the sound of thunder raging throughout the city. In her heart, she was very glad that no one else is around this street and also the continuing path into a block of the area. Her target is here, this is where the dangerous gang of Moeru Okane took their place. This is the day when they will be killed, destroyed, and vanquished. Vanquished by a wrath of a single girl, who is a veteran soldier and warrior of 141.

By the Banshee herself.

She already prepped herself up to kill her target, and against the whole gang who are responsible for harming her lover, Anchovy. But not only that, she also needs to retain her anonymity in case she became a target of a dangerous faction. She already prepared, arms to bear to kill all of 'em. The only thing that Macmillan and Price ever taught her by words.

She has her black cap on her head, clear tactical glasses and her balaclava tied around her neck. She has a dark green Scalable Plate Carrier (SPC) Kevlar Vest which grants more mobility but offers less protection, along with ammo pouches on the bottom of the vest and some pouches and a radio on the back of her vest. She wears a black TRU-SPEC combat shirt and a grey urban camo combat pants. Her outfit was designed to withstand the cold weather for a moment so she won't be bothered soaked. She has a pistol holster on her right leg and a knife on the chest of her vest.

She has an assault rifle called the HK416 on her hands, full of ammo and attached with bayonet and front grip. She puts it on her thigh as she calmly putting 5.56x45mm NATO rounds into the magazine. She has her Five-Seven Pistol locked in her holster. Aside from that, she has her Frag Grenade and Flashbangs ready in case to deal with a crowd of them.

Yes, she literally brought her frag grenades to kill them in a public area.

Still, this is what she came for. To pay the bastards for what have they done to whom she loves. A kind of thing that Miho won't let it go away just like that. The kind of thing that brings the wrath of the Lord with her. And now… it's time to settle some problems with them.

Miho The Banshee puts the last mag into her ammo pouch, and preached to herself.

"Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them."

Miho only took a sigh, before opening the door next to her and got off the car. Closing the door of the car behind her before slowly and calmly walks over to a wide alley in between houses. All the while the storming rain clashes unto her, whilst she ignores the cold of the rain with the her heart of fire. Only kept stepping forward onto the alley as she covers her face with her bandana. Keeping her eyes forward as she relied on sense of hearing to locate her target, ignoring the sound of the rain to hear it.

Echolocating the target.

It didn't take her long to find her target, or more correct, multiple targets. She saw 4 shady people in hoody jackets in front of her, talking each other with their backs facing to her. She heard them talking about who are they going to do next, some kind of blackmailing job. They armed for sure, she saw two of them have pistols concealed in their pants.

The Banshee stopped, aims her rifle at them and shouts. "Moeru Okane!"

The gangsters are surprised of that, with all of them turn around and one of them commented cockily. "Oh, we got an idiot who mess with-."

When they saw her rifle ready to fire, they quickly went panic. "Kuso!"

"What the-!?"

"Ittai dare ga soreda?!"

"Hashire!"

Two of them were reaching for their pistols while the other wanted to run. Unfortunately for them, before they managed to start running and pulled their pistols, the Banshee opened fire first.

*DRRRRRRRRRRT-TAR*

Just one quick rapid fire, she took them all down without difficulty. She then slowly lowers her rifle and walked over to the dead gangsters ahead to get a clear look. As a pool of blood formed from the dead punks and blurred by the rain, her black eyes look over to the faces of the bastards. To her unsatisfactory, her target Tanosuke is not here. Just some Moeru Okane punks who happens to be here in the right place and in the wrong time.

(Vengeance - Zack Hemsey)

She stood there for a moment, before moving up walking over the dead hostiles. There's no need for her to rush in and find the bastards, Everyone in the vicinity of the area should have heard the gunshots and the gangsters will be coming up to her. She just lets them to come find her themselves, so she won't be exhausted running around finding them. Maybe Moeru Okane is a dangerous gang, but the fact now is that the lion is actually walking into a den of sheeps.

Not too long as she took a calm walk, she heard their footsteps in the middle of the loud rain. They are up ahead, and approx. for about 100 meters from her. She immediately fast walked forward and entered an open area in between apartment buildings. She immediately took cover behind a sturdy tree and aimed her rifle to her 12 o'clock.

There they are, right up ahead. A group of 10 gangsters approaching fast to her position with pistols in their hands. They didn't even notice if Miho is hiding behind the tree in front of them. When they got close to her, she commenced the attack. She squeezed the trigger with a strong grip.

*DRRRRRRRRRRT-TAR*

In an instant, 4 of the gangsters get shot and killed on the spot, startling the remaining 6 gangsters who immediately went for cover ahead. Covering behind the walls of an entrance ahead of Miho. Then the bastards began to return fire at her, who was not even bothered to avoid a bullet narrowly missing her. She returned fire again at them, only to miss because her bullets hits the walls and bullet shot a thug's shoulder but still alive.

She pulls her upper body back to cover and quickly swing her rifle to her right side by the trigger grip, letting the empty magazine flew away. She then immediately loads in a fresh magazine onto the slot and cocked it. She then quickly peeks out and return fire onto them. In a couple of bursts, she killed other 3 hostiles with headshots.

The remaining bastards are shooting back at her. Blindly shooting back at her their pistols out of cover. Though, they knew they are running out of men to defeat just one girl in front of them. They shouted at each other in panic, telling to each other they need to fall back to get more reinforcement to kill her. They returned fire at Miho as she did the same, before they began running away from her. Miho managed to shot another one in the back.

As the two routed enemies managed to fall back from her, she slowly advanced forward with finger off the trigger. There's bound to be more of them than a handful of gangsters here. After the routed enemies was off from her sight, she followed them down for about 40 feet forward before making a turn to her left towards another wide alley. The alley is still in between the buildings, with the building on her left has the balconies from top to the bottom. More than that, the path ahead of Miho contains 4 square concrete pots wide and big enough to offer medium protection for her.

*DOR-DOR-DOR*

She immediately receiving incoming fire up ahead. Miho only advanced forward with her rifle firing at the bastards, whilst ignoring the bullets that are barely missed her by her stomach. She then crouched down as she returned fire to the 7 gangsters ahead of her. 2 of them covering behind a wall pass the other concrete pots, 3 of them standing out in the open, and the last two shooting from behind an abandoned car past the wall. All of them using pistols and Uzis. She bowed down to cover from the incoming bullets.

Her attention went for the car first. She pulls out her frag grenade, pulls the pin and lobbed it out towards the car. The hostiles didn't even pay attention to what she just threw as they are busy shooting bullets at her. The grenade landed underneath the car, and exploded *BUUAARRMMM*. The flaming car flies high to the air as the two gangsters who took cover at that car flown off with their arms burning. It is good enough to say that the gangsters are pretty much startled to that kind of killing.

One bastards out in the open decided to advance to her, backed up by the two thugs whom advanced and stood back behind him. Miho saw this opportunity when he gets close enough to her. When the said gangster is nearly next to her, she ran out and charged at him. Stabbing her rifle bayonet through his chest, and holds him in a neck lock with her left hand. She immediately moves forward and killed two thugs ahead through her human shield, before throwing his lifeless body away to her left.

She quickly moves forward pass the concrete pots and returned fire to the enemies behind the wall. She managed to kill one with a headshot, but her rifle ran out of bullets. Miho quickly switched to her sidearm and holds the barrel of her rifle with her left hand. When the last gangster peeks out from the wall, he already received 3 shots to the chest from her. Miho quickly holstered her pistol and reloads her rifle.

Miho kept moving forward, training her rifle forward and above her. Despite the rain, she could sensed where they are. She took a path to her left through a tight alleyway. Maybe she couldn't move freely in there, but for sure no one is going to take this path. After exiting the short alleyway, she takes a turn left again towards a wide path with a street on its right. And still no civilians insight, which means the gangsters must have cleared them out of here or they already long gone from this area.

She advanced forward right near the street next to her, using the large trees planted near the street and the fences as advantages for cover. Miho kept moving forward through the cover as she aims her rifle to her left above her. Keeping an eye on the balconies of the apartment building beside her. Though, she quickly stopped and took cover at the last tree that is far away from the building ahead of her, prompting herself to keep her eyes on the apartment building on her left as she had sensed something.

And she was right, some 4 bastards showed up on the second floor on two separate balconies. She didn't bother to take cover as she returned fire as well at them. A bullet narrowly miss her as she managed to kill two bastards in the head on the first balcony. Miho immediately took cover from the incoming Uzi bullets, and pulls out her another frag grenade. She waited for them to ran out of ammo for a moment.

*CLICK-CLICK*

It was her time to act.

She quickly peeks out from behind the tree, pull the pin of the frag and immediately lobbed it to the second floor. Accurately landing inside the said balcony. When the bastards looked down on what just landed on their balcony, their expressions are rather priceless. Before one of them could scream, *BOOM* the grenade exploded and two bastards blown off from the second floor. Landing hard on their backs and their pools of blood formed like magic at their own death landing. Miho then moved out from cover and headed for the building apartment where the bastards came from.

She approached the building, passing the cars parked near it. She immediately found a the front door there and stacked at it. While her rifle is aiming forward at the door, her left hand reached for the knob and open it slowly as she entered. She was just actually being cautious, not hoping to have an element of surprise. It is somehow comforting to see no one is in the hallway near the front door, including the receptionist himself.

She advanced forward from the open door she left, going down the hallway to find a path upstairs. Though, she suddenly receiving gunfire from ahead and quickly took cover at the left gap of the hallway that has a closed door. Two bastards ahead, one on left and one on right. Thankfully, the gaps they used for cover wasn't enough to hide their arms, shoulders and a quarter of their backs. She immediately peeks out and shot them both with ease, one on the left got shot thrice in the back and the last one got shot in the shoulder before hitting his head which killing him instantly.

With them dead, she advanced forward with her rifle trained ahead. There was no sound she detected from either rooms around her and from the stairs ahead. She closes in to the stairs on her right and immediately peeks out and aimed up the stairs. The coast is clear for now, so she proceeded upstairs with her rifle trained without any incident. When she was about to take a right turn from the stairs however, she suddenly reacted faster after three of the gangsters popped up in that hallway. Killing two without hard effort and wounding one in his arm and his leg.

Miho sends in another rounds of bullet, but missed him after he made it to cover into a gap of an apartment. Miho lets her rifle hanging on her front as she pulls out a knife from her holster. She fast walked onto the covering enemy, and able to get close within an arm's reach. The bastards is resting his back against his cover, as he was about to blindly aimed his pistol out of cover with his left hand. Miho immediately grabbed his hand armed with pistol, forcing him to point to his sideway. Before Miho quickly pulls him out of cover to her left side and stabbed him in the neck, killing him instantly.

After threw his dead body to her left by her knife, she holsters it back and reloads her rifle. She kept advancing down the halls before making a left when reaching the end of the hallway. The short hallway is still clear as she's about to make another turn to her left. As traverse down the next hallway, she ended meeting two paths in front of her. The one on her left leads her back to the stairs where she came from, and the other one leads her forward deeper into the building. She decided to choose the path forward, wanting to seek more of the bastards deep into the building.

She wants to make sure none of them is still standing, even if it just one of them.

Miho continue forward down the hall, there are other two paths up ahead. Another path to the left and another path forward. There's actually other exit to the ground floor from here, the other staircase is located on the path forward. She wanted to check the other floor upstairs, since this building only had three floors. She began pacing forward to that path, sensing nothing else is in this floor.

Though, as she was about to enter the path forward. Her peripheral vision immediately noticed there is a door on the left end of the hallway quickly closed itself. Feeling that was an enemy trying to hide from her, she immediately aimed her rifle to her left and shoots at the door. Sending three bullets through the right part of the door, with two bullet holes were next to the door knob. She ran down the left hallway and reached the door.

She quickly kicked the door open violently, and then aims her rifle down to the person who tried to hide from her.

Only to found out that the person she shot was someone she wasn't expecting to be.

The person she just shot was a girl from Pravda Girls' High School. She had suffered a gunshot wound to her stomach, thankfully the other two bullets hit the wall next to them. She is still alive, but shudder in fear and pain from her wound. The girl seems to only gasps, afraid if the Banshee will kill her if she screams. Miho slowly avert her eyes up to the girl's face. Something about her blonde hair and her face made her to be familiar to be someone.

Terrifyingly, Miho just shot Klara.

She just shot a civilian, who is her friend. What has she done?

As her rifle aiming at her, she could fear in her eyes. Frozen, scared, and speechless for her life. Klara slowly shook her head at her, begging to not kill her. Klara only holds onto her wound, not even said a bloody thing to the Banshee. Afraid if Miho herself flips out.

"Klara, what was that?" someone calls out from inside the room, before coming into view in front of them. "Are you oka-?"

Miho quickly aims her rifle forward from the wounded Klara, abruptly stopping two persons to coming closer to them. It shocked her more to see Nonna and Katyusha are also in here. Both were dismayed and froze to see Klara wounded and frightened to have the 141 Operator aiming her rifle at them. Why the hell they were here in the first place? This wasn't the right time and the right place for them to be here.

"M-my gosh…" Katyusha stammered lowly, hiding behind Nonna. "Klara…"

Both Nonna and Katyusha took a step back, and slowly raised their hands in the air. "Please…" Nonna said lowly to her.

"Don't shoot…" Katyusha pleaded, her agitation was noticeable for everyone.

"Take everything you want," Nonna convinced her in fear, Miho looked down at Klara without moving her rifle. "Just don't kill us. And leave her alone… I beg you…"

The Banshee's face soften under her balaclava, then looked back at Nonna. "Please… we won't tell anyone… just take anything and leave us alone."

"Please…" Klara pleaded in pain, tears were visible in her eyes. "We didn't do anything wrong…"

Their fear reminded Miho of herself. Who she was back in the past. Without a single word, she slowly lowers her rifle to show them that she is not a threat. They can't believe that the riflewoman lowered her weapon away from them. Even the wounded Klara herself wondered why she moved away her rifle from them. The masked-balaclava soldier bowed her head with a sigh, feeling guilt within her heart.

The Banshee then looks back at all of them, giving her pitiful look. "I'm sorry."

They all are surprised of what she just said. But for Nonna, she was more startled by the familiarity of the voice she made. Miho, leaving her rifle hanging on her front, began to unmasks her balaclava first. Before she reached for her cap and got it off her head, holding it in her hand. Their eyes including the wounded Klara became wide to see who she is in front of them.

"Mi-Miho?!" Katyusha asked, sour-frightened look on her face. "W-what-?"

Nonna steps forward, leaving Katyusha behind a bit. "Miho… w-why did you… wha-?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean this to happen," Miho answered back with a shook.

"So those gunshots…" Katyusha trailed off for a moment, before looking back at her. "That was you?"

"Yes, it was me," Miho admitted with a nod.

Nonna stares at her for a moment in anger, before looking down at Klara and gestured her hand to her. "T-then why did you shoot her?"

"I thought she was an enemy," Miho replied, then sighed to herself in disappointment. "I'm sorry, Klara."

Klara slowly get her upper body off the floor, with Katyusha quickly helped to get comfortable while she is wounded. Klara only looked up at her and in disbelieve, asked. "Who are you…?"

As Miho was pondering about should she tell her or not, Nonna saw someone coming up behind Miho. And the bastard has his gun trained at Miho.

"Look out!"

*DOR*

Nonna and Miho quickly ducked down, with Miho ended up sitting against a wall next to her. She quickly pulls out her pistol and aimed it at him.

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

She shot his chest and stomach, before he immediately drops dead on the spot. That freaked Nonna, Klara, and Katyusha out to know Miho just killed him right in front of them. Though, Miho saw no hesitation on that, but the girls can't believe Miho just killed someone. Miho quickly gets up on her feet with Nonna and Katyusha are crouching with the wounded Klara. Miho cautiously moved up the door and peeks out with her pistol aimed down both of the hallways. The area is still clear, but they would come over soon enough.

Miho quickly walks back over to the wounded Klara and crouched down. "The coast is clear, but they'll come back soon."

"Was that *cough* the Moeru Okane?" Klara asked as she holds her wound.

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod.

Katyusha just her shook head to that, her face show a sign of trauma. "They really are around this area. You-you shouldn't have fight them."

"I know," Miho then reaches for the back of her left shoulder because she felt an odd sensation there. "Nonna, is there something on my shoulder?"

Nonna leans in and checked her shoulder, and she frowned to it. "О Господи, you've been shot."

Miho only sighed, happy that she was the one who got shot instead of her friends. "I'll be fine."

"Wha- are you crazy?" Katyusha asked in disbelieve. "We need to tend your wound!"

"And so is Klara," Miho then pulls out her first aid kit and opened it. "You know about first aid care?"

"Yes, we do," Katyusha replied with a nod with little doubt, as Klara controls her breathing due to pain.

"Can you both treat her?" Miho asked again, which made the girls including the wounded Klara confused.

"Y-yes," Nonna replied in concern. "But what about you?"

"I need to make sure this area is clear," Miho replied as she cocked her gun and looked over to Klara.

"Wha- you're going to leave us here?!" Katyusha asked nervously and afraid.

"Only for a moment," Miho replied as she looked up to her. "Just make sure Klara is alright. And Nonna?"

"Yes?" Nonna asked as Katyusha began tending Klara's wound, wondering what Miho wants.

Miho then pulled out her Five-Seven pistol, and gave it to her. "Take this."

"Что?" Nonna asked in surprised, but reluctantly takes it from her. "Ookay…"

"It has 13 rounds left," Miho then pulled out a pistol magazine and gives it to her. "Here's an extra if you're out of ammo. I hope you know how to use a handgun."

"I…" Nonna paused for a moment, before nodding. "Yes, but I-."

"I know," Miho replied softly. "Just shoot if it's necessary."

Nonna just looked at the pistol she gave, she shows concern and doubt to that. "But, Miho…"

"What is it?" Miho asked, as her senses still on alert.

"You… you're going to kill them," Nonna stated, sensing the guilt that Miho would do.

Miho understands the way she says it, and she won't hide the fact about it. "I need to finish this whole trouble I have made."

Miho looked back at the open door behind her, before looking back at Nonna again. "I'll be back. Close the door behind me and make sure no one gets through until you know it's me."

"Alright," Nonna replied with a nod. "Be careful."

Miho nodded back at her, before standing up and prepped her rifle at the ready and her cap and balaclava wore up. Miho walked back at the door and peeks out with her rifle. Seeing the hallways are clear, she moves out from the door and Nonna immediately closes the door behind her. Nonna, Katyusha and the wounded Klara are safe, for now. For this time being, Miho needs to clear out the rest of the building before she can move them out from the building back to her car.

She advanced forward down the hall in front of her, before making a right turn towards the staircase. The staircase has the option to go upstairs and downstairs. But since she clears out this floor and convinced the ground floor is clear, she's heading up to the next floor. Though, as she reached the staircase, a couple of thugs with pistols run down the stairs straight to her. A bad thing however, they both able to notice Miho was right in front of them after they nearly reached the bottom of the stairs, and immediately get riddled with bullets. They dropped dead as they tumbled down the stairs, landing their faces first when they reached the floor.

She aims her rifle at the stairs as she walks up cautiously. She made an U-turn in the stairs before she reached the top floor. She immediately peeks out and aimed to the left hallway and immediately found 3 hostiles there who are nearly unaware of her presence. She opened fire at them, wounding one hostiles on the very front on his knee which made him fell to the floor and his gun thrown away a bit. The other two behind them got shot in the chest and shoulder, but they're still alive and able to take cover behind a corner wall and a gap of an apartment room.

The wounded thug she shot was screaming in pain as he holds his wound. Though, Miho suddenly shot him in the head, killing him instantly. The two thugs recoiled in surprised and returned fire at Miho with their pistols. Miho returned fire at them to suppressed them before she able to move forward and gunning them down. She was already in point blank range to the thugs, but they didn't able to react in time to shoot her after they peeked out from cover. Miho shot the first one near her that is covering behind a corner wall in the chest.

Before Miho holds her rifle in one hand like she's using it as a javelin spear, then threw it at the gangster peeking out from his cover. The bayonet of her rifle stabbed through his left chest to his back. His screams cut short as he was stabbed by a thrown rifle, he fell back down while his hand armed with pistol pulls the trigger at the ceiling twice. She runs over at the dead man near the apartment and yanked her rifle out of his chest. Another bastard pops out at the of the hallway in front of her and tried to shoot her with a Uzi. Unfortunately for him, he missed to the wall of Miho's left and she returned fire at him and killed him in a second.

Miho reloaded her rifle with another new magazine and cocked it. Though, when she was about to turn around.

*DOR-DOR*

She received gunshots from behind her, coming from the corner wall of the right hallway she passed. Her back was shot twice from that attack, but she's still standing firm. She only groaned lowly in pain and turned around to behind her, immediately shot him dead in the head. She immediately turns around again and moved down the hallway, before making a turn to the right at the end of the hallway. Miho kept moving down the hallways, encountering hostiles on the way but she managed to kill them all with no problem.

*DRRRRT-DRRRT-DRT-DRRRT-DRRRT-DRRRT-DDRRRRRRRRRT*

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

*TRRRRRRRRRRRTT*

*DRT-TRRRRTT-DRRRRRTT*

It was real quick and it was no problem for her. She killed for about 14 of them in the last floor of the building. There are only 3 bastards left surviving in this floor. The bastards have decided to hide in one of the empty apartments. They need to be exterminated in order to get the Pravda girls out from this building safely.

She managed to found where the bastards are hiding. There's one particular apartment's door that seemed to have been opened recently. She stacks up at the closed door and put her ear on the wall next to her. She could hear them, they're trapped and don't know how to deal with the soldier girl they're facing with. Though, she could hear them shouting through the door.

"Anata jishin o misete, anata wa baka!" one of the gunmen shouted through the door.

"Watashi ga anata o korosu koto ga dekiru yō ni haitte ki nasai!" the other gunmen shouted through the door.

They just asked her to come in to the room. She'll do it with pleasure.

She lets her rifle hanging on her front to take a hold on one of her flashbang. She then pulls the pin of the flashbang as she kicked the door open by swinging her foot from front to back at the door. After it breaks open, she quickly throws the Flashbang into the room. *BANG* And she immediately storms the room. Quickly unleashed a rain of bullets on the stunned enemies who couldn't even pull their triggers in the midst of blindness and deafness. In a moment, the hostiles dropped dead as Miho stood closer to them in the middle of the room.

To Miho's wonder, there were only two dead gangsters here. She missed one.

She looked around her in 180 degrees in front of her to see if that last bastard is still hiding around her. Though, she doesn't realize there was someone is right behind her. When lifted her head up to look at the mirror in front of her, she found an enemy behind her is about to aim his pistol at her. Miho quickly turns around and quickly aimed it behind her. It's a split second for them both to see who pulls the trigger first.

*DOR*

In the end, none of them even pulled a trigger. But the gunman was suddenly shot in the head from behind him. That avoids her from pulling the trigger and lower her rifle instead, as the gunman only stood there dead. Before the dead gunman fell to his knees and dropped his pistol, before finally dropping his body forward with a thud. Miho then looked up at the person who shot him.

To her surprise, Nonna was standing there with the pistol she's holding is aiming forward.

She could tell, Nonna is pretty shaken on what she just did. She's just a teenage girl, a calm and gentle person she was, but she was never one to kill people. Miho could see it In her eyes, there was hesitation within her eyes went he killed the bastard. But she just did it anyway, just to save Miho from getting shot. That sense of guilt fills within her eyes.

Miho lowers her rifle and opens her balaclava, then walks up to Nonna who was still shaken and hasn't lower the gun. "Why are you here? I told you to stay with Klara."

"I…" Nonna stammered, then slowly lowers the pistol from Miho. "I thought you need my help."

"Yeah, you did just fine," Miho replied with a nod, checking the dead man she shot temporarily. "Are you okay?"

"I…" Nonna stares at the dead body, she can't believe what she just did. "I Killed him..."

Miho only stared at her, until Nonna able to look back at her. "I know."

Nonna is still bothered about it, Miho then holds her shoulder. "It's alright, you did the right thing."

Nonna nodded at her, then looks back at the dead men, before looking back up at her. "We should get back to Klara and Katyusha."

Miho sighed and nodded in reply. "Let's go."

Miho then followed Nonna back down to the second floor. Nonna wasn't sure if the building is safe for them, but Miho managed to assure her that the coast is clear. Miho knew that Nonna shouldn't have leave Klara and Katyusha like that. But she did it for a good reason. She knew Nonna is a girl just like her, but she was no soldier and she was thankful for that.

They managed to reach back at the said apartment Katyusha and Klara are in. They entered the apartment and closed the door immediately, worried that some of them might come around unexpectedly. Both Katyusha and Klara were still in the hall near the door, with a knife was prepared on the floor in between them in case of self-defense. Miho and Nonna crouched down and looked over to Klara's bandaged wound. Miho got to admit, they did a good job to bandaged her wound.

Miho looks over to them both and also Nonna, they were still frightened about what's going on. But Miho was confident that she could get them out from here.

"Alright, we need to get you ladies out of here," Miho said to them in her assuring tone. "Klara, can you walk?"

"I think so," Klara groaned as she held her bandaged wound. "But it still hurts."

"Alright," Miho then looks up to Nonna. "Can you get her up?"

"Da," Nonna replied with a nod.

Miho then looked at Katyusha, who just began to ask. "And what about me?"

"You just stay behind me," Miho replied, reloading her rifle in the process. "And help Klara if needed."

"Okay," Katyusha replied awkwardly with a nod.

"Good, let's go."

Miho quickly stood back at the door, while Nonna lent a hand across Klara's shoulders. "I got you," Nonna said to Klara softly.

"Grrrh," Klara stifled in pain, but she was able to get on her feet with Nonna's support.

"I think we're ready," Katyusha stated, though she felt weary from this whole ordeal.

"Okay, Nonna, you're ready with that pistol?" Miho asked to the girl who's holding Klara up her feet.

Nonna's left hand has the gun, she just inspect it for a moment as she make sure Klara's grip is steady on her shoulders. "Yes, Miho."

"Alright, stick close," Miho then opens the door and checked the hallway with her rifle. "And stay behind me."

Miho was the first to come out from that apartment, followed by Katyusha and then Nonna and Klara. They followed Miho back to where she came from ahead, making a right turn toward the staircase. They walked downstairs, making a U-turn before reaching the ground floor. Miho checked the hallways first by peeking out from cover with her rifle, before she lets them know it is clear. They then followed Miho, they are heading for the front door of the apartment. They are out of the building and stepped onto an empty parking lot, ignoring the cold of rain out there.

That's when they found out they just stepped into a trap.

They immediately stopped in their tracks, with Miho aimed her rifle forward. Right in front of them, is a small army of Moeru Okane gangsters. 10 plus gangsters with pistols, Uzis and a couple of SMGs were aimed at them. Miho should've seen them coming, now they can't avoid this trap. Katyusha, Klara and Nonna frozen in spot to be trapped like this.

"Oh no," Nonna sighed, she can't believe this could happen to them.

"What should we do now?" Katyusha asked to Miho without looking at her, she was afraid to move a step.

"Just stay calm," Miho replied soflty. "Stay calm."

"Well, well, what do we have here?" a gangster said out, appears to be the leader of the group in front them.

Though, Miho recognized the face when he stood in front of his gang. "Mayokai Tanosuke, what a surprise."

Tanosuke himself was rather surprised to hear that, but he shuffled it away with a laugh. "Ha ha, I didn't see that coming. I don't know you was looking for me."

Miho just stayed silent, letting him talked all he wants. "But is a shame, you think you could get out from here like that? Don't even think I'll let these girls out of here after I deal with you."

The Pravda girls shivered at that, they worriedly and in afraid looked back at Miho. With Klara groaned in pain from her wound. "We'll see about it."

"Oh really?" Tanosuke laughs again loudly, then gestured his men with his hand in the air. "Sā, otokonoko."

The gangsters are all ready to pull the triggers, with Tanosuke only stood there with an evil smile in his face. Miho has little time to think how to get out from this situation, and how to get the girls out from harms way.

Before any of them could pull a trigger, there was a loud sound among the rain.

*FWWEEEEET*

"Huh?" Everyone including Tanosuke himself then look at where the sound came from, it came from Miho's right.

*BRATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATTA*

*TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT*

*DRRT-DRRRRRT-DRRRT-DDRRRRT*

In a blink of an eye, the whole Moeru Okane army and Tanosuke himself quickly gunned down to dead. Miho was surprised to see that coming, while the Pravda girls were all frightened to what just happened. They all looked back at the dead Moeru Okane gang, Katyusha felt she wanted to puke to see them drilled with bullets like that. Nonna and Klara on the other hand, couldn't believe what just happened. Someone just saved their lives.

They were quickly startled by the sound of running footsteps from their right. Miho was quick to aim her rifle at the oncoming people on to them. But she when she saw three particular individuals running up at them, she recognized the gears they had especially the Kevlar vests so she lowers her rifle down. Though, Miho was also surprised to recognized the saviors that she wasn't expecting to be. The three people who saved them were from Ooarai thanks to their recognizable skirt. And those people weren't someone she was expecting to be when they got close to them.

"you guys okay?" the muscular girl asked to them as she holds her M249 in her hands, that's Murakami.

"We're good," Miho replied with a nod. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?"

"Saving you, you crazy girl," the small girl holding the AK74 replied, that was Anzu. "What else?"

Though, Nonna, Klara and Katyusha immediately recognized who are their rescuers. "Anzu, Murakami, Ogin? Why are you-?" Nonna couldn't of something else to ask them.

"I wish the circumstances were much more better, Nonna," Ogin replied to Nonna, giving a frown to her. "What happen to Klara?"

"I… grrh… I got accidentally shot by Miho," Klara replied as she holds her wound.

The armed Ooarai girls just looked over to Miho, in disbelieve. "Just don't ask."

"At least you did your best, Miho," Anzu replied, sighed quickly as she scans the area.

"How did you know we were here?" Katyusha asked, since they just saved them in time.

"Ghost sent us," Murakami replied, something that made Miho wasn't felt so surprise. "He told us she's in trouble and we came here straight away.

"Wait, who's ghost?" Nonna asked, unfamiliar with the name.

The Ooarai girls didn't gave a reply, but when everyone begins to look back at Miho, she replies with a sigh. "It's Yurei."

Now that made the Pravda girls deadpanned, even with Klara felt more of a shiver on that instead of the pain from her wound. And they are pretty sure widen their eyes wide.

"Yurei?" Katyusha asked shakenly. "You-you mean-?"

"Yes, the soldier with the skull-mask," Miho replied flatly, she didn't leave her eyes off Katyusha. "Don't worry, he is a friend of mine."

Klara just shook her head as she groans in pain. "Really, Miho?"

*WWUIIIIIIIIIIIIIUUUUUUUWWWWW*

There's the loud siren from the distance, and they knew what it was.

"It's the police," Ogin said as she looks above them. "We need to get out from here, now."

"We need to get Klara to the hospital," Nonna said to them, she has noticed that Klara's wound is starting to bleed again through the bandage.

Miho walked over to Nonna who's holding Klara up then checks her wound. Miho is sure she's bleeding again, she then looks up at Klara. "I'll get you to the hospital."

Katyusha looked up to her in hopeful. "Really?"

"Yes," Miho nodded at her. "I'll make sure you reach there safe and sound."

"I think we should go along," Anzu suggested, still worried about Miho.

"No, I want you to return home," Miho ordered flatly as she turns her head at them, they looked surprised.

"What? But-" Murakami was then quickly cuts off by Miho.

"This all happened because of me," Miho said to them quickly. "I don't want you to be involved in this trouble."

"No, we're not going back until this whole thing is finished," Ogin replied back sternly with a shook.

Miho just stares at her for a moment, before scoffed to herself lowly. "Fine, let's get them out of here."

"Okay," Anzu replied with a nod, before they began to move out from that area.

They retraced their paths back to Miho's car, and apparently a car of Ogin's group. The Pravda commanders were pretty disbelieve that Miho and the Ooarai girls have their own vehicles to get out from here. Nonna felt that she doesn't have to bother if Miho or the Ooarai girls if they have a driving license. They retraced their paths back to the cars by following the dead bodies Miho had previously killed. Though, that give the nerves on how deadly Miho is.

When they reached the car, Anzu and Ogin helped Nonna to get Klara inside the car on the front seat to the driver. It's odd why Klara wanted to sit on the front, though she said that she is more comfortable on the front despite she's been wounded. Miho was about to protest, but Klara insisted that she'll be fine on the front. Miho just sighed and nodded at her, before entering the driver seat. Nonna and Katyusha sat on the passenger seat of Miho's black car while Anzu's group got inside their silver car behind Miho's.

After they're in the car, Miho starts on the car and hit the gas. With Ogin's group behind them did the same with their silver car. They drove away from that area for about several yards, before coming to a slow pace on the street. They're slowing down just in time to see the police cars were passing by them toward the area of the shootout. As the police cars fade into distance, they kept driving the cars down the road into the direction of the hospital. It's about a few blocks away from where Miho found them… hopefully.

As Miho drives the car, Klara who is now holding her own wound asked her with a painful smirk. "So… you're one of the 141, aren't you?"

Miho just stared at her for a moment, before looking back at where she is driving to. "Yes, I am."

Klara then chuckled, as she looked into the window next to her. "How did you become one of them?"

"It's a long story," Miho replied flatly. "Still, I'm doing alright until now."

"Well," Nonna began, crossing her arms as she looks at Miho from behind her seat. "I guess your leader would be angry at you."

Miho just breathes out with a tone of laugh, before replying to her. "You're actually talking to one."

That got them up quick, even Klara immediately turns her head at her. Though, Katyusha laughed it off with a shook. "You must be joking, Miho-san."

Miho could only looked at the mirror that is hanged in the middle of the front car. Katyusha and Nonna looked at that mirror as well from their seats. While Klara only looked straight at her face. Though, once the three of them noticed the cold expression that Miho made, the feeling she made in her eyes. That did make them unnerved, but…

"Nanite kotoda…" Katyusha slowly backs her head against her seat, her eyes widen. "You're not joking."

Klara just stares her in disbelieve with an open mouth, when she realized about one thing. "That's how you knew my mother."

Miho only nodded in silence, before looking back at her. "Yeah… I asked Captain Ami about you because I was curious about you long ago. Especially the part that you are a Russian from Novorsibirsk."

That made them stares at Miho for a moment, before Nonna asked. "Why are you interested with the Russian part?"

"Because I love Russians," Miho replied as she turns her head at Nonna.

There was only a temporary silence after they drive through a traffic. Only at this time when the Pravda commanders are wondering on why Miho loves the Russians. They are aware that the Americans are having the Cold War with the Russians now. But they don't know how come Miho loves Russians, despite the fact that she's actually a British-Japanese girl.

"So…" Klara breaks the ice, groans a moment for her wound. "Why did you kill them?"

"What?" Miho asked, she missed the last part.

"Why did you kill them, the Moeru Okane?" Klara asked softly, she raised an eyebrow to Miho. "Did they made you angry… or something?"

"I…" Miho paused for a moment, gathering her sanity for a moment to calm herself down.

"Miho?" Katyusha asked, she felt afraid about it. "Why did you kill them, Miho? I… I… I just can't believe you… I know they're bad, but you killed one right in front of us and I'm… I'm…"

Katyusha began to sniffle, remembering what Miho did back in that building. She maybe one leader of commanding tanks, but seeing a man killed for the first time was something she terrified to see. She never saw dead happens in front of her in her life. Nonna gives a warm hug to her, comforting and calming her down. Giving a sign that she should let Nonna continues on what she was asking.

"She's terrified, Miho-san," Nonna continued with concern and a frown, her eyes looked down for a moment. "But… yeah…"

Then Nonna avert her eyes to Miho's on the mirror in the front. "Why did you kill them on your own?"

There was a four-way traffic ahead, and it was a red light. She then stops the car at the traffic whilst the silver car behind them did the same. Miho then lets her hands off the steering wheel, leaning her back against her seat. She only blankly looked forward, before she bows her head down to herself. Miho then lifts her head up again, able to dare to looked back at Nonna and little dear Katyusha through the front mirror. They waited for her answer in silence.

Miho sighed deeply to herself with her eyes closed, before she able to reply gently. "They hurt Anchovy."

They immediately sharpen their gazes at her, as Miho continued. "She suffered a deep wound after that bastard, Tanosuke back there stabbed her a few hours ago."

Even Klara herself shocked of what she just said, it made her to get her back off her seat. "She made it, but she's still passed out when I got to the hospital. I just… lost control on myself. I swore that I will kill every single bastard that did this to her."

Miho only shook her head with a false smirk, before bowing her head down again. "But now… it's enough for me to know they won't hurt her anymore."

They were speechless of her confession. They do know that she's an Operator of 141. But now, they have saw the rage Miho could do above from the beatings Miho made. They remembered the time back at the tea party when Miho choked Momo so brutal, they just realized Miho was actually about to kill Momo that time if not for Anchovy was there. They do know that Anchovy is Miho's lover after the Exhibition, so that was the only reason why Miho could be so… awfully angry back there. Miho was so attached to Anchovy when they pay attention to them both.

Klara and Katyusha could only looked away from her with only Nonna who's looking at her by the back of her head and tells her with grief. "Miho… I'm… I'm so sorry to hear that."

Miho could only glanced back at that mirror, before giving a smile and replies to her softly. "Thank you."

The car fell into silence once more, but it was enough to make Miho to look forward. She saw the light changed to green, and she drives the car from the traffic. The silver car of Ogin's group followed suit. Miho should've continue the driving to the hospital, because she already noticed how much the bleeding was from Klara's wound. The bleeding got through the bandaged and it was surprising for Miho to see Klara is still awake this far.

It took them for about the next 3 minutes and they reached the hospital. Miho was the first to got out the car, balaclava and cap are on. She heads over to the silver car, banged it, and tell Ogin's team that they should stay back from the hospital and make sure to keep an eye on the area. Miho doesn't want any surprises after they got here. The silver car immediately drives off and began to keep an eye on the perimeter. After Ogin's team left, Nonna and Katyusha got out from the passenger seat and walked over to Klara's door.

Katyusha opens the door, and then Nonna lent a hand to Klara to lift her up. Miho walked close by, making sure that Nonna could get Klara on her feet and guide her to the hospital. Despite the fact that Miho was also armed to the teeth at the hospital, she already slung her rifle on her back to show she wasn't hostile to the population. Miho looks at Katyusha and then Nonna and Klara, and they all give a nod to each other. They then began heading into the front door of the hospital.

When they entered the front door in haste, all eyes in the hospital were immediately trained onto them. It made everyone in the hospital surprised to their presence. The civilians and the nurses were taken aback of the armed soldier in front of them. But the nurses and the doctors on site were immediately concerned of the wounded Klara they just brought in.

"We need a doctor!" Miho shouted from underneath her balaclava. "She's been shot!"

That got the nurses and doctors nearby real quick, some of them immediately grabbed a stretcher as Miho, Nonna and Katyusha guide Klara to the stretcher. "Get her on the stretcher," a nurse quickly said to them,

"Come on, Klara," Nonna then gently sits Klara down on the said stretcher, before helping her to lie down.

"You're going to be alright, Klara," Katyusha comforts her as she and Nonna were both next to the stretcher.

"Come on!" Miho said aloud, soon the doctors, nurses, Nonna, Katyusha and Miho moves Klara throughout the hallways of the hospital.

"Get her to the surgery room!" a doctor said as they nearly reached the said room.

When they reached the surgery room, Miho, Nonna and Katyusha immediately stood behind and let the doctors and nurses to carry Klara inside. They cannot enter the surgery room because they are not staffs of the hospital. But for sure, they are glad that they able to get Klara to the hospital just in time. They can relax for now.

"That was close," Nonna then turned around to Miho. "I'm glad you're here, Miho."

"No problem, Nonna," Miho replied flatly with a nod. "I'm just doing my job."

"Well, I think she'll be alright for now," Katyusha commented in relief, but then reminded of Miho's wound. "But... what about your shoulder? You did get shot, right?"

"Ah, that?" Miho then reaches over her wounded left shoulder on her back. "I'll be fine. I'll take care of it when I got back home."

"Are you sure?" Nonna asked in doubt, then gestures her hand to around her. "I mean, we're in the hospital now."

"No, I'll do it back home," Miho replied with a shook. "I don't want everyone asking who am I and then the police comes around."

"You made a good point," Katyusha agreed with her finger pointing at her. "So… what now?"

"I think we should stay here for Klara," Nonna suggested to Katyusha.

"You're right," Katyusha replied in agreement, then looked over to Miho. "So, you'll be going home now, Miho?"

"Well, yes," Miho replied, waving her hands to her sides. "I hope you'll be fine staying here."

"Don't worry, we can handle ourselves here," Nonna replied with a smile. "I hope Klara can get out from this hospital much early."

"I'll pray that for you, Ms. Nonna," Miho smiles back under her balaclava, before looking back the hallway behind her. "I need to get going now."

"Wait," Nonna said, stopping Miho from about walking away. She then pulls out something out from her jacket, the Five-Seven pistol Miho gave her. "Here's your pistol."

It is unnerving to see Nonna is giving a gun to someone. But the hallway now is empty so it should be safe. But when Nonna reached out her gun to Miho, she felt something else about it. She knew that Nonna is actually against killing, but Nonna saved her life back there. And also she felt that Nonna deserves to have the gun. The only reason she deserves it, was that she saw it in her eyes. Her willingness to those she loves.

Instead of taking back her gun, she looked over herself and takes all of her pistol magazines she had. She had about another 4 magazines for the pistol. She looks back at Nonna, and then puts her hand on the pistol Nonna was about to gave and lowers it down. Nonna looks confused why Miho did that, along with Katyusha who raised an eyebrow to Miho. Though, that's when Miho gave all the magazines she had for her. Something that made Nonna surprised about it.

"You can keep the pistol," Miho said to her sincerely. "Just take the magazines I have."

"What?!" Nonna asked in surprised. "But it's your gun, I can't keep it!"

"It's alright, just keep the pistol and take the magazines," Miho replied back softly. "You deserved it, Nonna."

"What?" Nonna asked in surprised, Katyusha was disbelieve with that. "But… why?"

"I see it in your eyes, Nonna," Miho replied softly, looking over to Nonna's beaming eyes. "Your strong will to take care those who you loves. Especially about Katyusha and Klara."

Nonna felt speechless to that as she puts away the pistol inside her jacket, Katyusha only stood next to her in silent to listen what she said. "And besides, you saved my life. You deserved it more than me."

Nonna ponders what she said for a moment, and to be honest she was happy to hear it. She then looks over to Miho's hand filled with magazines, before she takes it with honor for Miho. Thankfully, the jacket she had was enough to hide the magazines. After keeping the magazines into her jacket, she looks up back at Miho with a gentle smile.

"Miho, I thank you," Nonna said to her gladly and in admiration. "I… I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Nonna," Miho replied sincerely, gave a nod with her eyes closed. "I'm happy for you."

"So…" Katyusha began. "About you as a soldier?"

"It's a long story, and it's actually secret," Miho replied, crossing her arms. "You should talk to Maho or Kay about it. Though, you might find some of them unbelievable."

"I see," Katyusha replied with a nod. "We'll ask them later."

"Also…" Nonna added with her index finger raised. "I want to say… we're sorry about what we said back in Darjeeling's tea party."

Miho just shook her head at that, sighed sincerely. "No harm done, Nonna."

Miho only gave a relief sigh for them, before she continued. "It's time for me to go now, Nonna, Katyusha."

Nonna and Katyusha both nodded at her, with Katyusha replied. "Be careful out there, Mihosha."

Miho chuckled to what Katyusha called her, before replying. "I will, young lady."

Miho then looks back at Nonna, and said. "До свидания, Nonna."

"До свидания, Miho," Nonna responded with a nod, before Miho turned around and leave them but not before she gave her final look to Nonna.

Nonna and Katyusha only watched her leave until she is out of sight. For the most part, they were happy for her to get out to safety and get Klara to hospital. But they are also happy to know Miho is still alright and they know her secret. And they will be gladly to kept her secrets in between them. They glad to have her as a friend.

And now, they hope and pray that Miho's lover, Anchovy is doing alright.


	53. Chapter 50 - Delightful Visit

Nishizumi Residence. 09:00 AM.

Miho is currently tending her wound in her left shoulder, with the help of their maid, Kikuyo. She managed to get the bullet out of her shoulder yesterday. But still, she still needs to tend her wound after yesterday. Maybe it is painful, but Miho could endure it without any problem. Of course, this brought the concern to her mother. But Miho managed to convinced her mother that she's actually okay.

Miho could see the heavy concern that her mother gave that time. Even Shiho had to help Miho to get the bullet out from her shoulder yesterday. It was the first time for Miho to see Shiho was so worried for her yesterday. Yes, she knew what she did was pretty much dangerous and reckless. But how could she holds herself back when she's in fire?

Miho had to change bandage for her shoulder, it was already soaked with some blood. So Kikuyo helped her to apply the bandage to her wounded shoulder, with some alcohol of course for the wound. It's enough for Miho to heal her gunshot wound. Despite the fact that Kikuyo felt it's not going to be enough to heal her wound.

Miho's olive drab long-sleeve buttoned shirt is actually open and only left it hanging just below her shoulders, especially the wounded part. Before adding the bandage to her wound, Kikuyo helped her to clean the blood stain that is around her wound. But then, another footstep was heard and Miho didn't even bothered to look who's walking over to them. Kikuyo looked at who came over to them and it was the mother, Shiho who comes to see how is Miho doing now. Shiho told the maid that she could take over from here.

Shiho took the cloth from the maid, before Kikuyo went off to somewhere in the gardens. Shiho then gently sits down behind Miho, in a kneeling sit. She then drips the cloth into a bowl of water, then squeeze out the cloth to drop the excessive water. Shiho then looked over to her daughter's wound, felt a little disgust of her wound for a moment. Before she began cleaning her shoulder up as gently as she can.

As Shiho rubs her blood-stained skin, she tilts her head a little to see her Miho's face from behind. "Are you alright, Miho?"

"Don't worry, mother," Miho replied in an assuring tone. "I'll be fine."

"I'm not sure about that Miho," Shiho replied in doubt. "After that mess you made back in Pravda school ship before you returned home."

"It was nothing, mother," Miho lied, though she didn't like to talk about it.

"Miho, come on," Shiho interjected, she doesn't like to hear that. "You've been shot."

"I know," Miho replied flatly with a nod.

"You made me scared a lot, Miho," Shiho added again in a tone of agitation.

"I told you, everything's alright-" Miho reassures her again.

"Miho, stop," Shiho said immediately, stopping her job to clean her wound. "Just stop. Please."

Miho quickly fell silent, then Shiho continued. "Miho, you… *sigh* you nearly killed yourself for that. I'm so scared that you get hurt or worse."

Miho just sighed with a tone of guilty in it without looking at her, she shouldn't have did that because of what happened to Anchovy. "Mother… I'm so sorry."

Shiho only stares at her daughter for a moment, before softly sighing. "You don't have to say it, Miho. Well… I'm sorry about Anchovy."

Shiho then continues to clean her wound, with Miho paused for a moment to her mother's respond. "Thank you, mother."

"Don't mention it," Shiho replied with a smile, the wound is almost clean.

She rubs the last part of her skin that is stained with blood near her wound, before putting the cloth back in the bowl of water. "It's done."

"Can you help me apply the bandage?" Miho asked with a raised brow, only turning her head a little to her left with her eyes looking through her shoulder.

"Sure, I can," Shiho happily replied with a nod.

Miho guides her mother by words and a little help from her hands on bandaging her wound. It was good to know that Shiho has good knowledge about treating wounds, especially gunshots. Shiho was rather glad that Miho only got shot once with a wound than more than one. After dealing with bandaging her wound, Shiho puts away the bowl of water from them and Miho wears on her shirt back. After that, Miho places her hands on her knees, it was a pair of grey pants she was wearing.

For now, Miho is staring out the window in front of her. Miho is lost in her thoughts for now, thinking about something that made her looks like she was reflecting herself. Shiho only tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at her. Shiho wonders if there something else was in her mind, hopefully not the one that could bother her or her own daughter. Shiho then sits herself down next to Miho, but this time her legs folded and crossed each other.

Shiho then avert her eyes to Miho's blank eyes, and asked. "What are you thinking now?"

Miho was unfazed for a moment, before she turned her head to her left a little to her mother. "Well… I don't know."

"You don't know?" Shiho asked confusingly.

"I mean…" Miho paused for a moment. "Just thinking about our past, and… about family."

Shiho looks concerned at her daughter. "Why are you thinking about it?"

"There are things that we can't forget, mother," Miho replied flatly, yet not cold. "Like how obsessed you are about Panzerfahren and you forgot your own daughter except for Maho as a headmistress of Kuromorimine."

"Okay, calm down-" Shiho quickly said out to her.

"I'm calm," Miho cuts her off. "I'm just stating the fact."

Shiho was silent for a moment, before responding to her. "I know I was hard on you back then."

"You don't need to remind me about it," Miho replied flatly again, waved her hand to her mother.

"Miho," Shiho paused for a moment, pondering which question she should ask. "I want to ask you about something."

This made Miho turns her head to her mother with a curious look. "What do you want to ask me about?"

"Well…" Shiho trailed off for a moment as she rolled her eyes from her. "Miho…"

Shiho then turns her head at her face, her eyes looking straight her daughter's with feelings of concern and regret. "Did you hate me, Miho?"

Miho wasn't surprise of her question. Miho only gives a blank look at Shiho as if the question was obvious for her. Miho then looks away from her, looking back to window in front of her. She only stares at her in silent, waiting for her answer expectantly. Shiho only wanted to know, despite that she had built up a relationship with her daughter after she came back. The past is different with the present.

Miho only looked her eyes down to her legs, and replied sourly. "Yes. A lot."

The answer was sharp like a knife that just tore her mother's heart. Shiho could only frown to hear the answer and felt so regret to hear that. Shiho doesn't know how much she hates her long ago, but she knew she hasn't treated her well that time. Shiho didn't remember how many times they both have bring up about their past. But it gives a sore heart for them both.

"But now…" Miho added, making Shiho glances her eyes. "We're good."

Shiho gave a confused look to that. "We're good?"

"Yes, I mean…" Miho paused for a moment, before looking up to her. "Now I love you, mother."

Shiho only stares at her for a moment with a feeling of warm in her heart, before she gave a smile to Miho. "I love you too, Miho."

Shiho then hugs her close by the shoulders, with Miho hugs her back and lands her head on her shoulder. Shiho is rubbing her daughter's right arm and kissed her forehead, skinshipping her own daughter. Even Miho is a soldier, she was very soft to touch and rub instead of harsh as Shiho expected. Shiho actually felt irresistible for the first time to skinship with her daughter, because she felt that Miho is so soft to touch, more softer than Maho.

Shiho frowned as she looked down, as she kept caressing her arms and shoulders. "I shouldn't have called you a disgrace for our family."

"I know," Miho replied softly with a nod. "No harm done."

"I'm sorry," Shiho said out in pity, remembering the time she had said that to Miho.

"There's no need to say it," Miho's left hand then holds her mother's right hand that is rubbing her shoulders. "It's enough."

They fell into silence as they hugged and watched out the window in front of them, to which Shiho remembered of something. "Miho?"

"Yes, mother?"

Shiho then looked down to her face and asked. "You're going to visit Anchovy, right?"

"Yes, I am," Miho replied with a curious look. "Why do you ask?"

Shiho then stops hugging her and quickly stands up. "Wait for a moment."

Shiho hastily left Miho at the window. It prompts Miho to look behind her and watched Shiho heading into other room. But then, her mother's footsteps were heard again and was getting closer. Shiho came out from the other room and holds something in her hands. She walked back to her daughter and sits back down. Shiho showed the thing to Miho, which made her surprised.

"Is that the miniature version of Panzer IV?" Miho asked, her eyes were fascinated on the miniature toy tank.

"Yes, it is," Shiho replied with a smile and a nod. "I bought it a few days ago because I thought you need a gift for her."

"Hu-wha-?"

"I know it's not really Anchovy's favorite kind of tank, but…" Shiho paused for a moment to think of good words, before continuing. "I think this could cheer her up while she's in recovery. And she might be happy for giving her a gift from you. A gift that reflects something about yourself. She really loves you, you know."

"But why bother helping me about the gift?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"Well, didn't we just say it?" Shiho asked back with a smile. "You love me. I love you. I'm trying my best to be your mother."

Miho couldn't help but to feel happy and smiled as she took the toy tank from her mother's hands. "Thank you, mother."

"Don't sweat it," Shiho replied with a smile and a nod.

Miho only lets her eyes inspect the toy, before looking back up to her mother. "So… what are you going to do for today?"

"Well, as the usual about Kuromorimine," Shiho replied with a shrug. "But I'll be visiting Anchovy in the evening I guess."

Miho only chuckled silently with a smile, before looking back at her. "I never thought you wanted to see her."

"I feel bad for you and your lover if I don't make any visit," Shiho replied happily, that made Miho flattered to hear it.

Miho then hugs her with one arm by her shoulders, replying with a smile. "That's sweet of you, mother."

"Thank you, my dearest daughter," Shiho replied with a smile and a nod.

Miho only stares at her for a moment after hugging, before replying back again. "I guess I should get going now."

"I couldn't agree more about it," Shiho replied in agreement.

Miho then stood up from the ground. "Alright, see you later, mother."

Shiho only replied with a nod and silence. Shiho watched Miho left for her room and getting ready for the day. After Miho us out of her sight, Shiho wondered on how is she doing with Anchovu now.

Shiho had prayed that Anchovy will be recovered soon.

* * *

Giovanni Osanna Hospital. 11:00 AM.

It has been a long walk for her to get to the hospital by herself. But she is happy that she's going to do another visit to her wounded lover. This is the second visit she made, and she hoped that Anchovy is awake by now. Anchovy will sure be happy to see Miho is coming over to her. And let's not forget that she's prepared for anything in case if things go wrong.

She was wearing the same outfit from the house. Adding her grey boonie hat on her head and a drop bag on her right leg. A combat knife and M9 Beretta pistol are hidden in the drop bag. Some pouches on her belt, including one big pouch for first aid kit. She also wears a cross necklace so that God may protect her and her lover as well from harm's way. There's also her wristwatch on her left wrist.

She has the miniature Panzer Iv in her right hand, but it was not the only gift she brought to the hospital. She also brought a bouquet of Daisies to the hospital, because she knew it is her favorite. Miho is very confident that these gifts could cheer Anchovy up. Miho wanted to try her best to boost Anchovy's heart up. Though, she also needs to admit of what she did yesterday. The thought that made her own face sour to remember what had she done yesterday.

But she let that though wash away from her head and focus on the task at hand. She enters the hospital and went straight for the receptionist desk. After reporting to the receptionist, she headed for the elevator and headed for the 4th floor. She waited for a moment for the elevator to reach the said floor, looking over her watch as she enjoys the funky song in the elevator. The elevator doors open when it reached the said floor, and Miho walks down the hallway to the right from there.

It took her for about a few minutes to reach door 411. The only door where Anchovy is in. The Receptionist did say that there were about 3 people came over to check on Anchovy, but didn't say who they were. Miho only reaches for the knob and open the door. Entering the room and saw who were in the room.

Anchovy is already awake and stopped their conversation with the visitors. Apparently, Carpaccio and Pepperoni are present in the room. But the last visitor made Miho pretty surprised with her both eyebrows raised. It was a pretty woman for about an adult age. She has the same red-brown eyes and same pale green hair just like Anchovy. And her long wavy-straight hair reaches for about her waist and her hairstyle nearly matches Hana except for her front hair was combed to the left.

"Good morning, ladies," Miho greeted them all as she closed the door behind her.

Carpaccio and Pepperoni got off from their seats and greeted her. "Kon'nichiwa, Miho-san!"

"Miho-chan~!" Anchovy called out teasingly and happily. "You're here!"

"It's good to see you doing all well, Emerald," Miho replied back with a smile.

"Oh, is this Miho Nishizumi-san you were talking about, Anzai?" the adult pale-green hair woman asked to Anchovy.

"Yes, okaa-san," Anchovy replied, surprising Miho about who was this woman is. "This is Miho Nishizumi."

"And I see you brought a couple of gifts to my little princess," Anchovy's mother teasingly stated, much to Anchovy's embarrassment.

"Okaa-saaan!" Anchovy called out in embarrassment, as she looked away and her face flustered into red.

"Well… Yes, I did," Miho paused for a moment to admire Anchovy's cute face. "I really want to cheer my lover up."

That's when Anchovy's mother's turn to gave a surprised look. "W-wait, my daughter is your lover?"

The room filled with silence as Miho only stood there and dumbfounded by the mother's reaction. Carpaccio and Pepperoni only awkwardly stood at their seats, not sure how to defuse this situation with a tear of sweat came down from their foreheads. The healing Anchovy felt nervous in her bed from this awkward situation as her mother stares back at Miho with unfazed gaze. Miho and Anchovy's mother only kept staring at each other, dumbfounded to each other.

Miho then looks up to her girlfriend, and asked. "You didn't tell her?"

Anchovy forced a smile and shows her teeth, before mouthing back to her with a shook. "No."

Miho then slowly looks back at Anchovy's mother, who is still dumbfounded. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-."

"No, no, no, no, it's alright," Anchovy's mother cuts off with a shook, her hands shook at Miho as well. "It's just… I thought Anchovy had a boyfriend but… I never expected you ended up to be her girlfriend."

"I know, it's a very long story for that," Miho then changes the subject. "I believe an introduction is in order."

"Oh, of course," Anchovy's mother then stood up and gave an open palm to Miho. "My name is Rinnai Chiyomi-sama."

Miho holds the tank she's holding onto her other hand holding the flowers, before shaking with her Mrs. Chiyomi's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Chiyomi. And I don't think I have to make an introduction for you."

"You don't have to," Mrs. Chiyomi replied with a soft smile. "It's good to have you around, Miho-san."

"Just call me Miho, ma'am," Miho replied with a nod. "And I appreciate to hear that."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Mrs. Chiyomi asked with a raised brow, then gestures towards her daughter. "You wanted to give you gifts to her, right?"

"Umm… sure," Miho replied with a nod, awkwardly.

Carpaccio gave Miho some space to give a gift for Anchovy, While Pepperoni looked for another chair in the room. Miho then sat on her bed a little on the side, near her lover's covered legs. Mrs. Chiyomi only smiled to see Anchovy's lover is sitting near her, but she was a little upset because it wasn't a boyfriend like she expected. Nevertheless, she's still happy that Anchovy has her lover here.

Miho first hands over the bouquet of Daisies to Anchovy. "Here's your favorite flower, Emerald."

Anchovy felt so flattered to hear that and receives the gift. "Aww, so kind of you, Miho-chan~."

"And also, I got this miniature tank for you," Miho then hands out her last give for Anchovy.

Though, Anchovy was surprised by the model of the tank. "Huh, the Panzer IV?"

"Yeah, I thought I should give you this," Miho replied flatly as her eyes looked onto the miniature tank she gave before looking back at her lover's eyes. "It's a… reflection of myself."

Anchovy eyes gleamed when she looks at her over. "Aw~, I love it, Miho-chan. And this tank… it really fits your reflection."

"Ah~, look who's happy now," Pepperoni teased, it annoyed Anchovy.

"Pepperoni, please," Anchovy said irritatingly, prompting Pepperoni to grin with a smile.

"I really don't want admit," Carpaccio stated first to not offend their overall commander. "But you two are really cute."

Miho just chuckled, then looks back at Carpaccio. "I'm still cute even I had this scar on my eye?"

"Of course you are, Miho-san!" Carpaccio replied happily with a smile and her eyes closed. "You looked even more cuter with that scar."

Miho just felt deadpanned to that, staring at her in disbelieve. _"I'm more cuter with this scar? What the bloody hell is going on with these people?"_

"Huh? I just remembered that," Mrs. Chiyomi stated, prompting Miho to look at the mother. "How did you get the scar?"

"To put it simple," Miho answered, rubs her scar on the eye for a moment. "I got scratched by a tiger."

Both Anchovy and Miho knew that was a lie, but Mrs. Chiyomi believed that. "Oh my, I'm so sorry to hear that."

"Thank you, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho replied with a nod, she then gets off the bed and sat down at the chair Pepperoni found in the room. "Anchovy, darling. How are you doing now?"

"I'm doing alright for now," Anchovy replied with a nod then moves her hand to her healing wound. "I'm recovering real quick."

"Really?" Miho asked gladly, smiling to hear that. "When are you going out from the hospital?"

"I'll be up in the next morning," Anchovy replied happily, she's sniffing her flowers for a moment. "Then I'll be having fun with you for the day."

"That sounds great for you both," Mrs. Chiyomi said gladly, clasping her hands against each other in front of her chest.

"I'm happy for you, Anchovy," Miho replied with a smile. "And I'll be looking forward for that day, Anchovy."

*CREEEK*

They all immediately looked back at the door, including Anchovy herself to see who are these new visitors are. To their surprise, it was Nonna and Katyusha who entered the room. It made Miho deadpanned to their faces as frozen as hell for it. While Anchovy, wondered why Miho's reaction was so overreacting like that.

"Добрый день всем," Nonna greeted them with a bow, Katyusha did the same.

"Uuh…?" Mrs. Chiyomi is actually confused on what to say to that greeting, along with everyone else within the room.

"И тебе хорошего дня," Miho replied back with a nod, which took Mrs. Chiyomi by surprise.

"She was saying hello," Katyusha cleared up, that made everyone understands what she said.

"Oh, uh, hello, Nonna-san and Katyusha-san," Pepperoni replied awkwardly. "Never thought you'll be coming here."

"I thought a visit won't hurt," Nonna flatly replied with a shrug.

"Where's Klara, by the way?" Carpaccio asked with a raised brow. "I thought she tagged along."

"I'm afraid that she's in the hospital," Miho quickly replied, everyone was taken aback by the answer and everyone immediately looked at including Anchovy herself.

"What happened?" Anchovy asked with her eyes narrowed down.

"She's been shot," Nonna answered flatly, then everyone looks back at her in shock excluding for Miho. "Alas, she made it out alright."

"Oh my, I'm so sorry to hear that," Mrs. Chiyomi said with pity and sorrow.

"Thank you, Chiyomi-sama," Katyusha replied with a sad smile, though in heart she was glad Klara is okay by now.

Nonna and Katyusha looked around the room and they're happy that Miho is currently present. But they have noticed Miho looked away from them with a frown. They recognized the frowning she made was a sense of guilt to what she done to Klara. Though, Anchovy did notice her but mistook her expression as discomfort.

"Are you alright, Miho-chan?" Anchovy asked in concern of her lover. "You look upset."

"It's-it's nothing, Anchovy," Miho replied with a hasty shook, that don't look right for Mrs. Chiyomi and her friends.

"You look troubled, Miho-san," Mrs. Chiyomi stated in doubt. "Is something the matter?"

"It's nothing, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho then reaches for her own throat. "I just felt thirsty."

"Oh? We can get you some drink if you want," Carpaccio offered with a smile. "I'll go with Pepperoni and Chiyomi-sama to get the drinks."

"Go ahead then," Nonna said in agreement. "We'll accompany Anchovy while you're away for a moment."

"Alright then," Mrs. Chiyomi then stood up from her seat and looked over to her daughter and Miho. "Please keep an eye on her."

"No problem, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho responded with a stern nod. "I'll make sure she's alright."

"Thank you," Mrs. Chiyomi then looks up to Carpaccio and Pepperoni. "Come along."

The three of them then headed for the door, passing the two Pravda girls stood by. Nonna and Katyusha wave their hands back at Carpaccio and Pepperoni, right before they're out and then closed the door. Now they are alone with Miho and Anchovy for the moment. Nonna and Katyusha then both take over the seats that are currently empty next to Anchovy and across Miho. Though, Miho's frowning has became more noticeable that Anchovy could feel uncomfortable about it.

Anchovy only stares at her lover, who looked away with a frown. "Miho… something tells me you did something bad."

Miho still stares into a blank space for a moment, before looking back at her lover in guilt. "I… I did something bad yesterday… worse…"

Anchovy slowly rose her back off her bed, looking at her lover in worry. "What?"

"You were still unconscious when I got here yesterday," Miho replied sadly, she then sighed to herself. "I… lost control of myself yesterday."

Anchovy frowned to hear that, she didn't like to hear that. "What did you do, Miho?"

"I… I…" Miho paused for a moment, feeling her guilt is getting the better of her. "After I saw you lying on the bed unconscious, I went off to track down the man and the gang who tried to kill you. I went to Pravda school ship and found them, and I… I killed them all… didn't leave any of them standing."

Anchovy deadpanned to Miho to hear what she did, but then she realized Nonna and Katyusha are still there hearing the whole thing. "Miho, why are you telling me this while they're here?"

"Because we were there as well," Katyusha answered, this took Anchovy off-guard.

"Wha-what do you mean you were there?" Anchovy had hoped that they were joking. "You know this?"

"Nonna and Katyusha were there by accident when I went off killing the gangsters," Miho answered sorrowfully, and it made Anchovy widen her eyes in shock. "Klara was there as well and…"

Anchovy stayed silent in shock, as Miho able to continue. "And… and I was the one who shot Klara."

Anchovy was very speechless. How? How could she shot her own friend? But she was more surprised that Nonna and Katyusha didn't go mad at her. Anchovy had wondered if both Pravda girls knew Miho's secret.

"W-why?" Anchovy stammered questionably, she was afraid if Miho went bad from good.

"It was an accident, Anchovy-san," Nonna replied flatly but with pity, surprised Anchovy for her answer. "She thought Klara was an enemy when she saw our door closed quickly. She shot through the door and hit Klara. We were surprised that Klara could survive a rifle bullet."

When Anchovy heard the word 'rifle', she stares into Nonna's eyes. "You… you knew her secret?"

"I'm afraid so," Nonna replied with a nod. "We both including Klara knew she is the leader of Task Force 141."

Anchovy then looks back at Miho, as Miho added with a tone of discomfort. "I had no choice but to tell them that time. I had to get them out from harm's way as I kill the hostiles."

Miho had noticed her lover's face has soften, Anchovy actually felt glad to hear that. "Oh, Miho."

"I should have hold back my anger but…" Miho sighed sadly, then shook to herself before bowing her head down. "I… lose myself again. I'm so sorry, Anchovy. I really am."

Anchovy only looked at her with a sense of sympathy and grief. Anchovy knew how bad it would be if Miho went rage if something really bad happens. But still, despite she's a soldier, she's still a girl, someone she could call still a human. And also Miho saved people from the fight she and the bastards started. She did kill people, but she also saved lives out there.

Anchovy only smiled to her, content of her admittance. "It's alright, Miho. Don't be so hard on yourself."

Miho looked up to her, surprised of her respond. Nonna and Katyusha were both surprised about it too. "But… I killed people yesterday because of what happened to you."

"I know," Anchovy acknowledged with a nod. "But what matters for me more, is that you are alright."

Miho stares at her for a moment, before sheepishly smiled to her a little. "I actually took a bullet on my shoulder. But… yeah…"

"You only did what you think is right, that's all," Anchovy added, she sounded so soft and cute to Miho. "I don't blame you for it, you also saved people from danger. So don't blame yourself for it."

Miho only looked into her lover's gleaming eyes, Miho felt much more comfortable for herself that Anchovy said that to hear. All the while Miho is also clasping her fingers to each other. "But, I need to ask you that… please don't get yourself killed."

Miho just chuckled to that, looked away from her for a moment as she shook. "I'll try my best for you, Emerald."

"Heh, flatterer," Anchovy teased, smiling as she looked away with a blush on her face.

"Well, ain't you both are charming?" Katyusha asked teasingly, it made Nonna and Miho giggled a little.

"Oh, shut up," Anchovy responded with a smug face, crossing her arms for that.

"So… how are you doing, Anchovy?" Nonna asked curiously.

"I'm getting better, Nonna-san," Anchovy replied with a nod. "I'll be out in the next morning."

"Nice!" Katyusha replied happily. "It's good to hear that."

"What about Klara though?" Miho asked, concerned of her condition. "When she'll be out of the hospital?"

"The doctors said she'll be out in a couple of days," Nonna replied, putting her both hands on her thigh. "They want to make sure that bullet didn't make anything worse in her stomach."

"You know, I'm glad she was lucky to be alive," Miho commented with a soft smile. "No girl could survive that."

"But you survived that, so as Klara," Katyusha responded flatly to the facts. "You and Klara both are tough girls."

"I know, Katyusha," Miho responded with a nod, before looking over to Nonna. "You still have that pistol, right?"

Anchovy actually surprised to hear that, as Nonna confirmed with a nod. "Don't worry, I still have it."

"Good, don't lose it," Miho replied again, points her finger at her. "You deserve it."

"Why gave her a pistol, Miho?" Anchovy asked curiously, with her head tilted a little.

"Because she saved my life back there," Miho replied as she looks at her lover. "When I was doing my rampage, I owe her one."

Anchovy smiled to that, she was thankful that Nonna saved Miho's life back there. "I thank you for that, Nonna."

"Нет проблем, Анчоус," Nonna replied with a nod and a smile to Miho's lover.

Thankfully that kind of conversation is finished. Right when Carpaccio, Pepperoni and Mrs. Chiyomi entered the room. They brought in some sodas and tea beverages. Miho stood up from her seat as Nonna did the same.

"You're back," Miho stated, but then noticed the mild irritation that Mrs. Chiyomi had. "Did you go back to the ground floor?"

"Apparently so," Mrs. Chiyomi replied with a sigh. "We had to get the drinks from the ground floor."

"It must be tiring," Nonna commented with a raised brow.

"It sure is," Carpaccio agreed to her comment, then continued by Pepperoni. "It took us for a moment to realize the drinks are on the ground floor."

"I see," Miho then took a soda can from Pepperoni. "Thanks for the drink."

"Don't mention it," Pepperoni happily replied, before she and Carpaccio both walked past her and give drinks to Nonna, Katyusha and Anchovy.

Though, Mrs. Chiyomi is standing in front of Miho with a tea beverage in her hand. "Miho-san, can we both talk for a moment?"

Miho stares into empty space for a moment to hear that, before looking up to her. "And by that, you mean…?"

"Privately," Mrs. Chiyomi added to her sentence. "Can we?"

Miho only stares at her for a moment, before replied with a nod. "Sure, Mrs. Chiyomi."

Mrs. Chiyomi nodded back at her, before looking over her wounded daughter on bed. "Anzai, darling. I'm going to talk with your girlfriend for a moment. Is that alright for you?"

"It's fine, Okaa-san," Anchovy replied across the room. "I'll stay here waiting for you."

"Alright," Mrs. Chiyomi then looked back at Miho with a little serious face. "Follow me."

Mrs. Chiyomi turned around and headed for the door, as Miho followed up behind her. From there Miho followed Mrs. Chiyomi down to the hallway to their right. It was just a short walk to go there. They reached the end of the hallway pass the staircase on their right. That end of the hallway has a small table in between the waiting couches enough for about 2-3 people to sit down to each couches. The whole wall on the end of the hallway next to the waiting couches was actually a wall full of glass as windows.

Miho sat down on the couch on the left, sitting near the glass wall as Mrs. Chiyomi did the same. Miho opens up her soda can and took a sip of it. Mrs. Chiyomi took a straw and use it to drink her tea beverage. After that, they both stayed silent and glanced through the glass wall. Admiring the city of Anzio from that view.

They both then looked back at each other, with Miho is the one who asks first. "Is this about Anchovy and myself?"

Mrs. Chiyomi stayed silent for a moment, before she replies with a small frown. "Yes, it is."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod of understood. "Can you tell me why?"

Mrs. Chiyomi thought for a moment about it, before answering it to her. "You know, myself as a mother will always do my best for my own daughter."

"That's right," Miho replied, tilting her head as she answered it.

"But when it comes to finding someone she loves," Mrs. Chiyomi stated, pausing for a moment. "I get a little protective for my daughter because we don't know who's she talking with, or… dating with."

"I understand that," Miho replied with a nod.

"And also…" Mrs. Chiyomi frowned when she thought of this. "I'm actually upset that the lover she got is not a boy."

Miho actually felt bad for her, the mother wants her daughter to be with a boy instead of another girl. "I'm sorry about that, Mrs. Chiyomi. I… I didn't know about that. If you want me to not to be with her I should go and-"

"No, no, no. no, it's alright," Mrs. Chiyomi hastily replied with both open palms reaching at her. "Actually, I'm now happy to know that there's someone Anchovy loves, which is you."

"Then… what's troubling you?" Miho asked, concerned of the mother's worry.

"What's troubling me is that I worried that the person she loves ditched her or broke up with her for no good reason to do so," Mrs. Chiyomi replied agitatedly, her worries became clear for Miho. "I'm worried with whoever she's with would hurt her heart after that. I will be disappointed to myself if that happens to my own daughter. So I want to know for sure if whoever's dating with her is seems… decent for me."

Miho thought to herself for a moment, before asking. "Are you saying that you don't trust me?"

"Correct," Mrs. Chiyomi replied softly with a nod. "Because I know you both are having your own fun without my acknowledgement whether to agree to let her go with you or not. Just like that suspicious trip to Kameoka City to go to Sakura Park."

"I… I see…" Miho actually disbelieve it herself to know that Anchovy haven't told her mother about the Valentine's day date a month ago.

"And also staying overnight at your residence, which surprised me to know that your mother allowed her to stay in your residence," Mrs. Chiyomi added, leaning her back against the couch. "Now the problem is… how could I trust you to take care of my little girl from anything bad?"

Now this is the hard part, the one part that made Miho nervous to answer. The one question that made her head bowed down. She's maybe good talking about something else, but to win a mother's heart to be with her daughter? Miho not sure how is she going to answer this without spoiling her secret. She needs to be careful to answer this.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Chiyomi noticed the nervousness Miho had. "Why you looked so nervous?"

"It's-it's nothing, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho hastily replied with a quick shook.

"I'm not convinced, Miho-san," Mrs. Chiyomi replied, now she's crossing her arms and leaned her upper body forward. "You look like you have a secret to hide."

"I don't have anything to hide," Miho lied calmly, but Miho's eyes told the otherwise.

"You're lying," Mrs. Chiyomi replied flatly with a frown, then sighed with her eyes closed. "Tell me your secret, or I won't let you to be anywhere with Anchovy."

This actually made Miho widen her eyes in shock. She doubts whether she tells her secret or not to Anchovy's only mother. If she's not going to tell her, Mrs. Chiyomi will make sure Anchovy is not going anywhere near Miho. But she tells her, she wouldn't be so sure if she's going to be happy to hear this. But now… her heart is still in bond to Anchovy's. Looks like she doesn't have any choice but to talk.

Miho only stares at the mother for a moment, before bowing her head down as her eyes become darken a little. But then she lifts up her head again, her face is full of grief… and guilt. The silence filled the air for the moment, as Miho is pondering over what she should say to her. Pondering her thoughts, as she remarks about what she did as a soldier.

"I must confess," Miho began, Mrs. Chiyomi stares at her sharply. "I have done a lot of… things in my life. Mostly things that I'm not proud of. The wolf is gotta be the wolf, the girl is gotta be the girl. I've been trying to be myself on who I was in the past."

Mrs. Chiyomi was rather very surprised that Miho answered like a woman of wisdom, as Miho continues on. "But when I met your daughter, something changed my heart and it helps me to become who I am. To be in more… control of myself if things didn't go as good as expected. I have a secret, but… I don't think it's worth telling you."

Mrs. Chiyomi gave a raised brow to her, leaning her body forward while landing her elbow on her knees. "If you have a secret just tell me. For the sake of my own daughter."

Miho only stares at her for a moment, before replying with a nod. "Alright… I'll tell you."

Miho bowed her head down with a sigh, before looking back up to Mrs. Chiyomi's face. "Are you familiar with 141?"

Mrs. Chiyomi became perplexed of the question. "Y-you mean the Task Force 141 that's been operating across Japan? What does it have to do with you?"

Miho is silent for a moment, before replying with a cold tone. "I am one of them."

Mrs. Chiyomi just stared at her in disbelieve. "Are you trying to joke with me?"

Miho knew she couldn't believe it. She only calmly unzips her drop bag, which makes Mrs. Chiyomi curious. Miho made sure there was no camera recording that part of the hallway and the hallway is empty, before she then pulls out her pistol and put it on the table in front of her. Mrs. Chiyomi was more beyond terrified to say the least. Mrs. Chiyomi even can't dare to scream for Miho's possession of the pistol.

Mrs. Chiyomi only looked up to Miho in fear, but Miho replied calmly. "Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you."

Mrs. Chiyomi wasn't convinced about it, but it was enough to reduce her stress. "How could I know you won't shoot me after you let me go?"

Miho understands her distrust to her, and replies. "Because I've been betrayed before, by my own friend."

The answer took her by surprise, but Miho continued. "He was a Lieutenant General. He betrayed me and the 141 by killing me and my men for his own personal gain to write on history. Trying to hide the truth from the world with his own truth. I had trust issues from that time ever since."

Mrs. Chiyomi could only looked over at the pistol in shock and amazement to what she just heard, that's when she noticed there was a mark on the pistol's barrel.

 _TASK FORCE 141_

She wasn't lying after all. "So… you're one of those mercenaries?"

"It's soldiers, because it's actually a Private Military Company," Miho corrected. "And yes, I'm one of them. And the first-in-command officer of the Task Force."

Now that made her deadpanned. "Officer? That's impossible."

"No, I'm actually at a rank of Captain," Miho replied with a shook.

Mrs. Chiyomi only stares at her for a moment, before she could nearly feel no tense. "I see…"

After a moment of silence, Miho carefully took the pistol back and store it back in her drop bag. Something that Mrs. Chiyomi to feel agitated. Though, Mrs. Chiyomi able to calm down after Miho stored away her weapon into her drop bag for good, zipping her drop bag up. Miho then looks over to Mrs. Chiyomi, this time with an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," Miho said with a tone of apology. "I had to find a way to make you believe me."

"It's okay," Mrs. Chiyomi replied in understood. "I understand you do it because you want to be with her."

Miho only nodded at her without a word, before Mrs. Chiyomi asked. "Does Anchovy know this?"

"She knew everything about me," Miho replied with a smile, then frowns. "Including my own past that I hate want to talk about."

This was actually better than Mrs. Chiyomi expected, it's good to know that Anchovy knows much deeper about Miho herself. She might as well asked her own daughter about it. "I'm glad to hear that."

"I'll do anything to be with your daughter, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho said flatly to her, before she frowned to herself. "But… I shouldn't have let her go on her own to get back home when she said she'll be fine on her own."

Mrs. Chiyomi gave a grief look, before she responded softly. "It's not your fault. You didn't know that would happen to my daughter."

"I should have stayed with her," Miho sourly replied with a shook. "I could have protected her."

"Please, don't be so hard on yourself," Mrs. Chiyomi comforts her with a smile, then holds one of Miho's hand on the table. "Just be glad and thankful that Anchovy's still alright."

"Okay, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho replied with a happy nod.

Mrs. Chiyomi smiled for a moment to Miho, then began to wonder about her scar. "So… your scar… how did you get it?"

Miho then frowned again to hear that, but she answered it. "I've been shot with machine gun bullets. One of them scratched my eye."

The mother's eyes became widen, and she felt regretted to ask. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know…"

"It's alright," Miho replied with her hand shook at her. "It's going to take more than a machine gun bullet to kill me."

"Don't be so hopeful on that, Miho-san," Mrs. Chiyomi replied, concerned but giggled at the same time. "I don't want that to become literal for you."

"Well, if you say so," Miho replied with a nod.

They both stayed silent for a moment, before Mrs. Chiyomi asked her. "So… when she got out from the hospital, what are you planning to do to spend your time with her?"

Miho ponders about it for a moment, before she thought of one thing that might helped Anchovy. "I think I'll teach her about using firearms."

Mrs. Chiyomi felt concerned about it. "Why would you want to?"

"I just…" Miho paused for a moment as she looked at the glass wall, before looking back to her. "I just want to make sure she can protect herself, just in case if I can't be there with her."

She was right about one thing, there's the time Miho can't be with her daughter. So helping her to know how to defend herself is a good start. "I see. I think I can agree with that."

"I thank you for your consent, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho replied thankfully with a nod, but then she raised her index finger. "But before that…"

"Hm?" Mrs. Chiyomi wondered what she's thinking right now.

"I might want to know more about yourself, Mrs. Chiyomi," Miho added with a small smile, then clasped her hands to each other. "For the sake of your own daughter."

Mrs. Chiyomi smiled happily with her eyes closed, then looks back at her. "That would be a pleasure to do so."

Miho and Mrs. Chiyomi spend their time talking to each other. They both get to know better to each other, Mrs. Chiyomi who's the mother of Anchovy and Miho who's the soldier of 141. Despite the fact that Miho didn't want to talk about her past specifically, Mrs. Chiyomi is actually happy to know more about who she is. More than the daughter of Shiho Nishizumi. And Mrs. Chiyomi doesn't have to bother about how did survived that bridge incident, she could ask her daughter about it. And of course, Mrs. Chiyomi needs to tell her daughter that Miho had told her about her secrets so Anchovy won't have anything to hide.

Eventually they both went back to Anchovy's room and stayed there for a couple of hours. Miho had a very nice chat with Anchovy, Mrs. Chiyomi, Nonna, Katyusha, Carpaccio and Pepperoni. Miho even whispered to Mrs. Chiyomi that Nonna and Katyusha knew about Miho in the middle of the conversation, Miho nearly forgot to tell her about it. Despite that, they all had a good time to spend time with each other and praying Anchovy that she'll recover soon. Miho will be very happy to see her lover back to her feet.

And Miho would looking forward to spend her time with Anchovy.


	54. Chapter 51 - Of Mothers And Daughters

Nishizumi Residence. 10:00 AM.

.

It's been a couple of days since Miho visits Anchovy in the hospital. Miho was happy to know she's out from the hospital yesterday like what the doctors said. Now she can continue to spend her time with the pale green-haired girl. Even Anchovy's mother, Mrs. Chiyomi was very happy to have Miho around her. However, Miho could see how surprise Anchovy was when her mother found out who Miho really is.

Right now in this morning, she's currently wearing her white long-sleeve buttoned shirt and a pair of dark grey-brownish trousers. Her dark grey boonie hat was right next to her and her wristwatch is still on her left wrist. Miho has her knife holster on the back of her trouser which was on her belt and a drop bag to store her M9 pistol, and some little stuff like her cigar and lighter. She has her long red scarf around her neck to comfort her neck. She is currently reading her bible and sitting against the wall outside the house which is facing to the garden. She also noticed the day was pretty much cloudy for today.

Maho is already in school for now, and she'll be busy in the afternoon because she has some work to do with the 141. Last she heard from Anchovy was that she needs to go somewhere with her mother for today, which was understandable for her. However, Anchovy didn't say where is she heading to with her mother but Miho paid no mind about it. She wanted to visit Ooarai for today, but she gave a second thought to not visit there yet because her mother, Shiho told her that she wanted to be with her to go somewhere. However, Shiho didn't even say where they'll heading which made Miho to feel a little a bit suspicious.

Her time for reading her bible was interrupted when she hears the door next to her slides open. Miho turned her head to that open door and saw her mother coming out. Miho then closes her bible firmly as Shiho gently sat down next to her against the wall. Shiho then leans closer to her daughter, supporting each other by their shoulders. Miho just sighed and smiled a little at her mother.

Shiho then looks over to her own daughter and asks. "What were you doing?"

"Reading my bible," Miho replied, waving her bible in front of her a little. "As per usual."

"Which part were you reading?' Shiho asked again, curious of the bible.

"About a man namely Judas betrayed Jesus Himself," Miho replied flatly, then shrugged. "Though, Judas ended up in heaven at the end."

That part made Shiho confused. "How did he end up in heaven, didn't he betray Jesus the Lord?"

"Actually, the Lord Himself forgave him after Judas regretted for what he had done and after he killed himself," Miho then shook her head for a moment. "What a life."

Shiho giggled with a grin, before she turned her head forward at the gardens. "What a life indeed."

Miho just sighed, before looking over to Shiho with her head turned a little at her. "So what was that about both of us heading somewhere?"

"For a start," Shiho replied, tilting her head away from Miho. "We'll be visiting Matsuyama city soon."

"Matsuyama City, eh?" Miho asked with a suspicious glare. "Why are we heading there?"

Shiho just smiled as her eyes avert to Miho. "I'll tell you when we get there."

"Can't you tell me now?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"No, I can't," Shiho replied with a shook. "You did call Anchovy today right?"

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a perplexed tone. "She said she's heading somewhere with her mother, so I thought she's just busy. Why you asked?"

"Oh nothing," Shiho replied with a shook and a smile. "I just want to know."

Miho just deeply sighed as she looks away from Shiho, however she didn't but it as she grins. "You know, being so mysterious and interesting, that might work for Ghost but for you," Miho pointed her finger at her. "I don't mean any offense but, it makes you look dumb."

"Hmpf," she has a point though, Shiho is still a little bad on keeping things secret and she just smiled a little to it. "Okay, you win. I didn't do it that well."

"So…?" Miho then leans her head forward and turns her head to her mother. "What was it about?"

"Well…" Shiho paused for a moment as she rolled her eyes to her upper left. "I got an invitation for a meeting. Like a meeting to talk with friends instead of business meeting."

"A meeting to talk with friends instead of business meeting?" Miho asked sarcastically with a smirk. "I'm sure you have better words for it."

Shiho gave it a thought, before comes up with better words for it. "How about… a friendly trip?"

Miho stayed silent for a moment to ponder on those words, finally she agrees. "That sounds much better."

"Glad to hear that," Shiho replied with a soft smile, then rests her head against her daughter's.

"So, what kind of friends we'll be meeting?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"Well…" Shiho tilts her head as her eyes rolled back. "Mother-daughter kind."

Actually this made Miho surprised. This is the first time for her to hear her mother along with herself to come meeting with mothers and daughters. Miho just slowly turns her head to her awkwardly with a perplexed face. While Shiho looked back at her with a small smirk.

"This is the first time I heard you accepted a meeting with only mothers and daughters," Miho commented with a shook. "I don't think that's your kind of thing to talk with friends."

"I know," Shiho agreed with a nod. "There is first time for everything."

"You do realize that saying is actually came from America, right?" Miho asked, landing her head against the wall.

"I know, Miho," Shiho replied with a raised tone. "I mean, what's wrong with that?"

"You are the headmistress of a German-oriented Japanese school," Miho answered back. "But, yeah, it's not the Germans who built that school so…"

"Ah, you don't have to keep saying about that," Shiho quickly said as her right hand began to rub her daughter's head. "I was just trying to see from a different perspective, that's all."

Miho chuckled to her respond, and replied. "I see you are trying to become a mother of wisdom."

Shiho just giggled at that statement, and replies back at her. "I am pretty sure I don't have enough wisdom for that."

"Oh you will, mother," Miho jokingly answered with her head turned at her. "You just need to read some books of wisdom from the library of the common good."

"Very funny, Miho," Shiho replied as she giggled again. "Real funny."

Miho joined in to giggle too, that was a nice joke to make. "Glad to hear it."

"Also, before we get there," Shiho added, looking over her daughter's clothes. "I think you should picked something a little more proper for your outfit."

"Heh, if you say so, mother," Miho replied with a nod and small smile. "I'll pick something more… gentlelady."

Shiho just raised her both eyebrows and stares at her daughter, she understood by what she mean 'gentle' is. "Not even a dress?"

"You know me, mother," Miho replied with a shrug. "I love formal buttoned shirt and pants more than that. And you actually dressed like one."

"I don't think this outfit could count on that," Shiho disagreed replied with a shook.

"Tell me about it," Miho responded with a snort. "Why do you have 6 exact same outfit like you're wearing right now in your cabinet.

In all honesty, Shiho is still bad and doubtful at picking outfits. It's like Shiho being the half-Charlie Brown because of what outfits she has in her cabinet. Maho even questioned why her nearly only outfits are actually those ones. Shiho is the only person who has outfit issues in the house.

"I guess I'm just bad at it," Shiho admitted as she scratches the back of her neck. "I don't know which outfit really… suits me."

"Well, you could ask me to go shopping with you, if you want," Miho said with a shrug.

"Um, I don't I need your help about that," Shiho replied, assuring herself that she can do it on her own. "For now."

"If that's what you want, alright," Miho replied with a tilted head as she stares forward.

This might be nice for her own mother, because it's good to see Shiho building up relationships instead of doing Panzerfahren stuff. However for Miho, talking with the mothers would make her feel a little awkward if they asked some peculiar questions. As for the daughter part, she is pretty much comfy to talk with them. Miho also wondered which part of Matsuyama City they'll be visiting. Shiho's face seems to gave an expression of 'she knows the place'.

The Ice was broke when Shiho asked a question to her. "She's pretty charming, isn't she?"

Miho just perplexedly stared at her. "Pardon me?"

"Anchovy," Shiho responded softly, then looks up to her. "She's pretty charming, right?"

"Oh," Miho then leans her head against the wall again. "She's more beyond charming, mother."

"Oh really?" Shiho asked playfully, she is actually teasing her daughter.

"Yeah, she's so beautiful and very cute," Miho flatly replied with a smile. "And I love her silky green hair, it feels like smooth cottons."

"And then what else?" Shiho asked curiously.

"She's so caring and very kind," Miho replied flatly with her small smile. "And she really helps me to get through my mood. She's more cuter when she made a cute face when she's annoyed."

Shiho was pretty amused to hear that, to which Miho noticed that. "Were you teasing me on that?"

"Yes, I did," Shiho admitted with a nod. "I think I did that pretty good."

"Yes, you did," Miho replied with a nod. "I didn't even notice it."

"I know that, Miho," Shiho replied with a nod.

"So, you did visit her a couple of days ago after I left in the afternoon?" Miho asked curiously with a raised brow.

"Yes, I did," Shiho replied with a nod. "I even met her mother too."

"I see…" Miho only happily smile to that. "Was she surprised of you arrival?"

"Pretty much," Shiho replied with a tilted head. "She looked like she was about to fell unconscious the moment she saw me."

"Well, she did say to me that she gets pretty nervous when it comes to something unexpected," Miho responded, making a poker face at her. "It's a good thing I didn't tell her about your arrival."

"I was hoping you did tell her, Miho," Shiho said with a smile and a shook. "So she won't have to be frightened of my presence."

"Nah, I really wanted to make her surprised," Miho replied in disagreement. "And she was a little hard to deal with."

Shiho raised an eyebrow to that, though she replied. "Is it because she knows your secret as the 141?"

Miho quickly looks at her with a cold face in surprise. "How did you know?"

"She was… she awkwardly asked me in a whisper if I knew your secret," Shiho paused for a moment. "When I realized what she meant, I asked her '141?' to just confirm it and she said yes."

Miho just chuckled to that. "Well, yeah, I had to tell her about my secret. Because if I don't, she won't let Anchovy to be anywhere with me. I just found out that Anchovy didn't tell her mother about our relationship."

Shiho was rather startled by her answer, but she took it well. "I know how that feels."

"You tell me," Miho responded with her rough voice. "At least I can still be with her."

* * *

Saunders University High School. 13:00 PM.

.

"It's good to have you along Darjeeling-san."

"It's a shame you lose though."

"It's alright, darling. You Saunders were doing a great job on that practice match."

"Just keep it up for your school."

Naomi and Alisa are having a break with Darjeeling and Pekoe at the Saunders. They just finished their training match between Saunders-St. Gloriana schools. It was a little exhausting, but it was pretty fun. Darjeeling and Pekoe are still drinking their teas while Naomi and Alisa are drinking their soda. Assam, Rurukiri, Helmet-chan and Rosehip were at the tank hangars to check on the tanks. If you ask about where's Kay, they actually don't know where she had gone.

Naomi and Alisa swore they don't know where Kay had gone to. After that match, Kay just disappeared the moment their heads turned away from her back there. Kay didn't even tell them a thing about where she needed to go in the middle and after the match. While it is suspicious for them, they shrugged it off as an urgent business for Kay.

Darjeeling and Pekoe were both surprised to hear that Kay occasionally has been having urgent businesses for these days. The urgent businesses Kay had were mainly about helping out Miho on her job which is nice or it's about any troubles in her office which is very questionable and enigmatic. Darjeeling was pretty curious why Kay is so busy like that. But Darjeeling is wise enough to not even talk about Kay from behind her back.

And right now, they are having a good chat with each other for now. Discussing things about British manners that made Alisa interested. However, that discussion made Naomi to wonder if Miho also used some British manners after she heard Miho was a British. Well, that's not the point of the topic for her. They just get along to converse with each other.

"Is it table manners really all that important?" Alisa asked with a raised brow.

"Of course it is, Alisa-san," Darjeeling replied as she sips. "It would be rude if you leave your fork and spoon improperly on the plate."

"But that would on a quiet formal occasions," Naomi said casually as she crossed her leg on top the other and lazily place her left arm on the chair she's sitting against.

"Exactly," Pekoe replied with a nod. "Maybe we could invite you for dinner to teach some of that to you."

"Ahaha, there's no need, Pekoe-san," Alisa replied awkwardly as she waved her hand at them. "I think we're good."

"Yeah, I'm with Alisa here," Naomi replied as she blows out her bubblegum. "It's not really our kind of thing."

"Aw, that's a shame," Darjeeling commented with a slight disappointment.

"Well…" Alisa paused for a moment as she rolls her eyes. "You could ask Miho about that."

Darjeeling and Pekoe became frowned to hear that, with Pekoe left a sweat down her forehead. "I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not after what happened in our tea party long ago."

"I guess you don't have to worry about it," Naomi casually replied with a shrug. "Miho is already in good terms with the Pravdas and Ooarais."

"Actually that's not what we're worried about," Pekoe replied with a shook.

"Her… anger?" Alisa asked doubtfully, thought the Glorianas only stare at her. "Oh, well… I'm pretty sure she's in a good mood now."

"I could only hope you're right about that," Darjeeling replied in concern.

"I am very sure about that," Alisa then looked around her expecting to see someone who is not here. "By the way, shouldn't Kay be here now?"

"Yes, I was about to think the same," Darjeeling then turns her head around them but found no Kay around. "Shouldn't we look around for her?"

"Sure, why not?" Naomi agreed, then stood up from her chair. "But where we should be looking first?"

"Let's try her office first," Alisa suggested with a shrug. "She could be cooped up there."

"Sounds good enough," Pekoe responded with a smile. "Let's go then."

They all went off from their seats and headed down the hallways from the cafeteria. It is a pretty long walk to get there but it was enjoyable nonetheless. They even still conversing on the way to the office. Alisa actually doesn't know if Kay is actually in her office, but she felt like Kay's there. It's worth to take a look if Kay's in there.

"What is up with Kay by the way?" Darjeeling wondered with a raised brow. "I never knew she would be busy like that."

"I told you before, we have no idea," Alisa replied again with a shrug and her hands raised to her shoulders. "Every time she's busy with something it's always emergency or helping Miho out."

"Really?" Pekoe asked in surprised. "Why would she wanted to help Miho out?"

"She said that Miho needs her help on her volunteer jobs," Naomi stated flatly with her head tilted a little. "Though, that made me feel suspicious about it because Kay has been like this for a long time."

"I wonder what is she working on now," Darjeeling commented with a high tone.

"Oh, who knows," Alisa replied as she just shrugged it off. "Maybe she's busy with paperwork, fixing something, or chatting with someone on the phone."

"Hmpf," Pekoe just shrugged that answer off. "Are we there yet?"

"Nearly," Alisa then points her finger at the said door on their front right. "There's the office."

They stopped in front of the door, but everyone awkwardly stood there as if they don't know what to do next. "Well, who's going to knock the door?" Darjeeling asked as she waved her hands to her sides.

"Alright," Alisa knocked on the door. "Kay, you there?"

However, after a moment to wait the respond. There was no voice coming from behind that door.

"Kay, are you in there?" Pekoe asked aloud through the door, but still no response

"Hm…" Naomi reaches her hand to the door knob and turns it around.

*CLICK*

The door's open.

"That's odd," Alisa commented in surprise. "She usually locks the door if she's not in."

"I see," Darjeeling replied with her narrowed eyes. "Should we check it out?"

"Yeah," Naomi agreed with a tilted head and a shrug. "I want to know what she's up to."

They all entered the room one by one, with Alisa as the last person to go in and closed the door behind her. Naomi and Alisa knew that Kay's office usually a little bit messy with some of the paperwork around. But it surprised them to know that Kay has tidied her office clean and sparkling. Even though, they actually had a little party in this office. Better don't tell what party was it to Darjeeling and Pekoe.

There's nothing much in the office. The Saunders' banner on the top of the door. Pictures of the Saunders students on the wall and on the shelves. The whole room colored in sparkling white and there are tank models around the room either from miniature models up to pictures of tanks. The desk in front of them is very tidy, there are no paperwork on it except for writing tools and utensils.

Wait… Alisa just noticed the top of the desk is not really empty.

"What is that?" Alisa asked with a raised brow.

"What is what?" Pekoe asked, perplexed on something she didn't notice.

"What's that on the table?" Alisa asked as she points at the desk.

Naomi approached the desk, but was surprised on what was on the desk. "It's Kay's laptop."

"Her laptop?" Darjeeling asked with a raised brow and a narrowed eye as they approached the desk.

"Huh, I wonder why she left it here," Naomi added in wonder as they walked around the desk.

"I don't know," Alisa replied with a shrug. "And Kay is not here."

"Well…" Pekoe trailed off, then they all look at the laptop for a long moment.

Then they looked back at each other, with Alisa realized what they had in mind. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?'

Everyone nodded slowly in agreement. "We should check it out," Darjeeling suggested, referring to the laptop.

Alisa just shrugged to that. "Alright, let's check it out."

Alisa steps closer to the laptop and opened it up. She then turns the laptop's power on by a push of the button as her friends stood closer behind her. They waited for a moment for the laptop to boot up. Then the laptop's screen changed.

To their bad luck, the laptop has been added with a password. Not much of a surprise for the Saunders however.

"Hm, I still remembered Kay's password," Naomi then leans in to the computer. "Let me try."

Naomi typed the password 'endlessparty'. The password was pretty much related to the Saunders themselves. Naomi clicked enter and waited for the laptop to go into desktop.

Unfortunately, they're still stuck with the password. Apparently the laptop said that it was the wrong password.

"Well… that's funny," Naomi commented with a slight surprise. "Let me try again."

And still it was the incorrect password.

"That's odd, that was Kay's password," Naomi stated with her perplexed face.

"Are you sure?" Darjeeling asked with a tilted head.

"Yes, I'm sure," Naomi replied flatly. "She didn't tell me she changed the password."

"Wait, what's that hint?" Alisa asked as they looked over into the laptop.

There was a hint underneath the password slot, but the hint wasn't something any schoolgirls knew.

'Ally of the Second Russian Civil War'

That is the most mysterious, confusing and surprising password hint they ever see. It made the Glorianas drop their jaws and the Saunders lean their heads back. In all honesty, they never heard about the Second Russian Civil War. Which actually never existed at this time.

"Second Russian Civil War?" Alisa asked to no one. "What the hell's going on in her head?"

"Does that event even existed?" Pekoe asked suspiciously. "There's only one Russian Civil War and that is along time ago before the Second World War."

"I agreed with Pekoe-san here," Darjeeling added in agreement. "I asked Nonna about that. So why Kay gave a hint like this?"

"I don't know, but…" Naomi paused for a moment, then sigh in disappointment. "Looks like we can't break into her laptop."

*CLICK-KREEEK*

"Come on, Kay. We need to hurry a bit."

"I know, I'll get my laptop and- what the hell?"

They busted. Both Kay and surprisingly Maho are staring at the girls who are at the laptop. They didn't expect that Kay could come in here a little bit quicker. They all stood there and stare blankly at each other awkwardly in silence.

And Kay awkwardly asked them. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, um, well…" Darjeeling awkwardly replied with a forceful smile. "We are just wondering about what are you doing."

"By breaking into her laptop?" Maho asked flatly, continued by Kay as she walks over to her open laptop. "Jesus."

Kay hastily closed her laptop and took it away from the desk, leaving the girls confused of their haste. "I'm sorry, girls. But I have to go."

"A-alright, be safe out there," Pekoe said as Kay heads back for the there, then looked over at Maho. "You too, Maho-san."

Maho didn't say anything but to nod, and they both left the room. What just happened right raised their suspicions against Kay and Maho themselves. Why were they in such a hurry to leave the school like that. Adding with the fact that Kay added a hint in her computer of something that doesn't exist at all. They all wondered to themselves about it.

"What do you think they're up to?" Naomi asked to Alisa, who's actually disturbed of this encounter.

"I'm not sure," Alisa replied with a shook. "I hope it's nothing bad."

* * *

Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture. 15:00 PM.

.

"You weren't kidding about being a gentlelady."

"Of course. And I thought you wore something different."

"What's wrong with this?"

"You're wearing your other same outfit like the one in the morning."

"No-… yes, I am."

"At least you look neat. So… where are we heading?"

"A nice restaurant around the corner. We'll be meeting with them there."

"That's mighty great of you."

Miho and Shiho are both taking a walk down the sidewalks of the city. They dressed properly and presentable for the day. Because they are going to meet the mothers and daughters as to why they dressed like that. And Miho will try to be discreet when they meet them and control her emotions. She's going to be honest, this might be the best day for them both.

Quite a shame Maho couldn't come along because of her job in 141.

Shiho is of course wearing the same goddamn outfit like the ones in the morning. Miho however is pretty much the different.

Miho is wearing a black long-sleeve buttoned shirt and a pair of grey trousers. She wears a grey classic formal vest above her shirt. She has her wristwatch on her left wrist and wore no tie or bow or even a hat. She also wears her appropriate formal shoes for the day, which is a pair of black shoes with a little elevated heel on the back and it's the kind of shoes that she needs to tie with hands. She didn't bring any gun with her today, but she has a tactical baton in the pocket of her vest for self-defense.

Miho and Shiho both are still walking forward down the sidewalk to the traffic, before a left turn from there. Shiho knew a very nice restaurant on this street, and it's pretty close to them. A kind of restaurant that might make Miho to feel joy. Miho even wondered a little on what restaurant are they going to enter. Miho patted her vest and her shirt to make sure that her outfit would stay neat.

One minute later, they reached the said restaurant and entered the front doors. It is a very nice restaurant they're in, but looks rather… expensive. The walls are colored in yellow with wall decors like wall banners are colored in white. A lot of decorations inside ranging from Japanese decorations up to the shining chandelier on the ceilings. The tables and chairs inside looked so elegant, but it seems more British elegant than Japanese. And there are quiet a number of rich-looking people inside the restaurant.

Both Miho and Shiho navigates around the restaurant and find the table whom occupied by their friends. Shiho forgot to tell her that the restaurant was a little wider than Miho should expected. But at the end, they both found their friends at that one particular table enough for 12 people in it. Miho looked over to the people on that said table, and she was surprised on who they were.

Miho was very surprised to see Anchovy, Yukari, Hana, Erika and Alice are here along with their own mothers. She knew about Yukari's and Hana's mother, Yoshiko Akiyama and Yuri Isuzu because she asked her friends about it. But she doesn't know about Erika's mother, which she would call Mrs. Itsumi. Mrs. Itsumi has the same light blonde hair like her daughter, Erika, and her hair reaches below her shoulders and has a pair of blue eyes. She wears a green blouse which decorated with white flowers of four petals and a green skirt.

Mrs. Yuri Isuzu is wearing her traditional purple kimono dress decorated with various flowers. Mrs. Chiyo Shimada still wearing her same outfit, though her coat color was purple instead of the usual red. Mrs. Yoshiko Akiyama on the other hand, wears a white-pinkish buttoned shirt which was sleeveless and a black skirt. And lastly Mrs. Chiyomi is wearing her stone-pattern color overshirt and a pair blue trousers.

While the girls, Erika for a start, she was wearing a red turtleneck sweater and blue pants. Alice was wearing her cute yellow dress and a pink headband on her head. Hana was wearing her kimono as well which is in blue color and decorated with flowers like her mother. Yukari wore a cream color long-sleeve shirt and a pair of blue trousers with her blue jacket tied around the belt of her trousers. While Anchovy, she wore a short light brown jacket above her Italian flag-pattern colored T-shirt and a purple-pinkish long skirt and surprisingly she tied her hair into a ponytail.

"Minasan, kon'nichiwa," Shiho greeted them.

"Kon'nichiwa, Shiho-sama," everyone in the table greeted back. "Kon'nichiwa, Miho-san."

"Good evening, everyone," Miho greeted them with a wave of her hand. "It's great to see all of you here."

"We are grateful to see you here too, Miho-san," Hana replied happily. "Though, I must say you have an interesting taste on your fashion."

"Why thank you, Ms. Hana," Miho replied with a smile and a nod. "I like to be a gentlelady for today."

Usually gentleman sounds normal for them, but gentlelady? Everyone pretty much perplexed of what she said except for Shiho and Anchovy apparently.

Anchovy stood up from her chair as Miho walks over to her. "You looked so… charming with that outfit, Miho."

"And you yourself looked so beautiful," Miho then held her hand and then kiss it.

That action made Anchovy to feel very embarrassed. The girls on the other hand, knowing that Anchovy is Miho's girlfriend, it made them to feel pretty jealous about it. For the mothers however, they were pretty flattered to see Miho did that. For Shiho, this just feels so awkward for her.

Miho then looks up to her and was astonished by her hair. "I'm surprised you changed your hairstyle."

"Yeah, I just thought I want to try something new," Anchovy replied with a nod, reaching her hand to her ponytail. "So… what do you think?

Miho just chuckled to her and replied. "I love it. I love this style more than your usual one."

"Aw~, thank you," Anchovy then turns her head at their table, seeing their jealous girls and the flattered mothers before looking back at her lover. "Let's sit down, shall we?"

"Of course," Miho then looked at her mother, who had replied with a nod.

Shiho, Miho and Anchovy then sat down on their respective chairs, as Miho said. "I hope you haven't ordered anything before we got here."

"I'm afraid we just ordered something," Chiyo Shimada replied with a shrug. "Of course, I picked something more delicious for you both."

"You could have hold it for a moment to wait for us," Shiho stated with a little disappointment.

"Oh, don't worry about it Shiho-sama," Yoshiko said with a smile. "We picked something that you will like."

"Alright then, if you say so," Shiho replied with a shrug and leans against her chair. "What about Miho?"

"Anchovy-san picked Fish and Chips for her," Mrs. Itsumi replied, much to Miho's surprise.

"Well, it's your favorite, right?" Mrs. Yuri asked with her eyes closed.

"Of course," Miho replied, then look at her lover. "Thank you, Anchovy."

"Anything for you, Miho-chan~," Anchovy replied happily, she looked cute when she speaks.

"Oh, Miho," Erika called as Miho looks at her. "I believe you haven't met my mother."

Miho nodded at her, before looking up at Erika's mother who said to her. "My name is Karin Itsumi-sama. I am pleased to meet you."

"Miho Nishizumi, it's a pleasure to meet you too," Miho replied with a smile and a bow of her head. "And I'm at your service."

Everyone giggled to what she said as Mrs. Karin Itsumi was very amused to hear that. "I'm very pleased to hear that."

"Thank you, Mrs. Itsumi," Miho replied with a nod happily. "How is your day?"

"I had a great day, Miho-san," Mrs. Itsumi replied with a nod. "How about you?"

"I'll say the same, Mrs. Itsumi," Miho replied back, then looks over to the rest of the people with her. "How about you?"

"We all had a great day, Miho-san!" Yukari excitedly replied with a huge smile. "And I'm very happy that you can join us."

"Me too," Alice shyly added with a smile. "I'm happy that you are well."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "It's good to see you here, Alice."

In a moment, Yukari noticed something from behind Miho. "Here comes the drink."

They looked at the direction where Yukari is looking at and found a waiter has brought quite a number of drinks on his plate. After he reached their table, he puts down the drinks onto the table one by one with a jug of green Italian Soda as the last thing he putted down. After the waiter left, Miho observed what drinks they had in their table. Alice and her mother, Mrs. Yuri and Mrs. Yoshiko, and Erika have their own specific drinks, while Miho and the rest are to drink the Italian Soda.

"So, mother, what do you think about the Italian Soda?" Miho asked to Shiho.

Shiho sips a drink on it, and replied with a flat face. "Well… I kind of like it."

"By the way, how're you both holding up?" Chiyo asked with a smile to Shiho and Miho.

"We both are getting along just fine," Miho replied, small smile produced on her face. "It's great to have a mother like her."

Shiho just chuckled, and added to her. "You don't have to mention it, Miho."

"I'll say the same to Okaa-san," Hana happily added to her mother, Yuri.

"Me too," Yukari added as well happily.

"And me," Erika added with a nod.

"And so am I," Alice lowly added shyly.

"We all appreciate to hear that," Mrs. Itsumi replied with a nod. "How's school?"

Shiho and Miho including the girls themselves fell silent, with the mothers except Rinnai Chiyomi and Chiyo Shimada perplexed on why they fell silent. "I… actually don't study in any school."

Mrs. Itsumi was taken back by the answer. However, Mrs. Yoshiko and Mrs. Yuri had forgot that their daughters did mention them about that part.

"Well… if you don't study in any school," Yoshiko began with an awkward smile. "What about your job?"

"I do volunteer jobs," Miho replied, then sips her drink. "Especially helping the Sensha-Do Department and… helping the other schools on their troubles."

"So are you saying that you are a 'jumping jobs' kind of a person?" Mrs. Yuri asked with a raised brow.

"I much prefer 'Jack Of All Trades' than that," Miho corrected as she points at Mrs. Yuri.

"Did you mean 'Lady Of All Trades'?" Chiyo corrected questionably.

"Thank you, Mrs. Shimada," Miho replied with a nod. "Lady Of All Trades, that's who I am."

Though Hana found that a little bothering for her. "Don't you feel so complicated if you changing jobs like that?"

"I can handle those complications, Hana," Miho replied confidently. "And it's actually good for me to have other skills than just mastering one."

"Of course, she is," Erika happily replied. "Though, her other skills are not the best. But she's been helpful enough to do her jobs and helping the schools."

"I see," Mrs. Itsumi replied. "Then you also do tankery jobs too."

That instantly made Miho's face sour. "I uh…"

"Forgive me, Itsumi-sama," Anchovy interrupted, to Miho's thankfulness. "But Miho actually hates to do any tankery anymore."

It wasn't much of a surprise for Chiyo, Yuri and Yoshiko, but for Karin Itsumi… is pretty much different. "W-what? B-but you are a Nishizumi, you are an expert in tankery."

"She may be an expert in tankery," Shiho added to Karin's reply. "But… that kind of thing has been giving Miho some negative effects. Especially after that tragedy in Ooarai School. If you understand what I mean."  
"Oh, I see…" Karin paused for a moment, feeling sorry about her. "I'm sorry about what happened to you a year ago. It must be hard."

"You don't have to mentioned it," Miho sincerely replied with an open palm to her, she actually delightful to have a conversation like this.

After she replied, a waitress comes into view and approached them. The waitress then put downs the foods from her tray one by one. Starting from Miho's Fish and Chips, a couple of sushi's, a wooden bucket of ramen, onigiri, crockets, and some snacks which are sausages and cheese rolls. They thanked the waitress before she left that table. The mothers and daughters then began to eat to what they have ordered.

"Fish and Chips," Miho stated in relief. "My kind of food back in London."

"You're from London?" Yuri asked with a raised brow. "You lived there after you survived that incident?"

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod. "A really nice place. Got a nice tidy house, my own garden, large cities, Big Ben-"

"That big clockwork tower?" Yoshiko asked with a surprise. "I wish I could be there to see it myself."

"If you have the time to have a trip there of course," Chiyo stated with a sense of doubt, then continued by Alice. "It is going to be an expensive trip if you do go there."

"I'm pretty sure Yoshiko-sama could handle about the money problem," Mrs. Karin assures with a smile, then looked at Yoshiko. "Isn't that right, Yoshiko-sama?"

"Of course," Yoshiko replied with a nod. "I can handle it."

"So, Miho," Mrs. Rinnai Chiyomi called, putting her elbows on the table and landing her chin on her both hands. "Is it really a great place for you back in London?"

"You could say that," Miho replied with a shrug. "The hard part was about getting the money for myself, but I managed to handle that so it's easy money for me."

"You did mentioned that you had a rough life back in London," Hana stated with a small frown.

"Aside from finding money and finding work are hard," Miho replied as she leans against the chair. "There are hooligans lurking around London, though there's only a few groups of them. I ever into one once."

This did made them all concerned, including her own mother and Anchovy. "Did they hurt you?" Anchovy asked worriedly.

"Well, they tried," Miho replied, which made them confused.

"What do you mean they tried?" Erika asked with a raised brow.

"They tried to rob me," Miho replied casually and calmly. "But that time, I happened to bought a sword from a souvenir shop for my house. When I pulled the sword out, they were hesitate to either try to fight me with their knives or back off."

Hearing that, they all could only gave their blank stares and poker faces to her. Rinnai Chiyomi and Anchovy were like 'I'm sorry, what?', while the rest of them could only wonder what the hell is wrong with Miho. In Miho's case is that she brought a sword against a bunch of hooligans. It sounded more like a British samurai against an American gang.

"And… what happen next?" Yukari asked awkwardly.

"Instead of we are having a fight, I suddenly ask them if I could buy them a drink," Miho joyfully replied. "Since I had a lot of money from my work that time. So, everyone agrees, we holster our weapons and headed out for the nearest pub. And we became good friends."

It's actually a true story without even had to mention that happened in the future. She had about 3 friendly hooligans that time, and they became friends just because they had a drink. The hooligans that time made a great promise that she won't be bothered by any other hooligans and it did happen just because she was drinking with them. Aside from Alice who didn't know what she meant by drinking, the mothers, well… let's just say they nearly wanted to suggest her to avoid drinking. The girls including Anchovy on the other hand, learned that sometimes a bad thing someone did could make a friend with each other, but of course it shouldn't be something very worse than drinking and they are not looking forward to find a friend by doing a bad thing.

"Oh, my," Rinnai commented with an awkward sigh. "I'm not looking forward to find a friend like that."

"You are one interesting girl," Erika added with her drink raised at her. "You know that, right?"

"A lot people say that before," Miho replied with her eyebrows raised. "Don't know if I'm really that interesting."

"Really, Miho-chan?" Anchovy the leans to her side closer to Miho. "Because you have my attention for quite a long time."

"That's because I was trying to impress you," Miho responded flatly with a smile.

"Well, I am beyond impress, Miho-chan," Anchovy replied happily. "I would love to see more surprises from you."

"By the way…" Mrs. Itsumi said as Miho turns her head at her. "How did you get that scar on your eye?"

"My eye got scratched by a tiger," Miho replied flatly, which terrified Karin Itsumi pretty much. "It hurts like hell."

That sent shivers to Yoshiko's and Yuri's spine. "Wha- how did that happen?" Yuri asked in concern.

"It happened when I had a trip to a small forest somewhere outside London," Miho replied flatly. "I accidentally walked to a loose tiger when I was trekking my way back out from the forest. It jumped pass me and scratched my eye real fast. I managed to survive when I took a big branch and swing it straight to the jumping tiger, before I ran out from the forest and call in the authorities."

While that is actually a lie, everyone except those who knew about her took her quiet seriously. In all honesty, Yukari, Hana and Alice were quiet frightened to hear what had happened to her. Though, for Yoshiko, Yuri and Karin, they actually had their faces turned pale to hear that. Though, those who took the story seriously were pretty much relieve to see her standing alive.

"Gosh, we're glad you're still alright," Yuri commented softly, her hand landed on her chest. "I can't believe that you could survive that."

"I'll be honest," Erika added with agreement. "She is very tough girl, Yuri-sama. She really is."

When they looked back at Miho, they including Shiho herself was surprised to see Miho just froze like a statue as she halts eating her food. "Yuri?" Miho asked in surprise and enigmatically, which made Yuri insulted a little.

"Miho, how rude!" Chiyo exclaimed softly, still keeping her bright smile.

"I'm sorry, I just…" Miho apologetically replied with an open palm. "I forgot her name is that."

This though made Shiho curious of her daughter. "Is there something about her name?"

"Well, yes it is," Miho replied awkwardly with a nod. "It just reminds me of someone."

"Oh, do you have a friend with a name like Yuri-sama?" Yukari wondered with her head tilted.

"She does have a friend called Yuri, Yukari-san," Anchovy replied with a nod, she remembered that name after Miho told her that story.

"Oh, really?" Yuri asked back curiously and softly. "Then I forgive you about that, I didn't know I could frightened you with such thing."

"It's alright," Miho replied back with a shook.

"So, about Yuri…" Mrs, Karin paused for a moment as she leans forward. "What was she like?"

The kind question she was asking is normal, but it somehow made Miho and Anchovy stone-faced and made false smiles and sincerely raised their eyebrows implying they wanted to facepalm. They actually forgot that Japanese people uses the name Yuri for girls.

"Umm, why are you both look like that?" Hana asked in concern as everyone confused why they expressed like that.

Anchovy then slowly turned her head at Miho, and slowly said. "Well…"

Miho just kept her eyes staring forward as she wasn't bother to look at Erika's mother. "You're asking the wrong question, Mrs. Itsumi."

Everyone including the girls became perplexed of what Miho just stated, though the realization hit Alice's mind. "Wait, it's a he?"

Both Miho and Anchovy slowly nodded, with Miho replying. "Yep, it's a he."

Shiho, Chiyo, and surprisingly Yukari just realized that what she's referring was a Russian name. The others including the girls mistook it quiet far. "Yuri is a man?! That's ridiculous!" Mrs. Karin protested.

"Are you kidding with me?" Hana asked as she leans her head forward in surprise, and then continued by Yuri. "You can't be serious."

"That's a woman's name, why would your friend who is a man would be called Yuri?"

"Before you keep going to rant about that," Miho quickly replied sarcastically. "I should add that my friend Yuri is actually a Russian, not a Japanese."

What she just said seems to calm them down. Correction, stop their rantings for good. Bloody hell, they just gave their deadpanned looks at her as if it's something they can't believe. Well, at least she didn't mention he was a 141. The only person who didn't rant like them was only Mrs. Chiyomi, Erika and Alice.

"Oh…" Yuri paused for a moment, then continued by Yoshiko. "We're sorry… we thought-"

"No harm done, mate," Miho replied with a shook and a small smile. "It's normal for Japanese people to mistook a Russian name as Japanese name."

"If you put it that way, we actually still feel bad about it," Mrs. Chiyomi added with a shrug.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Okaa-san," Anchovy assured her happily. "She's okay about it."

"Alright," Mrs. Karin clears her throat first before asking. "So… how was he like?"

Miho stayed silent for a moment to consider her words, before replying. "For a start, he's an adult and a good man. Not a former lover, mind you."

Everyone giggled to that fact. "We know that, Miho-san," Chiyo replied with a nod.

"Well… he is loyal, he doesn't talk to much and a little bit shy to talk with someone new," Miho then paused for a moment, the shy part made the girls giggled a little. "He's not really open about himself, but he's brave and has a soft heart for both men and women."

They were flattered to hear that, and Hana gave her comment. "Aw, I wish Saori could meet someone like your friend for her."

Yeah, remove the part that mentions that he is a former terrorist and a 141 soldier. He would be happy with Saori.

"Well, of course, if she could get one," Erika joked with a shrug.

"Oh, don't be like that, Erika," Chiyo interjected softly. "I'm sure your friend Saori-san could get one."

"I'm pretty sure she would, Mrs. Shimada," Miho added in agreement. "She is all crazy about it."

Everyone chuckled about it, to which then Shiho asked to change the subject. "So, after we eat here. Where are we heading next?"

"Next stop, arcade building," Erika replied flatly, much to Miho's and Shiho's surprise. "And yes that was my idea.

"We could use a little down time to have some fun together, right?" Hana happily asked to everyone

"Yeah," – Yukari

"Agree!" – Anchovy

"Of course," – Rinnai Chiyomi

"Yay!" – Alice

"Sure," – Yoshiko Akiyama

"Yes," – Yuri Isuzu

"You bet," – Erika

"Alright," – Chiyo Shimada

"Okay then," – Karin Itsumi

"M'kay," – Shiho

Once everyone gave out their voices, it was Miho's turn to respond. "Well… seeing I don't have anything to do for the rest of the evening. I'm in."

"Yay, Miho-chan~!" Anchovy suddenly lunged at Miho into a hug.

"Woah, easy there, Emerald," Miho replied as she hugs back, which making everyone in that table laughed with joy. "Alright, we're going to spend some time together again."

After they ate at the restaurant, they all then headed out for the arcade building by foot. And again, it was not really that far. It was a quite huge building, it was about third story high and the back of the building is very wide to fill in a lot kinds of arcade games. They entered and get some coins for themselves to play with those arcades. For sure, it is a nice place for them to get their stress of their heads and building their relationships with each other.

Miho had the time to ask her lover on why she didn't tell Miho that she'll be meeting her back at that restaurant. Turns out she wanted a surprise for her together with their own families. Anchovy wanted to make sure that Miho had a good relationship with her own family and the others. Miho was thankful for her, this could get her head off from the wars she remembered.

However, both Miho and Anchovy going out to have their own fun while the rest of their group go play elsewhere in the arcade building. For all they know, Shiho is off playing with Chiyo on throwing basketballs, which is odd for their kind of thing. Nevertheless for the rest of the group for which they played pinball, arcade monitors, Pacman, etcetera-etcetera.

They had a very good time in there. Well… a little bit for Anchovy. Miho and Anchovy decided to play the tabletop disc where you prevent the disc to enter your goal, like soccer but using a handheld disc hitters. Miho's reflex was pretty sharp that she scores for about 67 scores while Anchovy had 12 scores. Anchovy was pretty much annoyed and grumpy for a moment, but Miho comforts to try something else than that. To which they play pinball for the first time.

Miho really enjoyed her time in here thanks to her mother, Shiho for inviting her around. And also thanks to Anchovy to make this a great surprise, and surprisingly Anchovy gave her a kiss on her cheek while playing arcades. And She is also glad that she doesn't have to smoke on her cigars because this activity lifts her mood up.

However, she also wondered what are her men doing back in the base.

* * *

 **Author's note:**

 **Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to say that I am glad that you managed to reach this far. I really appreciate it for all of you. And Please don't forget to leave a reply for this story. And those who are Indonesians, be ready for 17th August.**


	55. Chapter 52 - Shooting Training And Girls

Task Force 141 Headquarters. 09:00 AM.

.

Ah, morning, glorious morning. The sun shone on the whole base of 141 as the few of the base's roofs shines back at the sun. Some of the 141 troops are drilling themselves to get their physiques at the top as the rest of them are inspecting their weaponry, jet fighters, APCs and tanks. Some little birds flew over the base's airspace to conduct flight training and some of them conduct airspace security. And a few of the men and Japanese women could be seen having their breakfast at the shooting range.

And now, we will look over at one particular part of the base. Which is located at the 141's weapons armory. A truck was parked in front of the armory with a number of weapon boxes are loitering neatly near the truck. A couple of men, Shocker and Garhaaye, were helping on lifting those weapon boxes onto the truck, which thankfully it's a civilian-disguised truck. The reason for this it's not because the JGSDF wanted the 141's weaponry. It was because of Ami's request for it on behalf of Miho's orders.

Ami is at the weapon crates to see which weapons that Miho wanted to bring. While Ghost who is at the truck supervise the transfer and sometimes helping the men to lift the weapons into the truck. While they're loading the weapons into the truck, Ghost didn't really know the reason why Miho orders were loading the weapons into the civilian-disguised truck or why Ami requested that on Miho's behalf. Ghost, Shocker and Garhaaye were curious about what Ami's planning to do with these weapons.

Ghost looked over to his watch for a moment before glancing back at Ami. He could see Ami is reading the list on what weapons Miho wanted her to bring. She marked the crates that she would bring by marking it with an X marker. Ami then tips the butt of the pen to her chin as she looked over the list again. Ghost honestly felt interested to see Ami's beautiful face right now.

Ghost then decided to walk over to her and stands next to her. "So, you got everything you need?"

"Almost," Ami replied with a shrug and tilted her head. "Just a few more and I'm outta here."

"It's good to hear that then," Ghost replied with a nod. "So, what are the weapons you're bringing with you?"

"Rifles, SMGs, pistols," Ami replied, then makes a smug smile. "That's all I think."

"I see," Ghost just gave a shrug to that. "I suppose you're not planning to rearm the JGSDF?"

"Of course not," Ami replied with a shook. "It's for Miho."

That gave the confusion to Ghost about that. "That's… she has her own armament in her house, why she would asked more of these weapons?"

In Ami's turn, she gave a poker face to him. "Eerm… these weapons are not for her."

Ghost just gave a perplexed look at her, Shocker and Garhaaye halts the weapons transfer by looking at her stone-faced. "What the bloody hell do you mean by that?" Ghost asked with a little raised tone.

"How do I explain this?" Ami thought to herself for a moment as she scratched her head, before she asked back at him. "You do remember those Kuromorimine girls who are Miho's friends, right?"

Ghost was starting to feel ridiculous to this question as the two men continue to transfer the weapons. "What those girls had something to do with these weapons?"

"You're not going to like it, Ghost," Ami replied with a sour face and crossed her arms. "But she's going to train those girls with these weapons soon."

*BRAK*

Ami was completely surprised to have Ghost staring at her in disbelieve, with both Shocker and Garhaaye dropped the crate they had and stare back at her in deadpanned. Ghost can't tell if Miho has lost her mind on that. For Shocker, he can't believe that shit just got real. For Garhaaye, it reminded him that time when he was in Somalia watching some militia training children how to shoot people.

"You're shitting me, mate?!" Shocker asked quickly and aloud.

"WHAAT?!" Garhaaye asked aloud with a raised tone, which his voice became funny to hear.

"Oh, not again," Ghost sighed to himself, clearly things got out of hand for Miho.

Ami could forces a smile for him. "Yeah, I told you that you won't like it. Even though that should be my fault to approve to let the girls to have training with these weapons."

Now that was blasphemous for Ghost. He just dropped his jaw at her. "Have you lost your mind?!"

"Woah, alright calm down, Ghost," Ami replied with her both open palms facing at him and a sweat came down from her forehead as she tried to calm him down. "Alright, I'll be honest. I'm sorry. I thought to have more girls to know how to use firearms to defend themselves and defend people is a good idea."

Ghost calmed down for a moment and sighed as he looked away. The two men back there then continued to transfer the crates onto the truck, though unnerved by Ghost's emotion. Ghost then able to look back at her but with his arms crossed. As Ami holds her clipboard of list in front of her chest, expecting another kind of emotion from Ghost.

"Alright, then," Ghost said flatly at her. "Who else's going to use these weapons? Teachers? Other students?"

"Huh… now that you mentioned it," Ami said as she remembered someone else. "Miho's girlfriend, Ancvhoy, will be training to use firearms as well."

Ghost practically surprised to hear that. But he doesn't protest or against that. After hearing what happened to Anchovy that got her to the hospital a few days ago, the only thing that made Miho went rampaging back in Pravda Schoolship. It's a good choice Miho made. And they won't looking forward for that to happen again.

"I see…" Ghost responded with a nod, then dropped his hands to his sides. "I guess she made the right decision, even if it means letting the other girls to have firearms."

"Yes, she did," Ami replied with a soft nod. "Don't worry about the girls, Miho will make sure they didn't do anything stupid."

"I won't," Ghost replied with a thumbs up. "I trust her judgement."

"Happy to hear that then," Ami replied with a smile, but then changed to a curious look. "But I must ask, why did you suddenly feel okay about letting Anchovy to have firearm?"

"You remembered what happened to her a few days ago, right?" Ghost asked with one of his brow raised underneath his sunglasses.

Ami can't believe she's so stupid to not remember that. "Oh yeah, I can't believe I forgot that."

"I would say the same to you," Ghost replied with his head leans back a little.

"But… jeez… watashi no sugoi…" Ami rubs her neck for a moment with a frown. "I remembered how angry she was. I saw her face and she was… very cold."

"I know," Ghost acknowledged with a nod. "But it's not the first time she did this."

Ami just gave a curious stare at him. "When was her first time?"

"Back in Afghanistan, a year ago," Ghost paused for a moment, he felt sour to remember that. "People gave her a nickname Banshee because she charged at the enemy by herself with a loud scream as if she just came from the Second World War theatre. She killed more than a dozen on the run, but also one civilian injured in her wake."

Ami deadpanned at him for a moment, just like what happened a few days ago. "Back in Pravda School ship, Miho caused a civilian to be injured."

Ghost was not happy to hear that. "Bloody hell, what happened?"

"Miho accidentally shot a civilian," Ami replied as her eyes looked away from him. "To make it worse, that civilian was her own friend who study in Pravda school as well, her name was Klara."

Ghost went into shock as Ami continued. "Nonna and Katyusha were there as well. Miho's identity is blown the moment she had to get them out."

Ghost could only shook on that, he can't believe that there are others who knew her identity. "Damn… it was a tough day for her, didn't it?"

"You tell me," Ami replied with a small shrug. "I was glad her friends from Ooarai able to save her in time back there."

Ghost actually felt guilty on that. "I had to, there's no one else that could reach Miho in time. I felt bad to send Anzu and her friends to save Miho and the Pravda girls."

"Don't feel bad about it," Ami replied with a smile. "You didn't have a choice about it."

"Maybe," Ghost had a doubt about that. "Just… maybe."

"Captain Ami!" Garhaaye shouted in his funny high voice, they both looked at him and Shocker. "We're done putting the crates in."

"Alright, looks like you're good to go," Ghost stated with a thumbs up.

"Garhaaye, care to come along?" Ami asked with a smile.

"Sure, I wanted to talk with Captain Nishizumi," Garhaaye replied with his nodded and tilted head. "I want to know how is she holding up."

"You don't mind you'll be the one who's driving?" Ami asked with her right eyebrow raised, she did bring this truck by herself.

"I won't mind," Garhaaye replied, flat-faced. "I'll be in the truck then."

"Are you sure, mate?" Shocker asked with a smirk. "I thought you don't have a driving license."

"You tell dat to the Somalian driving instructor," Garhaaye replied half-jokingly as he entered the truck. "You won't need a driving license and you get a free technical and 50. Cal from him."

"Hah, fair enough," Shocker replied as he laughed a little to Garhaaye.

Ami and Ghost both laughed to Garhaaye's respond "So that's what really happened to Somalia, huh?" Ami asked to Ghost.

"Yeah, free technical with machine guns and you don't need a license for it," Ghost replied as he looked at her.

"I wonder how did that go," Ami wondered at Ghost.

"Oh, you don't want to know," Ghost replied with his arms crossed. "It's like people is giving a monkey an assault rifle and ended up the monkey shoots the rifle all over the damn place."

"Woah," Ami amazed of his opinion. "I don't want to think about that."

"Actually that literally happened back in Africa," Ghost quickly replied, Ami just deadpanned at him. "Buuut… yeah."

"Oookaay…"Ami awkwardly replied with concerned look.

"Yeah," Ghost awkwardly replied as he scratched the back of his head.

"Right," Ami immediately folded her list close and she awkwardly smile at him. "So… I was wondering…"

"Yeah?" Ghost waited for her question for a moment.

"Well…" Ami paused for a moment. "Can I have a date with you?"

He immediately froze of her question, it is the first time for Ghost to hear a such question. But… he felt that he would be rude if he denied her request. So…

"I… s-sure."

"Yes!" Ami said excitingly to herself, that has not gone unnoticed by Ghost and Shocker who is still nearby. "Um, sorry I-."

"No, it's alright," Ghost replied, then pauses for a moment. "So… when?"

"If we both have the time of course," Ami replied with a smile, then pointing her thumb at the truck. "Um, I should be heading out now."

"Alright," Ghost nodded as Ami headed for the truck and about to enter. "Be careful out there, Captain Ami."

"I will, Ghost-sama," Ami replied after she entered, and then leans out the door's window and waves back at him. "Bye now."

Ghost waves back at her wordlessly, as the truck is leaving the base until the truck's been out of sight. Ghost just smiled under his balaclava, and at the same time he can't believe that he just accepted Ami's date proposal. He frowned as he reminded of his family for a moment, before erasing that though away. He then turned around and was about to head for the armory, only to meet Shocker, Chemo and Vicek who are standing right in front of him.

Ghost just lifts his hands wide to his sides and shook his head at them. "What?"

"Did she propose a date to you?" Chemo asked with a poker face.

"Well, what's your business about it?" Ghost asked with his head leans at them.

"We just can't believe that would happen," Vicek replied with a shrug. "You both would make a good couple."

"Oh, you tell me about it," Ghost replied as he looked back at where the truck has gone.

"Want me to help you on doing the date, mate?" Shocker asked with a smirk.

"No, unless you want me to order you to clean the toilets," Ghost responded coldly, which made Shocker taken back a bit.

"Woah, alright, mate," Shocker awkwardly replied and began pointing his thumb to behind him. "We-we will leave you to it."

The three men immediately dispersed from Ghost, awkwardly however. Ghost just shook his head about his men, why they even bothered about Ghost's relationship with her? Guess he can't complained if that didn't go unnoticed by everyone in the base. Vicek was right about one thing though.

Ghost and Ami could make a good couple. Maybe for Ghost.

* * *

Kuromomorine tank battlefield area, deep open forest section. 15:00 PM.

.

"Got everything I need, Captain Ami?"

"Sure. Got the whole weapons you've been asking to get from the base."

"And you must be crazy to train them using these weapons, Captain Nishizumi."

"Tell me about it, Garhaaye."

"Miho-san, Ami-sama, and… Garhaaye! it's good to see you again."

"We're glad you could come over, Kay. We sure need another hand on helping us to teach them."

"Yeah, I can't believe you are going to let those girls to use these weapons aside us 141s."

"I know, mate. Look, there they are."

Miho, Kay, Ami, and Garhaaye are at the truck with the weapons have been unloaded from the truck. They waited there as Maho, Erika, Akaboshi and the other 4 commanders of KMM to come over to them. They greeted them happily, with Miho only greeted them with a wave. The KMM girls except for Maho were pretty much surprised on what Miho, Ami and Garhaaye brought to this place. Kay and Maho are both not sure if these girls will be doing fine with training and using these weapons.

Even though they are here, Miho told them to wait for a moment before they start. Everyone doesn't know what she meant, but not for Ami though. It was that one person whom Miho cares so much. The girls were about to ask, when they heard a shout from behind them. When they turned around, they were pretty much surprised on who has arrived.

Anchovy had arrived on the scene, along with her mother apparently. This surprises Miho a little, though she understands that her mother wanted to see how good her daughter is on defending herself. However, Ami and Miho would try to find them a permit on usage of firearms. It might be a little hard but they will make it happen.

Both Anchovy and her mother Rinnai are both surprised on the amount of weapon crates she just brought. Anchovy felt she had superior firepower in her disposal. For Anchovy's mother however, it was a pretty excessive thing that Miho would do due to numbers of weapons she brought. There were a little bit more than a dozen crates loitering around.

"Wow, Miho," Anchovy awkwardly admires on what her lover brought. "That's quite a number of… firearms here."

"In all honesty," Geshiko added in agreement. "It feels like you just brought number of weapons enough to outfit a small battalion."

"Won't hurt to be prepared, Geshiko," Miho replied flatly. "I just though you need more than pistols."

"For real?" Maho asked with a raised brow, could only shook to her sister's logic. "I wonder what is going over your head, Miho."

Miho just shook her head a little, as her hands shrug in the air. "Tell me about it."

"And… may I know who are you?" Rinnai asked, referring the question to the Somalian.

"My name's Garhaaye, miss," the Somalian replied. "Member of 141, one of Captain Nishizumi's men."

"Just Miho for now, Garhaaye," Miho responded with her arms crossed without bothering to look at him.

"Maxaa ka khaldan arintaas?" Garhaaye asked to her, basically asking what's wrong about that. Though, everyone including Anchovy and her mother confused on what he just said as they gave their blank looks.

"Annagu shaqo-la'aan ayaanu nahay, Garhaaye," Miho replied flatly, saying that they're off-duty. "Khasab kuguma aha inaad iigu yeedho kabtan."

"Laakiin sifiican ayaan u dareemayaa," Garhaaye replied, implying that he feels better that way.

"Ah, I'm sorry, I don't mean for interrupting," Anchovy interrupted awkwardly. "But could you stop speaking Somalian now?"

Miho and Garhaaye only both nodded with a shrug, though everyone except Maho, Kay, Akaboshi and Erika were surprised of Anchovy's respond.

"How did you know they were talking Somalian?" Mauko asked with a raised brow.

"We heard them talking like that when we're back in Darjeeling's tea party a couple months ago," Kay replied with her hands on her hips.

Everyone looks back at Garhaaye, who then gave a straight face to them. "No, I wasn't in Darjeeling's tea party. We were talking on the phone that time."

Garhaaye then looks at Ami, who gave a disbelieving face. "Really?"

"Yeah, really," Garhaaye replied with a rather higher voice, which made him sounds funny as everyone giggled to him. "What-what so funny?"

"Oh, I like your voice, Garhaaye-sama," Rinnai answered with a soft smile. "You sounded so funny in that tone."

"Thank you, miss," Garhaaye replied with a thumbs up, then looked at his captain. "So… when shall we start training, kabtan?"

"Right, Garhaaye, get the kevlars for them," Miho immediately ordered as she starts to open the weapon crates along with Ami.

"Kevlars?" Erika asked confusingly.

"Bulletproof armors," Ami replied flatly as Garhaaye handed them the kevlars one by one. "Well, not bulletproof enough but it should be enough to protect yourself from accidentally getting shot."

This made Anchovy's mother concerned. "Are you sure it's enough?"

"Of course I'm sure about that," Miho assured happily. "I even shot my own sister when we're trying out the Kevlar vest."

Everyone immediately deadpanned at her, not for Kay, Maho, Ami and Garhaaye who only froze to her comment. "W-what?!" Anchovy was rather horrified of what Miho did.

Kay just took a deep sigh, before replying to Anchovy. "I forgot to tell you that the people of 141 are pretty much crazy."

Rinnai just shook her head to Miho's mental state. "I'm not quite sure if you'll be alright with my dear daughter."

"I know her judgement and her way of work are quite… unorthodox," Ami replied with her hands folded with each other. "But trust me, she'll do everything for Anchovy."

"Even though she shot me," Maho added flatly, they felt unpleasant to hear that.

"Alright, everyone, wear up," Miho told them, as the girls including Kay, Maho and Anchovy wear up their kevlars.

"Miho, I need a little help," Sangou said as she struggled a little to use the vest.

"Alright, come here," Miho said as Sangou came over to her, then begins helping her to wear the Kevlar on.

All the kevlars they wore were the light body armor types, plate carrier ones. Grants great mobility but less protection, but it should be enough for the girls to protect themselves from any stray bullets. Besides, the girls might can't handle the heavy weight of the heavier Kevlar than this. And they're pretty much happy and comfortable with the Kevlar vests they wore.

Anchovy's mother, Rinnai actually felt glad to know Miho took some precautions about this. She knew that Miho is going to train Anchovy about how to use real firearms for herself. She remembered that Miho was so angry to herself that she couldn't protect Anchovy because she wasn't there. Now, Rinnai and Miho won't have to worry about Anchovy, for quite sometime.

After everyone finished wearing their kevlars, they looked back at Miho who had just finished opening up the crates along with Ami and Garhaaye who are already in their Kevlar vests too. "Do you need earplugs?" Miho asked them flatly.

"Uh… I don't think we gonna need it," Akaboshi replied with a shook.

"You sure?" Garhaaye asked in concern.

"We've been riding and shooting tanks pretty loud," Erika replied with a shrug. "I think we'll be alright."

"If you say so," Garhaaye replied as he tilted his head.

"Garhaaye, can you give Mrs. Rinnai an armor too?" Miho asked orderly. "I want to avoid anyone else getting shot even if they're watching."

"Yes, ma'am."

As Garhaaye is helping Mrs. Rinnai to wear on the Kevlar vest, the girls looked over the weapon crates. "So… what'cha got there?" Ritaiko asked curiously as she leans her head a little onto the crates.

"Pistols, Assault Rifles, SMGs, and a couple of shotguns," Ami replied casually as if giving weapons to high schoolers is normal. "Don't worry about ammo though, we brought a lot for this training."

"Let's start with pistols," Kay then looked over onto one crate, which contains pistols. "HK45, Glock 17, USP 45, M9 Beretta, P99, SIG P227, Jericho 941, FN Five Seven, and Fort 12. All semi-auto."

"Go ahead and pick which you like," Maho replied as she gestured her hand to the crate filled pistols. "See which one you're comfortable with."

They were pretty picky on what pistols they should take, though Miho noticed Anchovy is rather shy on what gun she would. "It's alright, Emerald. Just pick one."

Anchovy looked back at the crate as the other KMM girls get ahead and picked each pistols and inspect it. Though, Anchovy interested on one gun. She chose the M9 Beretta pistol and inspect it. She is very interested with the model of the pistol and the black color of the pistol really fits well for her. Anchovy holds the grip of the pistol and make sure to keep her finger off the trigger. She is already comfortable with this pistol.

"Miho," Anchovy called. "Which country made this pistol?"

"Italy," Miho replied flatly, much to Anchovy's and her mother's surprise. "And also the US if I remembered it right. It's one of my favorite kind of pistol, quite steady and accurate."

"Ah, I see," Anchovy replied with a smile. "Then I'll be keeping this one."

"Alright then," Miho replied with a nod, then Miho looks over to the other girls. "So, you got your weapons of choice?"

"I guess so," Geshiko said with a hint of a little doubt.

Aside from Anchovy's pistol of choice is the M9 Beretta, the KMM got their own respective pistols. Erika's pistol is the HK45 while Akaboshi's is the USP 45, they both interested in the model. Geshiko's pistol is the P99 and Ritaiko's is the Fort 12, due to their comfort on the pistol grips. Sangou's pistol is the Five Seven and lastly Mauko's is the SIG P227, due to the interesting gun barrel.

After picking up their respective pistols, they receive the pistol holsters from Ami and Maho and strapped them to their legs. They then holster their pistols on their legs. Now they're ready for target practice, and they are in a safe distance from the school and the town so one would hear any guns firing around from a distance. Miho then instructs them to stand at the shooting range. They already got the ammo from Miho, Ami, Kay, Maho and Garhaaye prior to the shooting range.

Maho and Kay supervised and teach them on how to reload the pistols according to their respective pistols. Anchovy on the other hand, was taught by Miho on how to reload the M9 easily. Rinnai Chiyomi was rather happy that Miho had kept her word about teaching her. Rinnai stood by and watched that Anchovy is already getting used to reloading her pistol. While the others are doing their best to reload accurately, some of them got their magazines stuck on the pistols' grips for a moment.

And also Miho, Maho and Kay made sure their fingers are off the trigger. The magazines are loaded with real bullets.

However, after they get used to reloading the pistols, Miho steps up the training. "Alright, let's get to shooting, lads."

"Really?" Geshiko asked with a surprise. "Well… okay…"

They step up on the shooting range as Kay ordered. "Alright, aim your pistols at the targets."

The girls then aim their pistols at the targets with both of their hands strong on the grips. Erika, Akaboshi and Anchovy had good grip on the targets. The others, not bad for Miho and Garhaaye.

"Alright, when I said fire, shoot out 1 round," Miho said strictly as she observes from the very left of the shooting range. "Ready. Fire."

*DOR*

They shot a round at their targets. Only Anchovy, Akaboshi and Mauko who had a bingo on their targets on their first try. The other girls on the other hand, shot their targets but their shots stray away much from getting bingos. Erika is the only person who missed the target, because she didn't expect the recoil of the pistol even though she had a good grip on it.

"Fire," Miho ordered again.

*DOR*

Now the girls' aims are getting nicer. Anchovy somehow still retain her bingo shot on her second try. Which Miho, Maho and Kay couldn't believe that.

"Fire."

*DOR*

At the third shot, they all missed the targets. Literally.

"Fire."

*DOR*

From that on, they continue to fire their pistols at the targets. Some of them have their aims getting better, some of them still had their aims bad. Miho could see that Anchovy's, Akaboshi's and Erika's aim were better. The aims of the 4 KMM commanders, were pretty not bad.

"Not bad, everyone," Maho replied with a nod. "Not bad. Except for Erika, Akaboshi and Anchovy here."

"How did we do?" Erika asked curiously.

"You had a great aim," Ami compliments, then continued by Rinnai whom compliments her daughter. "You too, Anzai."

"Thank you, okaa-san," Anchovy happily replied, as she and the girls reloaded their pistols.

"Alright, holster your pistols, ladies," Miho stated as the girls holster their pistols, with Maho continued. "We'll continue the pistols training later."

"So… what now?" Sangou asked curiously, as waved her hands wide to her sides.

"Now…" Ami began as she looked over to the opened weapon crates. "It's time for you to use the bigger guns."

"Before you get excited on the bigger weapons," Garhaaye started with his index finger raised. "I want you to exercise extreme caution on using these weapons."

"I'm sure we'll be fine," Erika arrogantly replied with a smirk. "What could go worse?"

"I've seen a man acted like you before," Garhaaye flatly replied. "He ended up sending his rifle flying in the air after he pressed the trigger by accident. One of the soldiers got shot in the leg that time."

Now that made everyone gave a blank stare and also horrified of what he said. For Miho, she just frowned to hear that.

"Oh…" Erika paused for a moment in horrified. "Alright… I pull my words."

"Good then," Garhaaye replied in sudden happiness, then gestured his hand to the weapon crates. "Go ahead and take a look."

There were plenty of weapons that Miho, Ami and Garhaaye brought. While there are a couple of Shotguns, there were more SMGs and Assault Rifles. They never expected that there are a lot of weapons that are quite coincidentally came from future. Even if there is a couple of weapons that existed in 1950s.

There are a quite number of them on the Assault Rifles. There are ACR, AK12, Famas, SCAR-L, G36, HK416, M4A1, XM8, SIG MGX, FN FAL, AR15, AK12, AK47, and other rifles here. And there are more SMGs in the crates. Like the P90, MP5, UMP45, MP7, KRISS Vector, FMG-9, Bizon, MP9, and more. Quite amount of weapons for them to choose. With the shotguns are only the Benelli M4, SPAS-12, and lastly Kel-Tec KSG.

None of them really interested on the shotguns, except for Anchovy apparently. While Anchovy is pondering on what shotgun she would take, the other girls still deciding on what weapons they picked. It only took a moment for them to choose what weapons they have. It also made Rinnai and Ami to wonder if this was pretty excessive for them to choose their own choice of weapons from any of these weapons.

But eventually, they chose their own weapons from the crates. Erika's weapon is the HK416 while Akaboshi's is the ACR. Geshiko's SMG is the UMP45 while Ritaiko's rifle is the TAR-21. Sangou's SMG is the Kriss Vector and Mauko's SMG is the P90. For Anchovy herself, she personally chooses the Benelli M4 over the SPAS 12 and the KSG due to the better model than those two and more comfortable for her hands.

As everyone got their weapons of their own, Miho ordered to them. "Alright, you go ahead to the shooting range with Maho, Kay, Garhaaye and Captain Ami."

The girls headed to the shooting range along with the said people to teach them. However, when Anchovy was about to go with the girls, Miho called her. "Not you, Anchovy."

Everyone was surprised of Miho's calling, but as Anchovy looked at her, she added. "I'll teach you on how to use a shotgun."

That flared Anchovy with a small blush, and smiled happily. "I- thank you, Miho-chan~!"

Miho then looked over to the surprised people and motioned them to go ahead, except for Rinnai who stood by behind Miho and Anchovy. "Don't mind us, just go ahead."

Everyone who looked back just nodded awkwardly and with little suspicion with a smirk. After they began training on the range and supervised by the 141s and Ami, Miho gave her some shotgun ammo and even strapped some ammo to the side of the ammo pocket of the shotgun. Miho then guides her to the range with Rinnai walking over to them from behind and stood next to them. Then Anchovy aimed her shotgun at the target as Miho watched on how she aimed it. But both of her gripping on shotgun were a bit sloppy and the stock wasn't on her front shoulder and instead it was above her shoulder.

"Woah, Emerald, that's not how you aim the shotgun," Miho then immediately and gently stood closer to her from behind with a little hug and holds her hands. "You should put the stock of the shotgun in front of your shoulder like this."

She guides her hand near the trigger to lower the stock to her front shoulder. "So it wouldn't send the shotgun flying back and instead sent the momentum to your shoulder to hold it. And also..."

She then holds her girlfriend's other hand on the barrel, making sure that her hand is gripping the barrel well strong and moved her hand a little back from the firing end of the shotgun. "That's better, Anchovy."

Despite Miho's help on fixing her holdings, Miho is still hugging her from behind and her hands are still on hers as well. This made Anchovy blushed in embarrassment, with her mother watched them and felt that they both looked so cute like that. It was lucky that only Anchovy's mother who only noticed this instead of those people at the other range, she'll be damn embarrassed as hell about it. All the while they ignored the gunning sounds of the others at the range

"Um, Miho?" Anchovy asked shyly, talking to Miho's face that landed next to hers. "Can you let me go?"

"Not until you pull the trigger, my darling," Miho teased a little with a smile. "I'll help you aim at the target. Pull the trigger when ready."

Miho then helps her lover's aim at the target that is about 30 meters away. She makes sure her lover's aim still stay firm as she doesn't let go her hands. How happy Rinnai was to see Miho teaching her daughter to defend herself, she actually the one who doesn't want to get her hands on those weapons because it's dangerous and she is pretty unnerved if she had it in her hands. Though Rinnai ignored that thought away as she observed Miho teaching her.

Then Anchovy pulls the trigger.

*BAM*

Her shot had accurately hit the circle target on the ground with *PING* sound.

"Nice, now I'll let you go," Miho then gently lets herself off Anchovy's back and then stands next to her. "Now, shoot some targets until it's empty. It's not a pump-action shotgun but it's a semi so there's no need to pumping it down and you can shoot one by one per trigger."

"Okay, Miho-chan," Anchovy replied nervously, then looked up to her mother. "Okaa-san?"

"It's alright, Anzai," Rinnai replied with a nod and no concern. "Go ahead."

Anchovy only nodded back with a smile, then looks back at the range and then aim down the sight of her shotgun. Then pull the trigger.

*BAM*

Her shot bingos on human size target in the head.

*BAM*

Then her third shot somehow missed, Anchovy cursed to herself under her breath.

*BAM*

Her fourth shot hit another circle target, which sent it flying.

*BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*

She took more shots at the target, and alas she has accurate shots. And also she has ran out of ammo. Anchovy right now is a little bit confused on what to do next when it comes to reloading. She has seen people reloaded shotguns on the TV but never she saw the semi-auto one. Anchovy then gave her shotgun to Miho, to teach her about how to reload. And also Miho made sure that the firing end is pointing at the range, instead of other people.

"Alright, to reload this shotgun," Miho then picks a buckshot round on the strapped shotgun ammo on its side. "You pull this bolt here."

*CLICK* She pulls the bolt of the shotgun, revealing an empty buckshot chamber on its right side. "You insert one to the chamber and then closed it by pressing this button."

*CLACK* Miho did just like what she said, as she shows the closed bolt to her. "Now your shotgun is ready to fire."

"Okay," Anchovy understood with a nod.

"Now, if you want to add the rest of the rounds," Miho then puts to the stock of the shotgun on her shoulder and tilted the under side of the shotgun to the right to reveal the carrier which is the place to load the buckshots. "I put the shotgun like this since it makes me comfortable and a little bit faster to reload. Now insert your buckshots through the carrier underneath here."

Miho loads in all 7 buckshots from the strapped ammo of the shotgun to its carrier, loads in one by one and then two by two near the end. After that, she holds the shotgun and aimed it forward to indicate it's ready.

"See?" Miho said as she gives the shotgun back to Anchovy, of course with safety on. "You're ready to go."

"Hah, thank you," Anchovy replied with a nod, before looking at the range.

Miho immediately points her finger at the shotgun. "By the way, turn off the safety first. It's near the trigger."

"Huh?" Anchovy confused for a moment as she looks over the shotgun and found it. "Oh."

She then changed the safety off, and looks up to Miho. "Thank you."

Anchovy then began to shoot at the target practice, with Miho who stood next to her lover's mother and asks her as they observed. "So, how do you think I did, Mrs. Rinnai?"

"You did well, Miho-san," Mrs. Rinnai replied happily. "I'm pretty much happy about what you did for Anchovy."

"It's a pleasure, Mrs. Rinnai," Miho replied with a nod without bothering to look at her.

"I know, but…" Rinnai then turns her head at her in concern. "Are you sure tagging those KMM girls to use firearms is a good idea?"

"They won't shut up about it," Miho replied with a shook and an annoyed sigh. "So I gave them what they want. With a warning of course."

"Well…" Rinnai then looked over to the girls aside from Anchovy who are still training their rifles and SMGs. "You did good about it."

"You tell me about that," Miho replied with a smile. "But, you can't be careful about it."

"I agree on that," Rinnai replied with a thumbs up. "Can't be too careful about it."

As they continue to observe, they noticed that the girls' aims are getting much better. Even Miho was happy Anchovy wanted to try out a shotgun-pistol transition without even asking. However, as they continue to observe Erika and Kay then walked over to Miho and Rinnai with Erika's weapon is on safety. Both Kay and Erika seemed to have a curios look about something. Miho raised her eyebrows as they reach them.

"Miho, we were wondering about something," Erika said to Miho, to which draws Anchovy's attention to listen them.

"And what is that you're asking?" Miho asked as she tilted her head.

"She asked if it's possible to load a rifle with just one hand," Kay replied with a shrug. "I felt that would be impossible. So we thought you have a different opinion about it."

Miho just casually raised her eyebrows as if that just a simple thing. "That's called emergency reloading."

"What reloading?" Rinnai asked, missed the front sentence.

"Emergency reloading," Miho replied, which made the girls surprised, including Anchovy who is listening the conversation from the range. "It's always one hand if it's emergency."

"Well, can you show us?" Erika asked as she gives her the rifle and a magazine.

"Sure," Miho Then walks up to the range next to Anchovy, and began aiming the rifle at the target with one hand on the trigger and grip. Putting her other hand behind her back.

Miho then pulls the trigger.

*TAR-TAR-TAR*

She then put her finger away from the trigger and then turn the rifle's firing end at her lower body. She then holds the barrel of the rifle by her thighs, squeezing it as her hand release the current magazine. She then adds in the fresh magazine to the rifle before holding the rifle back by the trigger and releases the barrel from her thighs. Then she aimed the HK416 at the target and pulls the trigger with one hand. Before immediately lower the rifle and check her left and right.

"What… the hell?" Kay asked in disbelieve along with Erika. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Yeah," Miho replied with a nod as she gives the rifle back to Erika. "Only do that if your arm is injured or you're carrying something."

"Can you use emergency reloads on shotguns?" Anchovy asked as everyone looked at her.

"Yes, you can," Miho replied with a nod. "Though, it's a little bit harder."

"Oh, I'm fine about it," Anchovy replied confidently. "Don't worry about me."

They spend the rest of the next hour on training to shoot the target, reloading, weapons' change transitions, fireteam tactics by Kay, Garhaaye and Maho, and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. While they continue to training, both Rinnai and Miho are conversing with each other happily. Miho even conversed with Anchovy while she is in mid-shooting the targets. Rinnai compliments her daughter for her shooting training and Miho happily offered Rinnai and Anchovy some drink for a small break.

That's when they noticed that the girls already stopped shooting at the range. They all looked back at them and saw that they've done their shooting at the targets. They all walk back to where Miho and Rinnai are standing at. They are pretty much satisfied to this training.

"Captain Ami, how did they do?" Miho asked flatly to them.

"They did real fine on shooting the targets," Ami replied, then made a smiling smug face.

"We really did," Akaboshi added in agreement and happily. "I guess we'll be having another shooting training another day."

"If we got the time, of course," Garhaaye replied as he waved his hand forward.

"So… I think we give these weapons back to you," Geshiko replied as she's about to give the gun back at her.

Miho stayed silent for a moment, while everyone wondered why Miho hasn't taken the SMG off her hands. But then Miho replied to her. "No, just keep them."

"Wait what-" Mauko replied, with everyone surprised of her respond. Not for Garhaaye, Maho, Kay and Ami who just huffed to the air. "Are you sure about that?"

"Oh, I'm sure about that," Miho replied with a nod. "We even brought some Modular Rifle Bags to store your rifles and SMGs away, including your pistols as well."

True to her words, Garhaaye and Ami just brought out for about all 7 of those bags out of the truck. This actually made them surprised that Miho had already prepared for that. Even Mrs. Rinnai Chiyomi herself was starting to wonder where she would hide the bag-filled shotgun if Anchovy brought it to her house. For the rest of the girls, they all felt lucky that they are living in their apartments. So it won't be a problem for them to hide, despite the standing out kind of bag that haven't existed in this year.

They received the bag, with Anchovy puts her bag down and looked up to Miho. "Thank you, Miho-chan~."

"No sweat," Miho replied with her thumbs up. "You'll be needing it."

"Well, with that's done," Maho replied with a shrug, then crosses her arms. "Miho, didn't you say that we're going to have a training?"

This made them surprised, not for Kay, Ami, Garhaaye and Miho however. "Yes, I did, Maho."

"What kind of training are you talking about?" Akaboshi asked curiously, as the girls undone their equipments to their respective bags. "Sounds pretty special for me."

"We have a job tomorrow," Miho replied with her head tilted. "Private security and VIP protection."

Everyone including Kay and Maho, Anchovy and her mother are pretty shocked to hear that. "Woah, Miho, are you serious?!" Sangou asked shockingly, somehow making her eyeglasses flying above her eyes.

"Sounds pretty dangerous, Miho-san," Rinnai commented in concern.

"It sure is," Ami replied with a nod. "Because the people they're going to protect is not just any man."

That puts everyone in curiosity, including Maho and Kay. "And who is that?"

"The United States' Ambassador," Garhaaye replied with a smile, that made everyone including Maho and Kay shocked.

"Are you for real?!" Kay screamed aloud, lashing out her arms down to the ground.

"Yes for real," Miho replied casually. "It's an Alpha Priority security escort."

"Does that means someone wants him dead?" Akaboshi asked fearfully.

"Correct," Ami replied with a nod. "It's a dangerous job, but don't worry. I'm sure Miho and her team would do just fine."

"I won't hope too much on that," Miho sarcastically replied. "Alright, you ladies go ahead now. I'm pretty sure you want to go back home."

The girls they trained smiled at her, before bowing down to Miho. "Arigato, Miho-san!"

They all then looked up at Miho, with Rinnai walking over to Anchovy as she said to her. "Bye, Miho-chan!"

"Bye, Emerald," Miho replied with a bow, then looked over to her mother and the KMM girls. "Mrs. Rinnai, girls."

"Bye-bye," they responded back with a smile, before turning around and left the area along with their respective bags.

As they watched them leave, Kay looked over to Miho with a smile. "So… when do we start?"

"Right now, Kay," Miho replied with a gleaming smile. "Get your weapons."

"Ok, Miho," Maho replied with acknowledgement as both her and Kay are taking the weapons from the boxes.

Miho just sighed to herself as she was done to watch those girls and Mrs. Rinnai leaving, before Miho turns around and headed for the truck. "Let's get this done."

They spend then next one hour and a half training how to protect VIPs and to be bodyguards. Though, Maho and Kay were surprised to know that Murakami, Ogin and Anzu also got involved to do this job. The only reason they did that was that they're trying to find some money, and also wanted to meet the ambassador by themselves. Those girls from Ooarai already had their previous training of security escort long ago. Which is good to know for Maho and Kay.

They are a little exhausted, but they were glad to have this training. It was quite a shame that Miho had a bad timing to do this training for Maho and Kay. But they both have understood about what to do as a private security and a bodyguard as well. They also have been given video samples on the said topic for protecting VIPs from Garhaaye. They have little time for training before the job.

But surely, things will be just fine.


	56. Chapter 53 - Executive VIP Protection

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141

.

Ami: Alright, I just received a call from the US head security of the ambassador.

Murakami: What did they say?

Ami: Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II will be coming in one hour. We will be expecting to meet him and his security team after he landed in the airport.

Kay: Remind me again why are we protecting him?

Miho: He's a principal architect of the present-day US policy towards Japan, well that's what the history in the future said. But we got some people who hated of his presence in Japan.

Ogin: What do you mean about that?

Anzu: They hated to know that US-Japanese treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security had been signed back in January. Especially for the Okinawans.

Maho: *Sigh* is that why we're here? Dealing with the residents of Okinawa?

Miho: While it is true that there are Okinawan residents are making a stage at the front of the airport. We are more worried about the extremists lurking around.

Kay: Wait, are you telling us we're dealing against political extremists party?

Miho: Negative, more like terrorist-extremists. I'm afraid there are people targeting him in which he was responsible to keep the United States bases to stay in Okinawa.

.

 **Scanning the front side of Naha Airport Station…**

 **Standing by…**

 **.**

 **Large commotion ahead. US and JSDF forces on site to detain the commotion within security measures on the middle side of the airport.**

 **Exit in the north of the airport and further south are blocked due to road constructions.**

 **.**

Ami: The Okinawans have been resentful of the US forces' presence in here. Aside from the American bases are here, the Japanese people have also been mistreated by some of the US soldiers here.

Ogin: At least they let the school ships to stay afloat.

Miho: Do you have informed the US soldiers of our presence?

Ami: You mean the USFJ? I did, also informed the JGSDF along with the Okinawan police as well. But they'll be expecting people who are armed to the teeth. Not someone who are in their suits to protect the ambassador.

Miho: Then you should watch your mouth about it.

Anzu: Woah, easy there.

Miho: I'm fine.

 **Tracking 141 units on site…**

 **Standing by…**

 **…**

 **...**

 **…**

 **Units located:**

 **2 CQB units on the front of airport among the commotion, Ghost is on site.**

 **1 K9 unit amongst the crowd.**

 **2 Riflemen units at the gate.**

 **1 sniper team across the building.**

 **2 extra bodyguards, Vicek and Viktor in the airport's lobby.**

Murakami: Do you think we got enough people to help out? We got like a few who came along and there are a lot of US and Japanese soldiers and police officers here.

Miho: Maybe only a few, but it's more than enough. They got the bloody skills for it.

Maho: Where's Ghost by the way?

Miho: He's dealing with the commotion along with another 141 soldier, he'll be fine.

Ami: Alright, people. Let's suit up. Get ready for the job.

* * *

"All units, report in."

"Apollo 1, the commotion is rowdy. No sign of hostiles. K9 doesn't pick up anything off."

"Apollo 2, gate's secure."

"Sniper team 1, eyes on the commotion and the gate. No sign of threats."

"Apollo 3, we've met up with the US soldiers in the lobby. Waiting for you, Sierra."

"Copy all. Apollo 3, be ready for the Ambassador's arrival. Sierra Team, let's get this job done."

"Ok, Captain."

.

 **Ambassador's Shield**

 **09:07:05**

 **Murakami**

 **Task Force 141**

 **Naha Airport, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan**

.

While Ami herself is the only person who's wearing her official JGSDF uniform, with her pistol Colt M1911 hidden underneath her coat. Murakami and her team are ready to meet ambassador's arrival near the specified boarding bridge entrance. And they all are well suited for the job. And well armed for the job.

When I say suited, I mean they are wearing their light armor in their suits. When I say armed, they only had pistols and SMGs on their backs.

Everyone of the girls are wearing black pants. Anzu wore her blue shirt, Maho in her dark grey shirt, Ogin and Murakami in their white shirts, Kay in her purple shirt and black coat, and lastly Miho who is in her green shirt and a black tie. Everyone wears tactical gloves, except for Ogin who stated that it would be uncomfortable for her hands. Miho is the only person who has a pistol holster on her leg.

Everyone tied their hairs into ponytail except for Miho and Maho. Everyone uses caps as their headgears, except Maho who wears a beanie and Miho who wears a 141 beret. Everyone covers their identity by wearing sunglasses, not for Murakami who wears a tactical clear visor and a bandana tied around her neck and for Miho who wears a black half balaclava without sunglasses. Everyone wore a concealable vest underneath their formal shirts, except for Murakami who wears a brown Heavy Interceptor Body Armor with neck and throat protection, and Anzu and Miho who wears ArcEnCiel Tactical MOLLE Vest.

Why Murakami is the only person who wears the interceptor armor? She's a discount Hulk. That's why.

Murakami has UMP 45 on her back and Taurus Judge as her revolver. Both Maho and Ogin have their MP412 REX and USP 45 as their revolver and pistol. Anzu has her AK74u on her back and Ruger P345 as her pistol. Kay has her P90 Spec Ops Modified and and Glock 19 as her pistol. And lastly Miho is armed with Russian Vityaz-SN SMG and VP70 pistol in her holster.

As they waited with their hands rested on their front and backs, Murakami noticed Miho looked back to the boarding bridge and reaches her hand to her earpiece. "Heads up, Ambassador MacArthur is on scene."

Everyone immediately looked at the boarding bridge and saw him and his two private bodyguard in suits coming up to them, with Murakami replied. "Copy, play nice everyone."

"Don't we all?" Kay asked in the radio jokingly.

"Shut it, Kay," Maho quickly interrupted.

When Ambassador MacArthur and his bodyguards reach them, he greeted them and shook his hand with Ami first. "Captain Ami, it's a pleasure to see you. And who are these people?"

Miho reaches her hand at him and they both then shook their hands. "Banshee, Task Force 141."

"141? Are you the Private Military soldiers who worked in and outside Japan?" Douglas asked back in surprised, and also astonished of Miho's beret.

"Sir, yes sir," Miho replied with a nod. "We are here to provide extra security for your safety."

"Of course, Captain Ami has indulged me with your presence," Douglas replied with a smile. "I assumed there is a commotion outside."

"We're afraid so," Miho replied strictly with a nod. "We'll make sure you are not in harm's way."

"I think I will be fine with the bodyguards with me," Douglas replied confidently as he clasps his hands and put it down in front of his stomach.

"Forgive us, but we can't let you go on your own," Anzu replied in concern. "We got reports that there are possible Japan extremists in the vicinity of the area."

"And it's a high possibility that you are their assassination target," Ogin added with a sure nod.

Ambassador Douglas was pretty much surprised of the info, despite the fact that the USFJ and JGSDF soldiers and police are here to deal with the commotion. "Are you sure about that?"

"We had an informant told us of their presence here," Miho actually can't believe that the informant was actually Keteru Jotokani, Ghost's informant. Though, she let that thought away for now. "Only that who are these extremists are unknown."

"I understand," Douglas replied with a nod, his bodyguards Richards and Pillon seems to be relieved about it.

"Follow us," Miho said to him, then added by Murakami. "We'll escort you to the embassy."

Ami then nodded at Miho, before looking back at Ambassador MacArthur. "They can be trusted."

"Alright, lead the way," Douglas replied happily as he gestures Miho down to the path forward.

"Sir, yes sir," Miho replied with a nod, before turning around and headed forward. Murakami, her team and the ambassador along with his bodyguards followed suit.

As they walked down the lobby, Murakami radioed in to her earpiece. "Apollo 3, Sierra 2. We're heading your way, over."

"Copy that," Vicek replied. "Better hurry up, we just met up with the other US security and they are taunting us because we're Russians."

"Damn bastards," she heard Miho cursed lowly in the radio, low enough to not be heard by the ambassador and his bodyguards.

"Let's hurry up a bit," Maho added suggestively as they traverse down to the left lobby.

As they walked, Miho asked the ambassador if his bodyguards have some wireless earpiece. He replied that they had radios, but sadly there are only a very few of them used for now. They walked that way for a moment until they reach the stairs on their right. They walked down the stairs and made a U-turn before reaching down the ground floor. They then made a left turn again down the corridor of the airport building. And from there they spotted Vicek and Victor in a distance.

Both Vicek and Viktor were wearing the same uniforms that they used to escape from India. Only that Vicek is wearing a cap, sunglasses and headphones while Victor is wearing his cap backwards without any sunglasses. But they are actually bickering with other 3 US bodyguards dressed in their soldier uniforms with rifles. It's like what Vicek said, the US soldiers are taunting them because of their nationality.

When they reached Apollo 3 team, Murakami interrupted in. "Hey! What's going on here?"

"What is this all about?" Ambassador Douglas asked demandingly.

"Oh, it's nothing, sir," one of the US soldier replied, which was a sergeant. "Nothing at all."

"You're insulting us just because we are Russians," Viktor stated aloud, though his anger is being controlled for this moment.

The ambassador's guards were both surprised of this, with Douglas alerted of this. "Wait, Russians? They are also your unit?"

"Yes sir," Miho replied with a nod. "They are our extra escort."

"It's relieving to hear that," Richards commented with a smile.

"Are you seriously going to trust these Russians, Mr. Ambassador?" the corporal US soldier asked insultingly with a smirk. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"They're good people!" Ami said angrily to them. "What's your problem with them?"

"Our problem?" the other US Sergeant replied with a bullying look in his eyes and a smirk. "The United States is currently having a Cold War with Russia out there, while the rest of our army are having a fight in Vietnam out there."

"And now you are here seating your ass here pretending to do your job as if you're not communists," the Sergeant insulted at Vicek and Viktor. "I wish I could take those gears off your hands if I got the chance."

Everyone fell silent for a moment as the US soldiers just chuckled insultingly to them, but then someone else laughed. The US soldiers immediately fell silent and glance and found that Kay was laughing her ass off with her eyes closed. This made the American people confused on why she was laughing. But not for Ami, Miho and Murakami and her team because they know why. Even Apollo 3 team only gave a poker face to that.

"Why is she laughing?" Pollin asked with his finger pointed at Kay.

Ogin just sighed with her hands on her hips, and replied. "It's because of these Russians here."

Douglas raised an eyebrow to that. "What do you mean by that?"

Both Vicek and Viktor only gave a flat stare at the US soldiers as Vicek replies. "First, we are not Russian communists. We are Russian Loyalists."

"What's that suppose to mean?" the Corporal asked confusingly.

"Russians who agreed to the western's ideology especially on democracy," Anzu replied flatly as she crossed her arms, and gave her laziest expression ever.

"Second, the last time we worked with the communists, they did more bad than good in our line of work," Viktor added, as he raised his two fingers and then adding the last finger. "And lastly, they've been hunting us down to the ground just because we have friends from the western bloc."

The US soldiers, Ambassador Douglas and his bodyguards are pretty much taken aback from their answers while Murakami herself fell speechless about that. With Miho added in. "A long bloody story for that one."

Vicek was about to say something, which Miho immediately interrupts in. "Ничего не говори, Вичек."

Vicek just complied with a smug smile. "Тогда ладно"

Murakami only wondered about they just said, though she paid no mind about it. But the Sergeant replied with an apologetic tone. "Oh, I, I'm sorry for taunting y'all about that. Forgive us for our rudeness, Mr. Ambassador."

"No harm done, Sergeant," Ambassador Douglas replied with a nod. "Now introduce yourself to them."

"Name's Sergeant Morley, this is Sergeant Ron and Corporal Tamper," the Sergeant replied with a nod as he gestures his hand to his teammates. "Good to meet you."

"Captain Ami Chouno," Ami added in with a bow. "JGSDF."

"Banshee, Task Force 141," Miho replied, as she gestures to her units. "These Russians you were talking with are Vicek and Viktor, and this my team here. We're here to escort Mr. MacArthur II to the embassy."

"Glad to hear that then," Sergeant Morley replied. "We're here also to provide extra guns."

"By the way…" Cpl. Tamper added with his index finger raised. "Why there are a lot of girls here?"

Everyone fell silent as they including the ambassador glance at him. The girls felt awkward of this, but Miho took it well. "Long story short, they're the best shot in my unit."

"Huh, makes sense," Ron replied with a short nod. "Can we tag along?"

"Come along then," Ogin replied with a nod. "We got a long road ahead."

"Follow me," Miho ordered as they began moving on. "All units, Sierra 6. We linked up with Apollo 3 and heading for exit."

"Roger wilco," Ghost replied in the radio.

"Who are you talking at?" Corporal Tamper asked as his units are surprised of what Miho said.

"She was talking through our radio channel," Murakami answered quickly. "Nothing special."

"Huh, I didn't know you have a radio," Sergeant Ron replied, the three US soldiers were actually fascinated on what Murakami and her team are wearing, including the Russian Loyalists. "Fancy stuffs you got there, especially your weapons."

"If you're hoping that you can get one of them then you are out of luck," Anzu replied with a smirk and confidently. "The whole stuff we used are classified."

"Such a shame," Pillon replied with a tone of disappointment.

"Well, you can't win all of them," Maho added flatly as they continue to traverse down the lobby.

They walk for awhile until they nearly reached the gate ahead of them. "Apollo 2, Sierra 2, we're coming out the gate."

"Roger, 2,"Apollo 2-1 replied. "All units, watch the perimeter."

They kept walking until they're through the gate. It was bright as day out there and saw there are a huge commotion from their left and right, a clear path in the middle of the commotion thanks to the US soldiers and JGSDF soldiers on site. They saw Apollo 1, Ghost's team is watching the commotion with the K9 Unit immediately ran over to Murakami's team. The K9 was a German Shepherd dog in its K9 Modular Assault Vest. It happily reaches her team and gave a bark at them.

"Nice dog you got there," Douglas commented happily.

"Thanks, it's our top notch K9 unit available for now," Kay replied as Murakami petting the dog's head for a moment, which it's called Ash.

"Goodie boy, Ash," Murakami cheered lowly to him. "Come along and keep an eye out for threats."

"WOOF!"

Ash the dog quickly ran off and stopped in the middle of the path as Murakami's team, Douglas and his bodyguards and Sergeant Morley's team began to walked down the stairs before walking on the pavement ahead. They formed a circle around the Ambassador, with Murakami walking right next to the Ambassador and Ogin. Murakami still doesn't have her hands on her pistol or SMG, seeing the area is still clear. The group was then followed up by Apollo 2 team right behind them.

They saw Ghost and Apollo 1 other member up ahead, Miho and Ami waved at them. They marched forward as they ignore the loud commotion from their left and right. While the US soldiers and the JGSDF units are keeping the commotion away from the ambassador and the teams. Murakami only kept an eye on the commotions as she walked with the teams and the Ambassador. The area is still clear as they are quite a few meters away from the Ambassador's black car ahead.

*GRRRRRRHGGG*

That's when Murakami noticed the dog, Ash, growling at the commotion on their right from a few feet away.

Murakami quickly reached for her earpiece and stated. "All units, Sierra 2. Be advised, the K9 Unit is growling at the commotion on our right. We have possible hostile on site."

This made all the teams, especially Apollos and Sniper Team alerted. "Copy that, Sierra 2. Tighten up the Ambassador," Ghost replied in the radio as he and his other member immediately ran over to her teams from their front passing the dog.

"Sniper team, got anything on your scope?" Kay asked in the radio as Murakami puts her hand on her pistol holster.

"Negative, 3," Sniper team 1-1 replied. "The commotions are rowdy, we can hardly identify any suspected hostile individual."

"We can't identify them one by one," Ami said in the radio.

"Stay calm, keep your eyes open and keep moving," Miho said in the radio, as Murakami and the teams began moving from walking into a fast walk.

"What's going on?" Corporal Tamper asked as his team including Ambassador and the bodyguards are confused of their alertness.

"We have possible threat in these commotion," Ami replied quickly, continued by Anzu. "Stay alert."

"What the hell?" Richards said as he and Pillon reached for their pistols, then continued by Pillon. "This ain't right."

"See anything?" Maho asked in the radio.

"Nothing here," Kay replied, continued by Ogin. "Nothing here as well."

"We're still in the clear here," Vicek replied with a negative. "Viktor, check on our left."

It didn't take long until they reached the K9, Ash ahead. Right Murakami is right next to the dog, she immediately saw something ahead. A suspicious man in his casual uniform and brown coat on the edge of the commotion on the right isn't shouting and instead reaching for something underneath his coat as his gaze was still on Ambassador MacArthur II. She didn't even bother if she needs to warn someone else of this.

That's when she saw that said man immediately pulls out a gun at the Ambassador and the teams.

"ASH, TACKLE HIM!"

"BARK!"

Ash quickly ran forward as lightning and immediately tackled the man down by his arms, *DOR* as his gun shot up to the sky due to the tackling and his gun thrown away. Forcing him to jump out from the commotion and over the fence. Ash only kept biting his arm down to the ground, making him scream in pain and unable to get up as his arm starting to get bloodied. Everyone including the commotion suddenly alerted of the attack as Murakami was the first to pull out her gun. While all the teams with her immediately surrounds the Ambassador tighter and got their pistols at the ready from outside threat and aim their pistols to their surroundings.

Murakami quickly aims her revolver at the pinned down hostile, *DOR* and shot him in the head. "Ash, get back!"

"Holy shit!" Sergeant Ron shouted to that, as the commotions began to disperse from the area as the soldiers around are alarmed of the attack.

"CONTACT!" Murakami shouted aloud as she quickly closed in back to the ambassador with her revolver raised.

"The hell?!" Kay commented aloud in alert. "Right now?!"

"No shit!" Vicek said aloud to Kay's respond.

"Shots fired, shots fired!" Ghost shouted in panic.

"Контакт, контакт, контакт!" Viktor shouted aloud.

"Protect the ambassador!" Miho ordered aloud as they marched forward with their weapons raised.

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

"Look out, hostiles on our left!" Ogin radioed in as Murakami aimed her revolver to their left.

There were quite a number of extremists showing up from the dispersing crowd of civilians. They were armed with small SMGs and pistols and they just took a couple of US soldiers and JGSDF in front of them. Everyone on site immediately returned fire at the hostiles. Before they began receiving enemy fire from their right.

*TAR-TAR-TAR-TAR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

"Hit them back!" Richards shouted as he holds the ambassador down to duck his head down. "Stay down sir!"

"Watch for civilians!" Ami shouted as she managed to shot 3 extremists on site.

"One o'clock, one o'clock!" *DOR-DOR-DOR* Kay returned fire and killed 4 hostiles ahead on their right.

"Ay blin!" Viktor swore loudly in the radio. "On our three!"

"Argh, I'm hit!" Anzu said aloud as she managed to return fire without a flinch, thankfully it was pistol rounds hitting her vest.

"You okay?" Cpl. Tamper asked as he returned fire with his rifle and looked over to Anzu.

"I'm fine!" Murakami heard Anzu replied, as Murakami shooting off hostiles coming up from their 5 o'clock.

"Right behind us!" Murakami said as a quarter of the team returned fire at that direction, Murakami scored 2 kills as the JGSDF and USFJ are starting to take casualties in their rear.

"Casualties are climbing!" Ghost shouted in the radio. "Sniper team, we need back up!"

"Roger that, providing sniper support," Sniper team 1-1 replied calmly in the radio. "Firing."

*DUAR*

"Sniper support, thank God!" Sergeant Morley replied happily to this.

"Don't let up, get the ambassador to the car!" Murakami shouted as she directed her aim to the front, killing 3 hostiles behind the fence. "Move it!"

"Stay behind us, Ambassador Douglas!" Miho shouted as she makes sure to keep his head down whilst her other hand shooting back at the hostiles in front of them. "Contact front!"

Some enemies show up from their front right, but thankfully that side were suppressed by the surviving JGSDF, USFJ, and surprisingly Naha Airport police force that just arrived from behind the said enemy. Murakami shoots her revolver empty and quickly reloads it by swing the loading tube open to the left side, let the empty bullets fall out and then inserts a quick load one in before sliding it back in. She shot two rounds out, before she holstered it and swapped to her UMP45. She killed the remaining 4 hostiles ahead with headshots as the rest were killed by Naha Airport police force or the USFJ-JGSDF.

Thanks to the sniper support, the enemies on their left are thinning down and began to dealt with by the surviving US soldiers. They kept marching forward until they reached the black cars while receiving fire across the road at the same time. Murakami took cover at the Ambassador's black car with Miho, Douglas and Ami while the rest of them either crouching down near the corner or covering behind the other cars.

"Murakami, open the back door!" Miho ordered, Murakami then quickly opens the passenger car. "Mr. MacArthur, get inside now! Richards, Pillon, get him out of here!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Richards replied with a nod, before peeking out and returned fire with his pistol.

"Tani, you're with them," Miho ordered as she shoots back at the enemy ahead with her SMG and killed one in the chest.

"Alright!" Anzu replied with a nod.

"Everyone, give them covering fire," Miho ordered aloud, before she, Ami and Murakami herself returned fire and suppressed the hostiles ahead.

*BANG-BANG*

With an extra two hostiles died from their sniper support. Right in their heads.

"Let's go, let's go!" Ami shouted at Richards and Pillon as the ambassador already inside the car they're covering at.

"I'll drive," Pillon said as Richards took the front seat from the left and then jumped to the right, followed suit by Pillon who's sitting in the driver seat. "You shoot."

"Cover me," Anzu said in the radio as she ran around to the right side of the car and then get inside that passenger car as she ignores the gunfire next to them. "Alright, we're in!"

"Alright, go, go, go!" Miho replied as she bangs the car, prompting it to drive away quickly and leave Murakami, Ami and Miho exposed. "Vicek, Murakami, flashbangs!"

As Miho and Ami crouched down in the open, Murakami and Vicek whose covering behind the other car pull out their flashbangs and threw it at the enemies ahead. Murakami, Miho and Ami immediately looked away from the enemy.

*BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG*

*BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG*

"Kuso!" "Aaaaaagh!" "Nani koreee!"

The hostiles are blinded from the flashbangs, making them to stand out in the open and become vulnerable hostile.

And Murakami saw the opportunity for the dog. "Ash, attack!"

"BARK"

Ash dashed forward and lunged at one of them, pinning one on the ground as he shrieked in pain. While the rest of them, were ultimately gunned down by all the 141, USFJ and JGSDF soldiers on site. Murakami managed to kill 4 of the hostiles in the open before switching to her revolver as it went out of rounds. She took a shot on a bastard covering behind a pole and was shot through his back and ended up killing another one in front of him with the same bullet. Murakami and the teams proceeded to neutralize all hostiles who are still standing and still stunned, until there are no more.

And then they missed one guy standing out in the open, who just got through from the stun effect and confusingly looked straight at Murakami and the teams. To which he was still aiming his gun at them.

"One more!" Ron shouted, before proceeding to shoot him.

*TRRRRTRTRRRTRRRRRRRTTT*

*DRATATATATATATATATATAT*

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

*BRATATATATATATATATATAT*

*DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR*

*BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR*

And with that, the last enemy quickly drops to the ground. And sadly, his whole body from head to toe are riddled with lots of bullets. Which was pretty brutal. They stopped firing and looked over at the last dead man for a moment.

"Umm…" Kay began awkwardly. "Wasn't that a bit excessive?"

"Now that you said it," Cpl. Tamper responded with a raised brow and with pity. "I felt bad for that guy."

"And we just wasted a lot of bullets just for that one man," Ami commented with a sighed. "I won't be in his position for that."

"Hah, you tell me about that," Vicek replied with a laugh. "We already taught to get shot like that."

And that's when Murakami and everyone else gave a glance at him. "Wait, so you're telling me that you shot each other in training?!" Ron asked, pretty much in shock.

"Yeah, we did," Viktor answered back with a nod.

Some of them immediately looked away including Murakami herself, while Morley just commented in concern. "Shit, you Russians are crazy."

"They're not the only one," Kay added aloud, to which she and Murakami glance at Miho.

"She's right, they aren't the only one," Miho replied in agreement.

"Remind me to not be around you when you're angry," Ogin commented in the radio, Murakami knew how she felt right now.

"I don't think that would be the case," Ami added with a doubt.

Murakami just ignored that, and instead she was paying attention to the dog that is still biting a dead man. "Ash, come here, boy." "WOOF!"

The dog immediately leave the dead body and return to the team's side.

"Alright, secure the perimeter," Miho ordered as she stood up from crouching and stepped forward along with Ami and Murakami. "Make sure there are none of them left."

"You heard her," Maho replied as she moves out from cover with Kay. "Secure the area."

"Yes, ma'am," Sgt. Ron responded as his team immediately checked their six. "Move it people!"

"Sniper team," Ogin called in the radio as Murakami's head turned at her for a moment. "See anything else?"

"Aside from injured civilians and downed soldiers, I got nothing on our scope," Sniper team 1-1 replied in negative.

"Copy that," Miho responded.

They scoured the area of that airport for a moment, before they could declaring it clear as the ambulances showed up in time. Murakami grouped up with Miho, Morley and Ami to hear the aftermath.

"How are we holding up?" Miho asked to Morley.

"Feel ain't right, but I'm fine," Morley responded as took his breathes. "The rest of them are holding up okay."

"Casualties?" Miho asked.

"3 US soldiers killed, other 5 injured," Morley replied with sorrow. "6 JGSDF killed, other 6 injured. And 10 civilians casualties, thankfully all of them injured. But one of them suffered fatal injuries."

"Kuso," Ami replied sourly and angrily with a nod.

"Not a good day for USFJ and JGSDF," Murakami commented with pity.

"Yeah," Morley replied with a nod. "But I'm still thankful that the ambassador made it out alive."

"Sierra 6, this is Sierra 1," surprisingly Anzu shouted in 141 radio, as Miho, Ami and Murakami jumped from that call. "We need back up!"

They reached for their earpiece with Morley only staring at them. "Sierra 1, what the bloody hell's going on?" Miho responded in alert.

"The extremists blocked our path," Anzu replied panickedly. "We're hiding behind some cars now. And they have surrounded us from all sides and we're getting suppressed, we need back up!"

"Dammit," Ami cursed under her breath. "They don't give up that easily."

"Are the police is on site?" Murakami asked worriedly to her radio.

"Negative!" Anzu replied back aloud. "Richards said they would be here for 30 minutes. We don't have 30 minutes to hold them off!"

"Where's the ambassador!?" Miho asked quickly in concern.

"He's here with me," Anzu replied back with deep sighs. "He's fine."

"Where are you right now?" Ami asked to the radio.

"From the north gate of the airport just keep moving east," Anzu replied as she tried to be calm. "If you hear gunfire then you're close."

"Alright, Murakami, Morley, with me," Miho ordered before immediately moving to the other black car. "Ami, stay here and secure the area."

"Alright," Ami replied with a nod before heading off the airport building back there.

"Ghost, scour the other part of the airfield," Miho ordered in the radio.

"Roger," Ghost replied in the radio before motioning to his team member. "Come on, let's go."

"Apollo 3," Miho called. "Check the south side."

"Yes, Captain," Viktor replied in the radio.

"Maho, you're with me," Miho called as she points her finger at her.

"Ja," Maho quickly ran over to Murakami and her group, before hastily enters the black car.

"The rest of you, secure the area!" Miho ordered aloud for all to hear.

"Yes, ma'am!" Ogin replied in confirmation.

Miho then seats in the driver seat the last, with Maho sitting next to her younger sister. While Murakami and Morley sit in the back. Though, Murakami didn't forget to whistle to call the dog, Ash to get in the car by jumping through the open window in the back. Ash excitedly sits down in between Morley and Murakami as she petted him. Before prompting Miho to hit the gas and quickly drove off at the speed of 50 mph.

*BBRRRRRRRRRRRMMRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRMMMM*

"Hang on!"

Murakami hangs on to the door next to her and Miho's seat on the front as they drove through the airport much more faster than before. 140 mph, that's the top speed Miho received after Murakami checked again. Miho even insane enough that ran through an intersection right when vehicles from both sides were about to cross, and not even a bloody honk. Even she had Murakami panicked a little to know that they barely dodged a pole to their left. They are a few feet away from the north side of the airport.

"Woah, shit!" Morley swore loudly as he holds his M14 rifle real tight. "Where the hell did you learn to drive like that?!"

"From being chased down by the Russians in the snowy mountains," Miho replied seriously and flatly and aloud.

However, Murakami just gave her stare at her along with Morley's. "Oh… that makes sense," Morley replied awkwardly with a nod.

"Look out!" Maho shouted as she points her finger forward onto an incoming truck.

*CRRRRRRIIIIIITTT*

Miho barely dodged the truck again, Ash the dog wasn't bothered about it but Morley does. "Holy cow, She wasn't wrong that you're crazy!"

"She's bloody right about that!" Miho replied back aloud, she then steered the wheel hard to the right.

They turned right from there and kept moving down the road, making a 10 degrees right turn following the road. They saw the entrance ahead of them but they need to drive in half a circle. That's when Miho immediately jammed the steering wheel hard to the right and balance the gas and the brakes. And the car amazingly drifts down the road in nearly a half circle. As everyone in the car have their upper bodies leaning hard to the left as they fight against gravitational momentum.

"Wooooaaaaah, shiiiiiiiiiiitttt!" Was all Morley could scream in the car.

Murakami would swear, while she is glad she is not screaming. She would be more dissatisfied if she gets thrown out through a window. Murakami knew Maho would say the same about it.

Miho immediately hit the steering wheel hard to the left, making the car to be back on the road with a bump. Then the car makes another left turning from the entrance down to the freeway. And they also felt a bump from that turning, which made everyone nearly jumped from their seats. Ash the dog is the only passenger who enjoys the crazy bumpy ride. Makes Murakami wonder where the hell Miho got a dog like this one.

"Shit, I'm pretty happy I'm still alive," Morley commented a sigh of relieve.

"Yeah, well me too," Murakami replied with a nod, also with sigh of relief.

They sighed in relief for a moment, until Maho noticed something on her right side mirror. "Don't relax yet, we got company."

Morley just stared at her in disbelieve. "Really?"

"7 and 5 o'clock," Miho replied flatly. "Grey cars."

Murakami and Morley immediately lower their windows on their respective doors, before they both looked out to behind them. "I see them!" Murakami shouted as she sees the said grey car behind them.

That's when she saw one of the gunmen in that car aims his gun at her. *DOR-DOR-DOR*

Murakami quickly went back inside the car, managed to dodge the bullets without problem. "Small arms fire."

"Same here," Morley replied, he then aimed his M14 rifle out the window to their 5 o'clock. "Returning fire" *BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR*

"Try to shoot the driver." Miho suggested aloud as she zig-zags around the civilians' car.

Murakami immediately peeks out and shoots her UMP 45 to the hostiles' grey car quickly. Her bullets went through the windshield of the contact, and thankfully ended up killing the driver in the head. The enemy's car suddenly turned left and then toppled and rolls over down the road.

"One down!" Murakami stated aloud.

"Shit, I nearly got him," Morley immediately went back in the car then gestures at Murakami. "They're going to your left!"

Murakami was about to look out the window, when suddenly the front of the enemy's car is already right beside her. As the front gunner was about to aim his gun at her, she immediately aims her UMP sideways and pulls the trigger wildly. Her bullets killed the gunner, and also killed the driver almost immediately. With the driver's head forced the wheel to go left, the hostile car then slowly move away from Murakami's car and at the end crashed onto the wall of the freeway. The hostile car suddenly flew into the air, jumping off the freeway with lots of backflip until it never seen again.

"That's one way to teach them how to fly," Miho commented. "Nice shot."

"I'm going to jump out if that happens, Sierra 6," Maho replied with a slight irritation.

"I'm with her," Morley added in agreement.

"Do we got someone else coming after us?" Murakami asked to Miho.

*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR* *TUNG-TWANG-TANG*

Everyone immediately ducked their heads down except for Miho who ignored that whilst driving. "There goes your calling."

"On our 1 o'clock," Maho replied as she peeks out her window and opened fire at the hostiles' red car with her revolver.

Morley also peeks out to help. "Keep it steady' *BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR*

"Reloading," Murakami said, as she just realized she's out of ammo.

As she was about reload, she received small arms fire from her window.

*TUNG-TANG-TWANG*

"Ai, kuso!" Murakami swore loudly as she ducks her head down.

She looks back through her window again and found a yellow hostile car are shooting at her from front and back windows. Instead of reloading her UMP, she instead pulls out her revolver and shoot at the yellow car in a distance with one hand. Her shot was accurate on her third shot, which it hits the tank fuel of the car. It immediately explodes and stopped in its tracks, and left to burn on the road. Murakami then holsters her revolver and quickly reloads her UMP and cocked it before looking back to her teammates who just managed to shoot another hostile car's tire and make it swiveled around the road before ended up flipping over down the road and quickly left behind by the team.

"They're down," Morley stated in relief as he looks at Murakami.

"I hope that's the last them," Maho said as she sighs in relief.

*DRAATATATATATTAATTAATTATTAT* *TANG-TUNG-TWANG-TWUNG*

*CRIIIITTTT*

Miho managed to get a hold of her steering wheel and kept the car steady. "Wrong. Contact 8 o'clock. Hostile truck."

Murakami looks out her window at their 8 o'clock. And no shit it was a goddamn truck full of hostiles on the back. Firing their pistols and SMGs at their car. The truck managed to get on Murakami's side and immediately crash the car's side as Murakami went back in the car. *BRAAAK* Every was pretty shaken from that crash but the car's still fine and the passengers including Murakami are doing fine for now.

"They're putting me on edge," Miho commented lowly. "Murakami, do you have frag grenades?"

"Yeah, why?" Murakami asked back with a nod.

"Throw one to the driver's seat," Miho ordered as she steers closer to the hostile truck on their side. "Get ready."

Murakami pulls her grenade and pulls the pin but hold the detonator of the grenade. When the car managed to get close to the truck's front and ignores the firing from the back of the truck, and with the right side of the window is open… that's her cue.

"Now!"

"Take this!"

Murakami successfully leaped the grenade through the truck's window, and made the passenger near that door window alerted and abort his firing. The driver of the truck immediately hits the brakes as the team left them behind. Murakami looked back through the window to see the hostile truck.

*BUARRRRR*

And the truck exploded into huge flames on the road, as the civilians' cars just rushed past it. And she could saw some individual hostiles on the back of the truck are burning as they jumped out onto the road. It was a gruesome sight of flames.

"Damn…" Murakami quickly went back in the car and looked straight forward. "That's sick."

"Well, I've saw many things in my life," Morley commented with a shook. "But damn, that hurts."

"That was beautiful, Shark," Miho replied, calling Murakami by codename. "Real beautiful."

"I doubt there's a time to compliment that," Maho commented in doubt.

"Well, you're right about that," Miho replied with a nod.

Murakami only looks over to the dog, Ash to see he's still alright and Morley is petting him. "Alright, who's a good boy? Yes, you are."

The team's car kept driving down the freeway as fast as possible. That's when they could hear a faint sound of gunfire in a distance. Small arms fire on the distance of the freeway ahead. That's when their radio sparked to life, excluding for Morley.

"Sierra 6, where the hell are you?!" Anzu shouted in the radio. "We are getting hammered from our 12 and 6 o'clock!"

"Coming in 30 seconds," Miho replied calmly to the radio. "At your six. Watch your fire."

"Roger," Anzu replied gladly. "Pillons, Richards, reinforcement on our six!"

The car drives forward as fast as it can as they could hear the gunfire sounds are getting closer. Then they could see it in a distance ahead of them. They spotted a number of extremists covering behind some cars are shooting at Anzu's group covering in between cars to avoid another gunfire to their 12 o'clock. They were oblivious of Murakami's group presence.

Miho immediately hit the brakes and swerved the car to the left. Making it immediately stops the car and not flipping it up as well. Murakami and Miho quickly got out from the car and aim their Vityaz SN and UMP 45 SMGs from the side of the car, while Morley and Maho open their side of the doors and took behind the doors and aim their weapons through the window. They then opened fire at the hostiles ahead.

*DRATATATATATATATATAATATAT*

*DRATATATATATATATATAATATAT*

*BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR*

*DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR*

The attack took the hostiles unaware and immediately moved them down with ease. Murakami got three kills by shooting their backs, Miho and Morley got 4 each and Maho got 3 in the heads and back. By now Anzu's group's six o'clock is clear, but they're still receiving gunfire from their 12. Murakami and her team including the dog immediately advanced from their car and took cover at the barricaded cars used by the hostiles and gave suppression fire from there. The hostiles ahead pass Anzu's group ducked their heads down from the suppression as Murakami, Morley and the dog, Ash run to Anzu's group and reached them at the crashed cars for cover.

"At last, you're late!" Anzu replied as she makes sure Ambassador Douglas keeps his head down.

"Better late than never," Morley replied flatly, he then peeks out from cover to see their 12 o'clock. "How many we got?"

"15 plus foot-mobiles," Anzu replied, then continued by Pillon. "Pistols, SMGs, and a couple of rifles."

"What the hell are the foot-mobiles?" Morley asked, this is his first time to hear that.

"She was referring to the hostiles that are shooting us," Murakami replied. *TUNG-TWANG-TANG* They immediately ducked their heads down from the incoming bullets then Murakami continued. "Now get your rifle out and shoot them!"

"Alright, returning fire," Richards stated as they began to shoot back at the enemy, with Douglas ducking his head down. *DOR-DOR-DOR-BRATATTATATATTAT-DAR-DAR-DAR-DRATATATATATATATATATAT*

"Ash, go get them!"

"BARK!"

Ash jumped out from behind the cars as Murakami and the team managed to score some kills on the hostile. Ash caught one of the hostiles in the open and pinned him down, then he bites his neck off to kill him. Now that is something that made Murakami shivered at the thought. But she ignores that as she managed to kill 1 hostiles each behind two cars 20 meters ahead. Miho and Maho caught up with Murakami and the group, and advanced into the enemy's positions.

All the while Ash is seen heading out and try find more bastards to bite off. Apparently managed to bite 3 of them which gave Murakami and her team a clean shot, while the other 2 was killed by Ash himself as they were killed by bites to the neck behind the cars the hostiles used for cover. As they shoot the hostiles, they remembered the only person who brought frag grenades aside from flashbangs are Murakami herself and Miho Nishizumi. Miho throws one grenade out blindly from her cover as she warns Murakami and the team of the grenade. None of the hostiles are aware of the thrown grenade as it landed underneath a car on their 1 o'clock, used as cover by the hostiles.

*BBUAUUUUUAAAARRRRMMMMM*

The explosion made the car explodes in flames and jumped a couple of feet from the ground. Also sending the three hostiles flying back by the blast, and killed them effectively. Richards and Pillon even surprised if they had frag grenades, though they were happy about it. Murakami is currently shooting at the hostile covering behind a small white car 60 meters ahead, though she can't get a shot on him. She then looks over to the dog on her eleven, which currently biting a dead extremist in the thigh.

"FWEEET!" Ash immediately looked at Murakami as she gestures the dog by pointing at the said hostile ahead. "Go get him!"

"BARK!"

The dog attack the said hostile as Murakami advanced to Miho's and Maho's positions and kept advancing. Ash tackled down the said hostile and manages to pull the bastard out of cover, albeit of the incoming gunfire to Ash. Miho and Maho gave her covering fire as Murakami aims her SMG to the bastards head, *DAR* and killing him instantly. To which then Ash runs off to find another target, which apparently advancing to the positions that Murakami and her teammates at. Ash tackled down another bastard and Maho did the favor to shoot him in the head with her MP412 Revolver.

They then began to receive heavy fire from ahead, ducking their heads down for a moment as Morley shouted. "Heads up, we got some assholes with their own rifles."

"Did someone just supplied them or something?" Anzu asked in the radio with small irritation. "It feels like we're taking on a small army here."

"It seems like it," Maho replied in the radio as she shoots the bastard that has been tackled down by the dog. "I wonder who did that."

"Whoa, damn!" Murakami heard Richards shouted in the distance. "We got hostiles on our six, 6 of them!"

"Sierra 6, we need to get the hell outta here," Murakami stated as she shoots back at the hostiles ahead and then ducked down and moves to the left side of cover. "Is there any extraction we can use?"

"Yes, there is, standby," Miho radioed back, then continues to shoot back at the hostiles. "Angel 3-4, do you read me, over?"

"Lima-Charlie, 6," Angel 3-4, the Blackhawk pilot replied calmly. "How copy?"

"3-4, we are surrounded on the freeway east of the Naha Airport," Miho radioed calmly as Murakami throws a flashbang to stun the extremists. "Coordinates follow, 5-7-4-4-9-0. We're receiving heavy fire and the ambassador is in danger. We need backup and air extraction now."

"Copy that, Sierra 6, evac is on the way," Angel 3-4 replied. "ETA 2 Mikes, over."

"Roger that, 3-4, make it fast," Miho radioed in again, before changing channel to the team's channel. "All units, stand your ground."

"Ok, Captain," Murakami flatly replied as she proceeds to shoot back at the stunned hostiles.

They kept shooting as best as they can, with their dog, Ash running around the battle zone. She saw him jump over a car before tackling and biting down an extremist by his neck, killing him. As Ash managed to find another bastard to tackle with, she noticed that an extremist was about to shoot the dog from behind it. Murakami shot him in the head just in time to save the dog, which Ash was immediately called in by her.

"Ash, get back here!"

"WOOOF!"

As Ash jumps over the cars to reach Murakami, someone else got shot in combat. "Uff, I'm hit!"

To their concern, it was Maho who got shot. "You okay?" Miho asked in the radio.

"Got shot in the shoulder, but I'll be fine," Maho radioed back. "I still can shoot."

"Alright, keep shooting," Miho said in relief as Murakami reloads her UMP45 and the dog sits happily behind cover.

"Oh, kuso!" Anzu shouted in the radio. "Richards' down, I repeat, Richards' down!"

"Is he still alive?" Murakami asked worriedly, she hates to hear casualty in line of duty.

"Thankfully," Anzu radioed in. "We got him to cover and he's bleeding."

Murakami quickly looks over to Miho who happens to glance back at her. "Go back to Anzu and tend up his wound."

Murakami shoots back for a moment before covering and looked at Miho. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Miho immediately replied with a nod.

"We can take it from here, just go," Maho shouted as she looked at her. "We'll deal with them."

"Alright, cover me," Murakami responded, before she peeks out and shoots back for a moment before she made a run back to Anzu's group with her SMG pointing at the sky with one hand.

The dog also follows her suit to get back to Anzu. Murakami and Ash both jumped and slide over cars to get back to Anzu faster. It took them a few seconds as they reached the group by jumping over the final barricaded cars. She saw the bleeding Richards is seating against a car the group used to cover to protect their six. Murakami joined in to shoot back at their six for a moment before crouching down to Richards, her SMG holstered to the side.

Morley who is shooting back at the extremists with his M14 looked over to Richards for a moment. "How's he doing?"

"Left chest and stomach wound," Murakami responded lowly, before changing to normal voice. "He'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Douglas asked in disbelieve.

"He doesn't look too good for me," Pillon commented in doubt as he shoots back with his pistol.

"He'll be fine," Murakami then pulled out her first aid kit and morphine from her pouches on her vest. "Ambassador Douglas, can you help me?"

"What I need to do?" Douglas asked as he looked over to his bodyguard.

Murakami then give him the gauze she made. "Apply the pressure on his stomach, I'll deal with his chest."

"Alright," Douglas then puts the gauze into pressure on his wounded stomach, as they ignored the gunfire produced by the team and the hostiles.

Murakami then pulls out a morphine and inject it to his leg. "You'll be fine, Richards."

Murakami then proceeds to apply the bandage to chest as best as she can, as she heard in the radio. "Hold them off," Miho said in the radio.

"Why didn't I bring an SMG to this fight?" Maho asked to herself in the radio, much to her own annoyance.

"This is not the right time to ask that," Anzu responded in the radio.

"Hey, I didn't ask anything!" Morley responded in confusion as he shoots.

"I wasn't talking to you!" Anzu responded back, Murakami ignores their shouting.

"Alright, applying bandage to his stomach," Murakami stated as she pulls out the bandage long enough for him. "Keep the pressure on the wound."

She then starts to stick the bandage from Richards' left stomach then closed it over his wound. "Okay, move your hand, Mr. Ambassador."

Douglas removes his hand from the gauze as Murakami take over. She holds the gauze on his wound with one hand while the other one carefully and quickly applies the bandage around his stomach and reaching his wound. After two rounds of applying bandage around his stomach, she cuts the bandage and make sure the bandage on him is not loose. Murakami gave him another morphine after noticing his face shows a little pain.

"Alright, you'll be okay," Murakami then looks up to Douglas. "Keep him still."

Then Murakami immediately peeks out from cover and shoots back, assisting Anzu, Pillon and Morley to eliminate enemies on their six. Murakami did change direction to her 12 to assist Miho and Maho from afar, neutralizing 2 hostiles with headshots. Before changing her direction of fire to their six again.

"Angel 3-4, we really need that extraction now!" Maho radioed aloud, half-concerned.

"Standby, 30 seconds," Angel 3-4 replied calmly.

"30 seconds, everyone!" Anzu shouted to everyone, with Murakami sighed in relief as she also confused on hostiles are coming in from their 6 with cars.

"Come on, hit them hard!" Morley responded aloud and strangely happily. "Don't let them get closer!"

"Sierra 2, Sierra 6 here, we're falling back with Sierra 5," Miho said in the radio to Murakami and Anzu."

"Roger, I'll cover you," Murakami responded before changing to her twelve and gave Miho and Maho covering fire.

"BARK-BARK"

Miho and Maho falls back by covering behind each cars one by one. At one point Miho threw another grenade upfront. The grenade exploded in the middle of the freeway ahead and blew 5 hostiles up, followed up with a couple of cars. Maho made a run to Murakami's group's position as Miho stood back for a moment to shoot some hostiles, 5 of them killed in the chest. Murakami then gave covering fire after a reload as Miho falls back with her VItyaz-SN SMG pointing the ground. Miho leaps over a car where Murakami's at and returned fire from there.

"How's Richards doing?" Miho asked her.

"He'll live I think," Murakami replied with a doubt and a shrug, before returning fire. "We just need to get him out of here."

"Alright," Miho nodded, checking her wristwatch first before firing again. "10 seconds."

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRIIIRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRIIIIRRZ*

That's when they could hear a loud noise from a distance, the sound of a helicopter. Murakami turns her head to her six to see a black helicopter is closing in from a distance, followed by a couple of little birds with soldiers sitting outside. Murakami could see Ogin, Kay, Ghost, Vicek, Viktor, on those little birds along with some other Japanese 141 personnel. While Ami, Ron and Tamper could be seen waving out the side door of the Blackhawk.

"Captain!" Murakami shouted in her radio. "They have arrived!"

"Sierra 6, we have reached your location and ready for extraction," 3-4 responded as the birds closing into the location. "We'll provide air support as we touch down, Apex 1-1 and 1-2 will stay in the air for now to assist air support."

"Nice!" Pillon commented happily as the hostiles on their six are diverting their fire to the little birds and Blackhawk.

"Engaging hostiles!" Ghost said in the radio.

"Clearing your six now," Kay said in the radio as she opens fire from Apex 1-1 little bird.

"Yeah, keep at 'em!" Morley cheered as Murakami, Anzu, Pillon and Morley clearing out their six.

"Glad you arrived," Maho commented in the radio.

"Clear them out," Anzu said in the radio. "Blow the cars if you have to."

"Take 'em down!" Ron shouted from the Blackhawk as he, Ami and Tamper shoot at the bastards.

"Captain Ami, get on the minigun," Angel 3-4 said in the radio.

"Copy that," Ami said in the radio, her tone was heard to be… satisfaction. "Firing!"

*BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT*

The minigun is so.. EFFING LOUD!

"Watch your fire, watch your fire," even the pilot's warning can be barely heard.

However, the enemies on Murakami's team's six mowed down quickly. *BUUUUAR-BRUUUAARM-DUAAAAAR* With a few exploded cars following suit.

"HAHAAAAA!" Morley shouted aloud, he was damn excited of that minigun. "NOW THAT'S FIREPOWER!"

The minigun mowed them down for about 5 seconds until it's clear. After all extremists on their six are neutralized, Ami then redirects the minigun up to their 12 ahead. Mowing down most of the hostiles from a distance also putting the cars ahead up to the point of explosions. After 20 seconds… twenty fucking seconds of minigun firing at the hostiles, Ami stopped shooting and unmanned the minigun. That's when the Blackhawk slowly descending behind the group as the little birds immediately landed in front of the group, with the passengers getting off their seats and set up a perimeter on the freeway.

Seeing the area is clear for the moment, Murakami immediately picks Richards up as the rest of her group get the ambassador up and get them to the Blackhawk, including Ash the dog. Murakami immediately get Richards on first because he's wounded before getting the ambassador inside with the help of the US soldiers and Ami. Murakami, Ash and Morley were the last to get in the Blackhawk and stood near the door.

"Captain, you're coming with us?" Murakami asked her.

"Don't worry, I'm coming with you," Miho replied with a nod. "The rest of us will get on the little birds."

"WOOF!" Ash is pretty happy to hear that.

"We'll stay here to make sure the freeway is secure," Vicek replied in the radio. "Just get the ambassador out of here. We'll take this from here."

"Copy that," Murakami replied with a nod, before Miho, Maho, Anzu and Pillon headed to one of the little birds available for them.

The Blackhawk slowly ascending to the sky with Murakami standing near the open door. As the US soldiers tending up Richards wound, she watched the Little Birds followed suit to the sky and follow Blackhawk's direction. Awhile the Little birds followed the Blackhawk, she saw that those who stayed behind on the freeway began to have a shootout with the remaining extremists ahead. Murakami sighed in relief from those dirty work with Douglas took deep breath for himself and Ash the dog barks happily from the door. Murakami then closed the door up when the black hawk began heading northeast with the Little Birds, moving away from the freeway firefight.

Murakami only sat down beneath the unmanned minigun with Ami sat across her. With Douglas sitting on a chair available on the back of the bird. Morley helped tending Richards for a moment until he is stable, before he joined in sitting next to Murakami. The US soldiers are pretty much happy of the 141's help to save the ambassador and Richards from dying. Richards then took his helmet off, revealing his buzzed black hair and put his helmet on the floor next to him.

"Damn, and I thought we were the only best soldiers around," Morley stated with a smile. "Good to have you guys around."

"I'll say the same," Douglas added with agreement. "We'll get ourselves a drink after we reach the embassy."

"Sounds good enough for me," Ami replied with a nod.

Murakami then looked over to Ash, the dog that apparently fall asleep near the pilot's seat. "Yeah, I need a drink after this."

"It's real fun to work with you guys," Ron commented with a thumbs up. "Think we could meet again?"

Murakami only looks up to him, and sighed with a smile. "Well… hopefully."

They spend the rest of their time waiting for the Blackhawk to reach the destination along with the Little Birds. Murakami would be very glad that she along with Ogin and Anzu will get some money after this job. Miho would be happy as well for them to did their job as planned. After this job and the drinks they'll be heading home as happy as ever.

And then she'll wait for another job to come up for her.


	57. Chapter 54 - Stronghold

Unknown cemetery

Miho, along with Price, Yuri, and countless amount of Task Force 141 were all wearing their dress uniforms. The empty casket which had a flag of the UK carried by Miho, Yuri, Price, Nikolai, Chemo, and Vicek. They were carrying the casket to the place where they will bury Soap, in the middle of the cemetery. Normally, they wouldn't hold a funeral during this time due to their situation, but as Soap was one of the closest people to everyone, he was an exception. Being unable to reclaim the body as the resistance was stuck, they had to leave Soap's body there. By now, it must have taken by the Ultranationalists.

Arriving in the area where Soap was to be bury, the soldiers of the 141 removed the flag that was on top of the casket and folded it. Picking it off the casket once more, they began to slowly lower the body into the pit which they dug into previously ahead.

With the casket fully lowered, everyone gave the salute, with tears in their eyes. It was a truly sad day, with the weather being cloudy, showing less sunlight.

* * *

Three hours later, a bar in HQ.

.

Miho was crying, drinking her 6th bottle of vodka. She lost her best friend and mentor, which made her start thinking suicidal thoughts. Wanting to join Soap to where he is, she picked up the Colt Single Action Army, which only had a single bullet. As the only person in the bar, she cocked it and put the gun on her head, and she was about to shoot it when the door to the bar opened. Entering the room, Yuri was shocked to see Miho surrounded by vodka bottles and a loaded gun about to kill herself.

"MIHO!"

*CLICK*

It turns out the revolver was firing an empty slot. She just survived a round of Russian Roulette.

Yuri immediately ran to her and grabbed the gun. He quickly threw it away from her hands and looks up to her. Miho froze to know she survived from her attempted suicide, and she didn't even move her eyes aside from looking forward. Yuri quickly shook him for about 10 seconds, until Miho could lift her head at him a little with her expression is still lost.

"Miho!" Yuri shouted as he looked straight to her eyes. Miho just sat there, sorrowful, depressed, and hurt. Yuri looked around the room for a moment to see that the room is still empty aside from Miho and Yuri themselves. Seeing how he can't do anything about the current situation, Yuri decided to leave Miho.

"By the way, Miho. Price wants to see you later." He said as he left.

Miho only watched him left, then turns her head at the revolver that he threw away from her. Only gazing at it for the rest of her minutes

* * *

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141 –Disavowed

.

(Soap's dog tags are pinned to the wall with intel, along with with the knife, his patches, and photos)

.

Price: There's a clock tower in Hereford where the names of the dead are inscribed. We try to honor their deeds even as their faces fade from our memory. Those memories are all that's left, when the bastards have taken everything else.

Baseplate/MacMillan: What happened?

.

(Soap is listed as Killed in Action on the laptop.)

.

Price: He killed Soap. He's gone, Mac.

Macmillan: What do you need from me, son?

.

(Pictures of a castle in Prague is visible.)

.

Price: A location. Our Russian says Makarov used to cache weapons at an old castle near Prague. He's got nothing more solid than that.

Macmillan: Can you trust him?

Price: What choice do I have? He's got his own reasons for wanting Makarov dead. Place ring any bells?

.

[Incoming Transmission… Complete - Run Drone Simulation.]

Area: suspected castle outside of Prague

.

Macmillan: Aye. We ran drones over a suspect castle back in Zakhaev's day, but we never got wind of our targets visiting the area.

Price: What am I up against?

.

3D model of the fortress shown.

.

Macmillan: The place is a fortress. Only one way in or out, unless you've learnt to fly.

.

Strategic locations highlighted Security Checkpoint and Command Center.

.

Macmillan: Security office on the far side of the compound, and a command center north of that. Both were heavily guarded. If Makarov's there, he'll be in that control room.

.

TERMINAL 542.2

PRICE, 21:12

Helmet-mounted AN/AVS-6 vision goggles

Standard-issue parachute

C4 plastic explosives

Frag grenades

MP5 suppressed

P99 Tactical

.

BASEPLATE, 21:13

?

.

Macmillan: What's this you're sending me?

Price: Equipment list.

Macmillan: That's a lot of hardware, John. What'd you plan on doin'?

Price: What you taught me to do.

Price: Kill 'em all.

* * *

"Stronghold"

October 12th – 22:48:12

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141 - Disavowed

Prague, Czech Republic

.

Miho, Price, and Yuri are gliding their parachutes down toward a landing site near the castle. As they got close, they spotted two hostiles are guarding the LZ. Price and Miho got out their silenced pistols out *PEW PEW* the sounds of the guns heard as the two guards died. Well, one of them did. Yuri was the first to land before Price and Miho.

Yuri cocked his MP5 suppressed w/ Red Dot Sight in a crouching stance as he noticed one of the guards they shot is still alive and got his back off the ground. Before the hostile managed to get up, however, Price quickly walked pass Yuri and shot the hostile with his pistol twice before switching to his MP5. Miho got ahead of Yuri after that and followed Price.

"Keep up or I leave you behind," Price said grumbling as he, Price, and Miho started to move quickly into the castle. And of course, Price is still upset that Yuri didn't tell hi secret back in Prague, which cost Soap's life.

To think about that, Miho was still distracted. She is sulking a little about the death of her friend, Soap. Her sulking didn't go unnoticed by Yuri.

"Miho. We will get revenge for Soap. Ok?" Yuri assured her as the group kept moving. She didn't reply nor even nod, only gave an emotionless face.

As the group kept moving, they reached a part of the demolished wall ahead. Price saw two guards with flashlights ahead of them.

"Get down," Price ordered, he immediately lay prone behind the edge of the wall as Miho and Yuri crouched down next to him.

"Get caught in those lights, and we're done before we've started," Price told the group.

Price gave a hand gesture to behind him, telling them again to stay low. She saw the lights immediately shone around them. They waited for a moment until the guards didn't see anything off there, then began to move away from the group. Price peeked out a little from the wall and slowly gets up from the ground.

"You two, move." He told them as the group got up and began to move. They were following the guards from behind for this moment.

*BOOM* As they move, however, the sound of thunder reminded Miho of the funeral, but Yuri put his hand on her shoulder.

"Miho. Soap wouldn't want you to be like this." Yuri replied as Miho nodded and decided to focus on the mission.

"Wait…" Price told the two as they immediately hide behind another rocky wall.

They saw extra three guards began coming out from their left and eventually linked up with the two guards they followed before. The guards are then going away from Miho's team's position, seeing that they are following their routine of patrol to the south.

"This way. Now." Price told him as the group stood up and began to move quickly to the left.

They continue to move until they ended up at the edge of a ledge. Price, Miho, and Yuri faced the courtyard. The whole damn courtyard is full of BTRs, ammo and supplies and lots of guards in there. With one MI-8 Hind is seen transporting a BTR at the helicopter pad to the group's right in the distance. Watching the Ultranationalists at the helipad are gesturing at the helicopter to land the BTR safely.

Price then looked over to Miho and then to Yuri. "When we're down there, you move when I move. Do as I do. Understand?"

Miho didn't say anything or even nodding. Yuri, on the other hand, nodded at him.

"Let's go." He said as he went down first and landed onto a pile of boxes.

Miho and Yuri followed him behind. The three hid behind a transport truck in front of them. Price checked to make sure no one was around before they started to move. The sound of propellers spinning on top of them and the weather helped them to hide the sound of their footsteps and movements.

"Hold…" Price said as the two behind stopped moving and crouched, spotting a guard ahead who isn't looking at their direction as he passed by.

"Only shoot at what you can kill," he said, worried that killing will draw attention; they decided not to kill anyone.

They followed Price as they have their backs against the trucks on the right, ignoring the guard ahead who is almost out of sight. Price peeked out and took a look at the gap between the trucks.

"Go." He said as the two followed him.

One by one, they passed the gap with their weapons aiming at the gap. There was a guard there, but it wasn't a concern considering he didn't look behind him. Looking around, Miho and Yuri knew they were surrounded by security all over.

"Let's not draw attention by killing now, Miho," Yuri advised Miho, who was aiming. Miho put her gun down and continued to follow Price. They saw some guards to the left, and a truck with a large gap on the bottom.

"Under the trucks. Price ordered. They prone down, crawling below the trucks.

They crawl through until they reach at the end of the gap until Price stopped.

"Wait!" Price hastily whispered as multiple soldiers were seen ahead near the light.

"We'll plant C4 to cover our escape." He informed them as he planted one below the truck. "We'll burn this place down if we have to."

They nodded as they waited for the guards to away from the small area ahead. Only one terrorist was left blocking the way, standing in between the gap of a jeep and a truck. And moreover, he was shone by the light of the spotlight from the top left of the building. They crawled out from underneath the trucks and took cover near the jeep.

Miho, on the other hand, was standing behind the guard that is keeping watch.

"Take him out, but don't get caught in that spotlight," Price ordered as he gestured a knife-like hand at the hostile ahead.

The spotlight moved away from the guard's location, much to Miho's luck. She moved silently, using her knife to stab the Ultranationalist in the neck and covered his mouth so he can't alert the others. Miho quickly drops his body to the ground, and Yuri dragged the body and put it below the truck next to them. They then took cover at the front of the jeep as the spotlight moved onto them, but didn't get spotted.

"Wait for it…" Price said, after 2 seconds the spotlight moves away from them. "Now!"

The group dashed across the courtyard to reach a part of the castle ruins ahead consist of a big old wall. They managed to hide from the one nearby.

"Over here," Price ordered as they followed him to the west.

They are following Price up the stairs, and Yuri looked around to make sure no one spotted them. Miho was slowly lagging, but immediately caught up when she saw him staring at her.

Hiding behind a few small barrels, they spotted several Ultranationalist on the platform ahead. To their luck, their heads are not looking at their direction, and instead, they are busy with the supply crates on the platform. Miho and Yuri followed Price toward the platform with their weapons aimed at the men on platform. And then one by one, they prone down and crawled through the gap under the platform, Yuri was the last to enter.

For the moment, they heard the Russian soldiers talking to each other. Miho didn't bother to hear the hostiles' discussion as they crawled through underneath. Suddenly, one of the soldiers on top shone his flashlight below the mesh platform. Thankfully it shines a little farther ahead of them.

"Stop. Don't move." Price ordered the two as he gave an open palm to them, making them stop moving immediately. They were lucky as the guard stopped and moved on.

"Alright. C'mon. Miho, plant C4 on the platform." Price ordered Miho, who got out one of her C4s and immediately put it on an area that would make it hard to find. Arming it, she finished planting the C4 Explosive Charge.

Moving to the end of the platform, a guard was standing there. He was overlooking the area.

"Easy…" After an eternity, the guard jumped off the platform and walked away to the right.

"Clear. Go." The three crawled out of the platform and kept moving straight, looking while moving. Price saw the security office on their right and pointed out the building.

"There's the security office." Miho and Yuri followed Price, hiding behind. Price was leaning against the wall near the door.

"I'll handle this." The two kept on a lookout while Price banged on the office door. One of the security guards opened it, with Price barging in and stabbed the man's throat. Then he proceeded to kill all of the personnel with just his P99 Tactical.

"Clear," Price stated, then Miho and Yuri entered the room with Yuri closed the reinforced steel door where they came through.

The three operators then approached the monitors in the room. Price noticed the areas they need to go.

"They've got cameras outside the command center. Both sides – here, and here," Miho and Yuri saw Price point towards the two screens. Seeing them carefully, they also took notes of the POWs in the cells.

"We'll just have to knock on the door," Price stated, at this point, Miho finally decided to speak.

"I'm guessing we will have to save the prisoners too?" Miho asked as she reloaded her MP5.

"We can't. For now, getting intel from Makarov's command center is our priority," Price sourly replied, something that made Miho frowned.

"I see…" Miho lowly replied, both in sad and in unwillingness.

Price approached a grated door that was in the back of the room. Price noticed the biometric lock and carried the body of the guard and used the hand of the guard to open the door which was secured using a biometric lock. Price mindlessly dropped the dead man's hand away and cocked his submachine gun.

"Cheers." Following Price, She and Yuri entered the staircase. Right after they about to go downstairs in a circle, they heard more conversations downstairs, which means that there are Ultranationalist down below.

"Quiet… Night vision on." Price ordered. Miho and Yuri put on their night vision goggles and put them on at the stairs.

"I'll take care of the lights." Price told them as he went down first. They quickly took cover next and beside the open doorway ahead, with Price got a hold on the light switch.

"Ready?" Price asked the two who responded with nods; then Price proceeded to flip the switch off. Shutting down the whole lights in the proximity of the building.

"Weapons free!" Miho and Yuri followed Price, shooting at the surprised soldiers. They went down quickly.

"Sweep through this area fast. They won't know how few we are in the dark,"

The group entered the dungeon where the captured Russians were. Miho knew they couldn't help release the Russians who were captured in the cells, as it would take too much time. Miho took the path to the left by herself and stabbed an enemy in the doorway, and nearly got shot by a terrorist who blind-shoots out of his cover ahead of her in which she shot with her pistol. With some being right in front of her, Miho got out the KM2000 that she loved, stabbing several soldiers in the process either in the chest, neck stomach and rarely in the head. With the Ultranationalists not being able to see, she took them down quickly. This action was about to end, however, after they made a turn to the left to go into the exit of the doorway.

"They're using flares!" Price shouted as the Ultranationalists threw flares into the area where they were, making them visible. With their cover blown, they had to take down the soldiers quickly.

"Take your night-vision off. We'll do this the old way." Miho and Yuri put their goggles off, killing the Ultranationalists in front of them.

Since the area was like an atrium, they avoided gunfire, killing the men around. As Miho was shooting, a guard almost killed Miho with a headshot. But luckily, Yuri pulled her behind a bunch of crates.

"Be careful, Miho," Yuri told her as he loaded his gun. Miho also did, making sure her guns were fully loaded.

"Thank you for the save." Getting back on their feet, the group kept moving and taking down more soldiers. Seeing how some were on the ground floor, they had to be cautious.

"They're coming out of that room!" Miho shouted. She was pointing to the guard room across them.

"I know!" Price shouted back as he took down another one.

As he ran out of bullets, Price reloaded his gun and Miho took over. She took down the rest of the men. Sadly, more of the men started to flood the corridors. It seemed that not all of them came out of the office. Yuri went off downstairs to clear out that floor for the moment.

"They're bringing in reinforcements!" Price informed the group as he finished reloading, along with Yuri. They look over as Miho went to cover to reload her MP5.

"I know! Curse these wankers!" Miho shouted as she started to move.

As they advanced around the atrium, Yuri emerged from another doorway which is right behind the hostiles' line. Yuri flanked them and helped Miho and Price to move forward. They immediately took out the last two guards covering behind a wall and a crate by headshots.

Approaching another room, a guard was using the prisoner hostage. Miho aimed her MP5 and made a headshot, killing the soldier. Seeing how the prisoner was scared, Price shouted to him.

"Get out of here! Go!" He shouted. The scared prisoner scurried away. With the room empty, Price leads the two towards the back, where the door to the exit was.

"We have about ten minutes until they find their dead." He informed them.

"That means we have to move fast. I hope we can finish this job." Miho told Price as he released the locks and slowly opened the door. With the rain still falling, the group went outside and went up the platforms, looking around before moving around. They approached near the bridge, facing it.

"This is the only way in or out of the base." Price informed them.

"Yeah. And if we get stuck, we will have the entire army stationed here after our heads." Miho retorted.

"Don't worry. We'll make it out." Price assured Miho. She just grumbled to that statement.

Approaching the column of the bridge, Yuri planted a C4. This decision Yuri made alerted Miho.

"Are you serious?" Miho asked Yuri.

"We will use an alternate way to get out of the compound." He replied. His assuring made her calm down a bit, but not much. With Yuri planting the charges, the group kept moving. They ended up in a narrow cliff, with the waterfall and rain falling on them.

"This whole thing looks like it's about to collapse… So take it slow." Price informed the two, who led backward and moved through the ledge slowly. No one wanted to have the platform breaking after all.

*TANG* a loose piece of a pipe fell to the ground. That loose pipe made Miho's heart almost stop.

' _Don't worry'_ Miho told herself as she finished crossing over.

Following Price, Miho and Yuri kept moving through, climbing the platform and ended up back in the fortress. Going left, she followed Price, who suddenly stopped and began to notice of an interesting part of the wall on their left.

"Hold on… Change of plan." He said as he wired a bomb on the bottom and started on the sides.

"The control centre is just above us… looks like we won't have to shoot our way in." He finished putting the charges.

"The thunder will hide the sound of the blast. Wait for my signal. He said as he got as far as he can from the explosives, near the window. Miho, who received the detonator, waited for Price to give the signal. As soon as the thunder hit, Price gave her the signal.

"Now."

And she pulled the detonator.

*BUAR-CTAR*

The explosion has masked right when the thunder strikes. No one heard the explosion, which made them safe for now.

He said as Yuri and Miho followed Price. He examined the area to see how to go up.

"We can climb up here. C'mon." Price ordered the two. Due to the place being risky, someone had to stay.

"I'll keep an eye out for soldiers." Yuri offered to watch the area.

Miho nodded as she started to climb up the narrow area. Right now they are inside and in between the walls. A kind of thing that reminded her of a movie called Matrix. She and Price began climbing up to the command centre with the help of the narrow space and woods that they presumed to be a part of a building foundation. They kept climbing, and they ended up at the wall behind the control room, which the TV had President Vorshevsky talking. They could see through the small holes in the wall. There were several soldiers, and on the screen, Makarov was walking around him and waiting for him to talk.

"Christ, it's the President," Miho commented lowly.

"For the last… time… I will not bow… to the demands… of terrorist thugs! I will die before I surrender the nuclear launch codes!" His voice was weak, most likely due to torture.

"Makarov"Price whispered.

"I see… this is what we are dealing with, brothers. A stubborn old man, hopelessly out of step with the changing world."

As Makarov still converse, a guard walked up to the superior who's watching the screen. "Sir, still no response from the security room." A soldier who was in the room informed his superior.

"You, too, will change," Makarov whispered to the president.

"Get down there. Find out what's going on." The superior Alexi responded to the guard, who informed him. The said guard left the room.

"Alexi, has your Intel been confirmed?" Makarov asked the soldier.

"Yes, sir. Our men are already on the way to Berlin." Alexi informed Makarov.

"Are you listening?" Makarov continued interrogating the President, who was getting worried.

"The daughter is there. We will have her in a matter of hours." Alexi continued to inform his superior.

"Keep me updated," Makarov told Alexi as he turned off the connection.

"Time to go." Price told Miho, who nodded.

As soon as they were about to leave, the alarms sounded. Both Miho and Price looked back into that room to see Alexi began ordering the soldiers around to find out what the hell is going on right now. The Ultranationalists were all alerted, due to what happened in the fortress.

"They must have found the bodies. This should buy us some time." He said as he threw a grenade. Alexi was still ordering his men what to do until they fell silent and looked down to the ground.

"Граната!" a guard shouted as they jumped away from the grenade.

"Down! Now!" Price shouted as Miho, and Price fell. Yuri, hearing the explosion, looked up and saw Miho and Price falling. Yuri followed suit and jumped through the walls.

Almost immediately, they landed on a stone surface before they went through the stone-hard surface. Her heart feels slowing down, and everything went slow after they went through that, and soon found out that they just landed right inside the kitchen. Right when some of the Ultranationalists are cooking food for themselves. All the hostiles in the kitchen were stunned from that, with one of them fell to the ground after getting hit by the debris produced from their dramatic landing. The group, however, unfazed by their landing, immediately aimed out their SMGs as the time around her becomes normal.

*TRRAATATATATATTATATATAT*

"On your feet! We're leaving! He shouted as Miho and Price started to kill the soldiers in the kitchen.

Yuri and Price take the left path of the kitchen as Miho take the path forward. She killed the one who fell on the ground and killed one who's hiding behind the stove. The thing was that Miho didn't kill the bastard near the stove by bullets; instead she accidentally shot the stove and caused it to burst out flames and immediately burn the poor bastard down. She circled the kitchen after noticing that Price and Yuri already cleared the next area outside the kitchen.

Exiting the kitchen, the group started to move. They took a left turn and went upstairs.

"Nikolai, the daughter is in Berlin! Makarov has men on their way!" Price quickly contacted Nikolai as Miho and Yuri followed Price.

"I'll contact the American," Nikolai informed the group. As they reached what it seems to be a wide cellar area.

"Vorshevsky will break if they threaten the girl!" Miho went ahead of price, who was busy talking to Nikolai while moving.

"Da, Captain Price. I won't let you down." Nikolai told Price as they started going through the cellar. But then they received gunfire from ahead and took cover behind crates and a barrel.

"Looks like half the castle will be after us, eh Price?" Miho sarcastically asked as she took down those men from far away.

"Sadly! We have to focus on getting out of here!" Price responded as they exited the building.

It didn't take them long to neutralize all hostiles in the area. They went through the cellar by rushing in as a group and shoot the hostiles on their left and right without any cover. They exited the cellar without a problem and reached the exterior of the castle. They are about to take the stairs on their left until Miho and Yuri were late to notice someone threw a flashbang at that stairs.

"Flashbang!" Price shouted as he got to cover.

*BANG*

Sadly, Miho and Yuri got affected and temporarily blinded. The two managed to recover before the enemy soldier is going to shoot at them. The moment he pops out at the stairs, Miho immediately pulls out her sidearm and shot him twice in the chest with only one hand. They immediately went upstairs, did a U-turn in the stairs before reaching the top. After Miho took out a fleeing guard ahead, Price got ahead of her and followed him

Price leads the two into the other part of the building again, but Yuri suddenly got tired and began to limp.

"Yuri! Don't slow down now!" Price shouted to Yuri, who nodded as he started to catch up to the duo. They continued down to the corridor and reached the open doorway ahead.

"Sort 'em out!" Price shouted as they immediately took over next to the open doorway with Yuri crouching down and peeked through the doorway to shoot.

There were about five hostiles in the room ahead of them, taking cover behind armchairs and a sofa behind the armchairs. Miho throws a flashbang throw the doorway *BANG*, and immediately charged into the room and open fire as the enemies are stunned. She scored three headshots as Price and Yuri got a one kill each. As they about to reach another doorway ahead, an enemy suddenly popped out through the doors and went right in front of Miho. Miho is close enough to him that she immediately reached the bastard's G36C and kicked his stomach to make him release it before she turned the rifle around and shoots him wildly. She then dumped the rifle away and went through the doors, and she had a few mags for her MP5 left.

"On me!" Price shouted as he got ahead of Miho and took a right turn toward another part of the building.

"Through here! Move!" Price ordered as they take a turn to the right through a doorway and seemingly reached a supplying room.

They immediately saw three hostiles ahead are fleeing from the room to the exit of the building ahead. The operators were quick to shoot them in their backs to make sure they can't run anymore. They ran ahead through the doorway as they received gunshots through the windows next to the doorways. They immediately took cover by the crates ahead as they peek out and returned fire to the two hostiles on sight in front of them.

*PWUSH-WHIZZZ*

That's when they saw an RPG coming straight to them. *BUAR* and it hits a pillar on their front right, and the pillar came down to the ground in front of them.

"RPGs!" Price warned them as Miho and Yuri immediately moved away from the projectiles flew from the pillar that almost killed them.

"Bollocks!" Miho cursed lowly. "You're going down the courtyard?"

"Yeah, you?" Yuri asked back.

"I'll stay upstairs," Miho replied quickly. "I'll make sure no one shooting at you from here once you get through the courtyard."

"Whatever you do, just keep moving," Price responded with a nod. "Let me and Yuri worry about the bastards in the courtyard."

"Got it," Miho responded with a nod before they split up.

While Price and Yuri went downstairs, Miho decided to take the upper route to the right. She took a small step of stairs and turned right following down the parapet as she shoots at the hostile at the other side of the parapet on her left. Once she made a turn to the next parapet, she saw an RSASS Sniper Rifle was left standing on the walls of the parapet that is facing the courtyard below. But she decided to ignore it and kept moving, knowing Price and Yuri had no problem to get through the courtyard and indeed reached the other side of the courtyard. She went inside the corner building in front of her and immediately aimed her MP5 to her right and shot three bastards in the back who are trying to kill Price and Yuri through the windows.

She made a turn to the right and found a bastard is about to shoot her. Miho was the quick one to pull the trigger and shot him thrice, and eventually, she ran out of ammo. And surprisingly, the shot bastard is standing albeit from his injuries to the chest and shoulder. Miho doesn't have any MP5 ammo left, so she threw the SMG at his face and pulls out her pistol and shoots him at the same time before could do a proper aim to him. Took about another three shots again to kill him.

She picked up a G36C rifle from a dead soldier she killed before and restocked on ammo for the moment. She then exited the building through the door to the left and reached another parapet. She advanced through the parapet as she killed two hostiles ahead who are unaware of her presence. When she's halfway through the parapet, another two hostiles came out from the building ahead. But she able to kill them by shooting their heads down as they fell down the stairs. Miho entered the building and advanced until she reached Price and Yuri who just reached the floor she is in.

"They're just in time." Price said as a BTR accompanied by small infantry began to make a pass through the bridge below.

"Do it." Price ordered, and Miho pressed the detonator.

*BLUUUUAAAARRRR*

The C4 blew up and killed the whole small infantry with the BTR. When the smoke produced by the explosion cleared away. She saw that the bomb didn't fully destroy the bridge, and it took away half the bridge underneath the front BTR. The BTR then fell through the hole of the half of the bridge and landed down into the river below.

*BUUUAAARRRRR*

And the BTR exploded, much to Miho's surprise.

"Move!" Price ordered as they followed him and enter the building on their left, before turning right in the building to reach a window that's facing the bridge.

"Jump! Go!" Miho and Yuri followed Price, jumping out the window and landing on the car in front of the gate.

They still faced soldiers near the outer gate after they passed the bridge. Miho and the group managed to take them down easily. They quickly took cover behind the crates ahead of them under heavy fire, with Price taking cover behind the crates near the security office they entered before. Even worse, there was a BTR in front of the gate.

"That BTR is blocking our way out!" Price shouted. Miho was frustrated by this point.

"Jesus! When can we finally leave this place?!" Miho complained.

They had no choice but to keep fighting against the soldiers with guns, the BTR, and RPG troopers on the walls on their far-right. They don't have the weapon to destroy against the BTR, and the Ultranationalist are swarming in the courtyard ahead. While Miho and Yuri can't think of something as they shoot, Price saw an opportunity ahead.

"I think I found a way out!" Price shouted as he pointed to a jeep nearby.

"A jeep?!" Yuri asked loudly in disbelieve. "Really?!"

"Price planted a C4 at the trucks, remember?" Miho asked at Yuri, and he just realized that the planted C4 is actually near the BTR.

"Fine!" Yuri responded. "Make a run for the jeep!"

The two followed Price, who entered the driver's seat while ignoring the heavy gunfire next to them. Miho and Yuri entered the back seat, providing covering fire to Price as he started to drive. They managed to get moving, at least without significant problems. But Price drives jeep straight to the BTR ahead.

"Detonating C4! Now!" Price shouted as he detonated the one that was below the grates and the trucks.

This explosion distracted the soldiers as he and the group made their getaway. And explosion also destroyed the BTR as Price drives the jeep pass it. As Miho and Yuri returned to behind them, Price hits the gas and crashes through the gates in front of them without significant damage to the jeep. Price quickly stabilizes the jeep as Miho and Yuri returned fire to the hostiles behind them on the parapet above the destroyed gates.

"Hold on!" Price shouted as he swerves the steering wheel to the left, with Miho and Yuri holds onto the damn chairs. The jeep drifts around the sharp left corner as the back of the jeep is on the edge of the cliff and destroyed the whole wooden guardrail on that cliff.

"Price," Yuri shouted. "You still have your driving license, right?"

"Oh shut it, Yuri," Price replied in annoyance, it was a little hilarious, however, despite the bad thing Yuri did.

"BTRs!" Price shouted as they spotted BTRs ahead along with a large number of infantries. That wasn't good news. With BTRs, they would have a hard time getting away.

They're getting shot at as the jeep's hood is already burning hot as the jeep is in its maximum speed.

"Hope you're still carrying your reserve, you two!" Price hopefully stated. Yuri and Miho got out their reserve chutes, along with Price.

Price swerved to the right and passed the BTRs and the hostiles shooting at them from their right. Price hits the gas hard as he wasn't aiming to drive through the BTRs. But instead, he is going to drive the jeep off the cliff ahead.

"Get your chute ready!" He shouted as they crashed through a guardrail of that cliff.

"Ooh, shiiiite!" Miho shouted as they three jumped off and ditched the burning jeep.

"Chutes, now!" Yuri shouted as they all immediately pull their cords of the chutes and their reserves to save their lives.

*BUAR*

Of course with the jeep exploded beneath them.

(PMC Victory theme)

They have succeeded in the mission. Price quickly got ahead of Miho and Yuri as they glides down through the storm and passed the river.

"Nikolai, get us out of here." With that, they all sighed in relief. They were able to get out of there at least.

"Roger. I'm on my way." Nikolai responded happily as the three soldiers parachuted down a safe place.

Right now, they hoped Sandman and his team managed to reach the President's daughter before Makarov does.


	58. Chapter 55 - Sleepover

It's another same usual day at the Nishizumi Residence. The sun has shone its light to the environment of the house, and the gardens, with the flowers are blooming and its petals open. The light shines onto the windows of the residence as the windows reflect bright light. Kikuyo could be seen on the back porch near the gardens, sweeping off the dust from the floor along the porch.

Now looking back inside the residence, specifically Miho's room. She was getting ready for the day and already been from the bathroom. She's wearing up her clothes by now before heading out for breakfast. Also noticed it's already 7 AM in the morning.

Miho is wearing her short-sleeve magenta shirt and blue pants. A wristwatch is worn on her left wristwatch and a pen is in the pocket of her shirt. She has a small bag on the side of her belt, which doesn't contain a pistol. But she has a knife in its holster next to the small bag on her belt. Her cigars and lighter are in the pocket of her shirt next to the pen.

She went out of the room and headed downstairs to the dining room. When Miho reached there, Shiho and Maho were both already began to have their breakfast. She then took her seat across her mother with her sister on her left. Miho greeted them both before taking the foods available on the table. With her mother generously picked a couple of food for her to eat.

As they eat, Shiho began to converse. "I hope your morning is great."

"For now," Miho replied, not bothering to look at her. "Something new on your end?"

"Nothing much," Shiho replied with a shrug. "Only had a seminar about Panzerfahren in the community yesterday."

"And how did it go?" Maho asked with a raised brow.

"Still the usual, especially about… our Nishizumi Heritage," Shiho paused for a moment as she earned a glance from her youngest daughter. "But, won't bother you about it."

"Well, if you say it that way," Miho only gave a poker face to her. "I won't worry about it."

"Good," Shiho replied with a nod. "So… how's your job yesterday?"

Maho just gave an odd expression at her. "I thought you watched the news."

Shiho took a sip of her tea first. "Well… I did. I just want to hear from your perspective."

Miho just smirked a little to her. "Trying to be the mother of wisdom again?"

Shiho just sighed as she felt a little hilarious of her joke. "Perhaps."

"For a start," Maho answered with a sour look. "I didn't expect we have to kill a lot of extremists on the road."

"Me neither," Miho replied as she waved her hand in the air lazily. "I had to get Vicek and Chrome to investigate about where did they get those weapons."

"And still no clue about their part of the job?" Shiho asked with a raised.

"None, our informant is keeping tabs on us to find out where those weapons came from," Miho replied with a shook. "But for now, we're in the clear."

"I see," Shiho replied with a nod. "And by the way, I'll have to say you did well getting the ambassador out from there."

"It's our part of the job," Miho replied with a smile. "And we were thankful enough that no civilians were killed."

"Except for a few soldiers who died defending him," Maho added, making everyone frowned for a moment.

"Their service will be remembered," Miho added with a pitiful tone.

Shiho didn't say anything for a moment until she smiles a little. "At least you're still okay."

Maho smiles back at her. "Glad to hear that."

"And makes it more lucky for you is that the news was much focused on the ambassador's safety that time rather than focusing on you soldiers who are trying to fend off those extremists," Shiho added calmly. "And with the recordings of your faces were pretty blurred. The chances you didn't get notice from the news are pretty high."

"I'm glad to hear that," Miho replied with a sigh. "Let's just hope no one saw the familiarity of our faces on the news."

"Let's hope so," Maho added in concern. "I don't want any of our friends questioning us who we really are."

"Well, except to some friends who knew your secrets," Shiho added for the current fact.

Maho just sighed to the fact. "And, there's that."

"And maybe Anchovy-san will appreciate the work you did, Miho," Shiho added as she points her chopsticks at her.

"I'll be happy to hear that from herself," Miho responded as she points back at her with her chopsticks. "But I'm pretty sure I made Anchovy and her mother worried after watching that news."

"I guess you are right about it," Maho added in agreement. "It was a heavy fight back there."

"And we all made it out okay," Miho added with her head tilted. "Now, I need to find a way to calm her down."

"And don't forget about teaching her to shoot again," Shiho added to remind her.

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "She needs to handle her shotgun better."

"You know?" Maho asked with a curious look. "I was surprised that Anchovy is the only one who picked a shotgun unlike the rest of the girls a couple of days ago."

"She told me that she needs something more… efficient than a rifle," Miho replied as she shrugged her right shoulder.

"But its range is not that long, right?" Maho asked.

"Not that long," Miho replied with a nod. "But it does have deadly stopping power."

"Hah, well…" Maho then lifts her drink and points it at Miho. "It sure does have that."

"And now you both are talking like that like you have a firearms school," Shiho commented as she drinks.

"You mean like Nishizumi Firearms School?" Maho asked her mother, curiously.

"I won't be looking forward to that, thank you very much," Miho replied with a little dissatisfaction. "I don't want to have any strange graduates from that kind of school."

Maho and Shiho chuckled, then they all lift their drinks and point them at each other. "That surely is true," Shiho replied in agreement before they all drink.

Right after they drink, however…

(God's gonna cut you down-instrumental)

Miho wasn't expecting an early call from someone. Miho pulls out her phone and takes a look at it. While her mother and sister were both wondering, who called her. Though, it gave Miho a surprise on who called her. It was not Anchovy.

"Who is that?" Maho asked curiously.

"Well, it's not Anchovy for sure," Miho replied, much to Maho's and Shiho's expectation.

"Then who is it?" Shiho asked with a raised.

"Well…" Miho paused for a moment as her phone rings. "Nonna, apparently."

Now that took them off-guard. Why Nonna wanted to call her this early? Miho only answered the phone and put it on the speaker. Good enough for everyone to hear what she said.

"Miho?" Nonna asked on the phone.

"Привет Hонна," Miho responded flatly.

"Привет михо," Nonna responded happily. "Как дела?"

"Pretty much fine as always, Nonna," Miho replied with a nod. "How are you doing on your end?"

"Same as you, I suppose," Nonna replied. "Is Maho-san with you?"

"Yes, she is here," Miho replied with a smile. "Along with our mother here. I already put the phone on speaker."

"Konnichiwa, Nonna-san," Shiho greeted her. "How's Klara?"

"I'm grateful to say that she's doing alright," Nonna replied happily. "Her wound is fully healed after she got out of hospital. Not even a scar left on her stomach."

"I'm glad to hear that, Nonna-san," Maho replied in relieve. "I… it must be hard for you after what Miho did back there."

"And again, I'm so sorry about that," Miho added in the sense of guilt even though that was enough for Nonna.

"It's alright, Miho, you don't have to say that again," Nonna replied with a slight chuckle. "I already have forgiven you, so just stop it."

"Sorry, it's just…" Miho paused for a moment in thought. "It feels like a burden for me."

"Don't be," Nonna replied warmly. "You did the right in the end, after all."

"Thanks for comforting me," Miho replied with a nod.

"So…" Maho awkwardly paused for a moment. "Why did you call this early?"

"Well…" Nonna paused for a moment. "I wanted to invite you to our place."

Everyone didn't say a thing for 10 seconds, then Miho asked. "Why are you inviting me?"

"No, not just you," Nonna responded quickly. "Maho-san is also in. We're inviting you to have a sleepover in our place."

Now they all are pretty surprised by this. Even Shiho herself felt a little insecure about that response.

"W-why would you want us to have a sleepover in your place?" Maho asked in unsure of what she heard.

"We thought that we should spend some fun with each other to get the steams out of our head," Nonna replied. "Besides, the school days are over for this week. A little fun won't hurt."

Nonna had a point, though. After that rough job yesterday that Miho and Maho went through, they some relaxation to their mind. Especially for Miho herself, who is a veteran of the Third World War. Plus, they don't have anything to do for today. So having a sleepover at someone's place is a great idea to spend their night.

Miho only nodded at Maho in consent, which made her smiled and replied to Nonna. "Sure, we'll be heading to your place in the evening."

"Awesome!" Nonna replied happily. "Glad to hear that."

"And by the way," Miho added to interrupt her. "Is there anyone else coming up to your place for a sleepover?"

"There are a few of them," Nonna replied as she paused for a moment. "There is Darjeeling, Erika, Marie, Jajka, Éclair, Nishi, Hana, and lastly Anchovy."

Miho nearly dropped her spoon to hear the last person she said. "Wait, Anchovy?"

"Yes, Anchovy will be coming in the evening," Nonna replied with a sly tone. "I figured that tagging your girlfriend along is a good idea."

"Oh, nice one, Nonna," Maho teasingly replied with a thumbs up, along with Shiho smiled to that. "I'm pretty sure she'll be happy."

Miho just sighed in annoyance as she looked away, but at the same time, she felt glad to know Anchovy is coming along. "Don't even start, Maho."

"Why?" Shiho asked, then continued by Maho. "Embarrassed to have your girlfriend around?"

Miho just stared her straight to her eyes and replied. "5 seconds."

That immediately made them both pale, with Nonna doesn't know what she meant. "What do you mean by 5 seconds?"

"Well…" Maho awkwardly replied, but couldn't think of anything.

"The moment when I'm trying to kill her," Miho replied coldly, to which Nonna gasped her phone.

"O-oh, just like what you did to her back in the Exhibition ma-?" Nonna awkwardly replied. "I-I see, well… I hope you both are still getting along just fine."

"Oh, don't worry, Nonna-san," Shiho assured, giving a small sweat to see Miho is still glaring at Maho. "They both will be doing just fine."

"Oh, alright then," Nonna replied flatly. "We'll see you in the evening."

"Okay then, bye, Nonna," Miho responded with a smile as she reaches her phone.

"Bye, Miho," Nonna responded before Nonna closes the call.

After that, Miho pocketed her phone back and glares back at Maho. It still unnerved Maho about that glare. While Shiho only straightened her back up and gave an agitated face to Miho's glare. And still Miho is unfazed of that.

"Ermm… you're done yet?" Maho asked, still unnerved of her glare.

"Not yet," Miho replied with a shook. "After a bullet, maybe yes."

Not sure if she was sarcastic or really angry. Only Maho should be worried about what she'll do next.

* * *

Somewhere on a hill near Kumamoto. 09:00 AM

.

"Well, well, this is a very fine spot here. Now, where is he?"

Ami is in a secluded spot where Ghost told her to be at right now. Just like what she said above, it's a very fine spot that Ghost picked for her. It is on the very top of the hill, devoid of any trees except for a few small ones near the edge of the hill. It was an open view for her because she could see the large Kumamoto city from a distance. And she could see the sun shining from the east.

Now, the good question right now is… where the bloody hell is Ghost?

Giving her the coordinates here and ditched her, there is not something Ghost would do. Well, unless Ghost wanted to do a surprise to her, that would be highly unlikely because that is out of his character. So she decided to wait for him instead as she looked around with her arms crossed.

Until something touched her shoulder from behind.

She went from zero to instant alert. Ami quickly steps and turned around as she readied her fist to punch the person who touched her shoulder. Only to have her stop her fist in the air to see Ghost was the one who touched her shoulder. Ami lowers her fist to her side as she's calmed down of his presence. Ghost could only raise his both open palms in front of him at the height of his shoulders.

Of course, Ami gives a small angry, smug face to his sudden presence. Ghost only sighed to know he shouldn't have surprised her like that. Though, Ami sighed a bit to change her expression of anger. Ami crossed her arms as she looks away from him at the moment. Before looking up to him with a warm face.

"Hello, Ghost," Ami greeted as soft as she can.

"Captain Ami," Ghost responded with a nod. "Glad you could come over."

"Actually I'll be gladder if you didn't surprise me like that," Ami replied in a little upset.

"Forgive me, Captain," Ghost replied flatly. "I didn't mean to surprise you like that."

"How did you could sneak up on me like that?" Ami asked curiously.

"Well, I actually didn't."

…

…

Ami stood unresponsive for a moment before she shook her head. "Wait, what do you mean you didn't sneak up on me?"

"I was walking up to you, real fast," Ghost replied as he paused for a moment. "And usually, I never made any noise when I'm walking, every time."

Ami, remembering how the military life at that time, there were a few occasions of people walking around without a sound. But Ghost's case, he said every time.

"So, you surprised a lot of people every time you walk up to them?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"Every time, yes," Ghost replied solidly with a nod.

"But why walking around without a sound?" Ami asked again. "Despite that, you are with your friends?"

"I don't like making noises, even if it's little," Ghost responded with a shook. "It makes me uncomfortable, and I don't like to annoy people with the sounds I made."

His dislikes made Ami wonders on how he achieved his nickname as Ghost. "Is that why people called you Ghost, aside from surviving death?"

"Well, maybe," Ghost replied in doubt, rubbing his chin with his left hand. "I never had a thought about that."

Ami chuckled as she shook. "Really, you never thought about it?"

"I mean, I've never been bothered about that," Ghost replied as he waved his hands wider to his sides. "I just get along with it."

"And your men back in base really took it well?" Ami asked as she rests her hands to the sides.

"Yes, they did," Ghost replied with a nod. "They already got used to it."

"Okay, how about those Russians?" Ami asked curiously. "Compare to yourself?"

"Oh, don't even start," Ghost replied in mild irritation with a sigh. "I had a six hours conversation with the Russians and the others when Chemo asked me about it."

"6 hours?" Ami asked in surprise. "How did that conversation go?"

"Well, it goes like this…" Ghost paused for a moment before he looks up at her. "Let's agree to disagree."

Ami stood in silence for a moment with an open smile and winced eyes, processing the philosophical words he just said. "I… don't understand."

"Don't have too much thought about it," Ghost replied as he patted her shoulder. "You'll understand that soon enough."

"I see," Ami then looks away from him and views the landscape behind her. "I must say this is a very terrific place to pick."

"I know," Ghost agreed with a nod. "Seen a lot of landscapes in my line of duty, but this is more better than the landscapes I saw back in Russia."

"And which part of Russia is that?" Ami asked as she smirked at him.

"Caucasus mountains, the Russian border," Ghost responded. "Well, before we stormed there to find any terrorists."

"Hah, spare me the details about it," Ami replied as they stepped forward a few times. "Why don't we just sit down here?"

"Sure, whatever you wish, Captain."

Ghost and Ami then both sat down on the field of grass on the hill. They both admired the beautiful view that exists in front of them — watching the thriving city of Kumamoto as birds are chirping throughout the air, followed by a breezy wind that airing their bodies. They felt so relaxed and yet felt so genuine. They still sat down in silence as they observed the view of the city from afar. Ami sat a little forward of Ghost as they observe.

However, as Ami observed the view, Ghost is taking something from his back. "I have something for you, by the way."

Ami only looks up at him in surprise. "What is it?"

Ghost then reaches his hand out from his back, revealing flowers in his hand. Ami is rather surprised to see her kind of flowers.

"Tulips?!" Ami asked in surprise, widen her eyes almost immediately to stare at the Tulips. "Wha- how did you-"

"I asked your friend, Yuko, about your favorites," Ghost responded, not bothering to let her finish her question.

"No, I wasn't asking about that!" Ami responded quickly. "I mean, how did you get these Tulips?"

"Actually, I planted them back in my room," Ghost replied with a shrug. "These flowers help me to think clearly."

"Oh, how surprising," Ami responded with her brows raised. "Didn't know you're a flower-kind of man."

"Every soldier has his own soft side," Ghost replied with a thumbs up.

"And so am I," Ami responded in consent. "Guess we both are not all that different, huh?"

"Huh, maybe," Ghost responded with a shrug. "But I still feel we both are a little different."

"I'm pretty sure Miho has a different opinion on that," Ami commented as she smirks at him.

"Sure she has a different opinion," Ghost replied with a nod. "But it's too early to ask her that question."

"You're right," Ami replied in consent. "I don't want to bother her daily morning."

They then continue to admire the rising sun that is shining the city before Ami glanced back at his face. Ghost still not has his balaclava open yet, including his sunglasses and excluding his headset.

"Ghost, can I ask you something?" Ami asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, what is it?" Ghost responded questionably.

"Don't you think it's time to open that mask, Ghost?" Ami asked, which made Ghost to feel uncomfortable.

"Why do I need to open the mask?" Ghost asked, uncomfortably as he straightens his back.

"Why do you always have to wear it?" Ami asked back, and she then gestures to their surroundings. "I mean, there's no one else around here beside us."

"I just don't want to open the mask," Ghost responded flatly.

"Why?" Ami asked again.

"I don't like to expose my real face," Ghost responded with a shook. "I would blow my identity if I did that."

"What's wrong with that?" Ami asked again softly. "It's only me who wants to see your face."

"It's just…" Ghost paused for a moment with a thought. "It's the only thing to suppressed the anger I had."

Ghost then looked away from her and looked straight forward. "Once, I saw my face in the mirror right after joined the 141. But…"

Ghost then looks back at her. "It feels like I'm nothing but a raging soul and a monster of myself. I felt… worse about it. I kept using my mask for a long time to not look into my face. Or it will remind me of who I am before becoming as Ghost."

Ami thoughts for a moment, before asking him. "You use that mask… to hide who you truly are?"

"Yes," Ghost replied with a small nod. "And, I never open my mask until now."

"But Ghost, you don't have to hide that from me anymore," Ami assures him softly as she caresses his back.

"I'm not even sure I could trust you about that," Ghost responded with doubt, and Ami understands his concern.

"I know what General Sheperd did to you and your friend, Roach," Ami replied as her hand was placed on her chest. "But I'm not him, and I really trusted you. As a friend and… maybe a part of a family. You don't have to worry about it. It's alright."

Ghost just sighed, and then looked down to the ground. "Huh, I guess you're right."

Ghost then looks back at her with a smile under his mask. And then he takes off his sunglasses to show his blue eyes. "Alright, I'll open my mask."

Ghost then reaches his left hand towards the bottom of his skull balaclava. He then slowly opens his mask up. He is slowly revealing his mouth, his nose, his eyes before reaching up to his hair. He then looks back at Ami, unmasked. To which her turn to give a very surprised look.

He has a tough oval face aside from his blue eyes. He has a straight nose starting from in between the eyes down to above his mouth. His mouth kept closed in a thin straight line, and his short hair is colored in black, and the front hair was cut to reveal his wide forehead. Aside from that, he is very handsome the moment Ami looks up to him. And Ami fell speechless to his handsome face.

Ami didn't even realize that she's still staring at him. "Erm, Ami?"

"Oh-oh, y-yes?" Ami awkwardly responded as she snaps herself by blinking.

"Are you alright, there?" Ghost asked as he wrinkled his brows in concern.

"I'm … dead confused," Ami paused for a moment. "You actually looked handsome without that mask."

Ghost just chuckled as he nods. "Really?"

"Yeah," Ami replied with a nod. "I… mean it. You looked so handsome."

"I know," Ghost responded with a nod, before looking away. "But still, I won't dare to see my face."

"Huh," Ami just leans her head back a little. "Even if you are handsome?"

"Yeah," Ghost nodded back at her.

"Okay then," Ami simply replied with nothing else to add.

They then continue to enjoy the view in pure silence. They both still have a lot of time to enjoy this view, before heading back to base. While they are catching the view, Ami felt so hilarious to know that Ghost had a handsome face despite his efforts to hide it because it will anger him about who he was. They watched the view as the sun shines, and Ami leans her head against Ghost's shoulder.

The only one thing she wondered was, how is Miho holding up right now.

* * *

Pravda's Apartments, Katyusha's dorm. 16:30 PM

"Ah, привет, Михо.

"Здравствуйте, Нонна."

"Ты пришел рано"

"I like to be always on time."

"Ah, Maho-san, you're here too!"

"Kon'nichiwa, Katyusha-san. We're here."

"Looks like you are the first person to arrive here."

"We are still waiting for the rest of them."

"They are taking their sweet time to come here."

"Come on in then. Let me get you something to drink."

Miho and Maho both have arrived in Katyusha's dorm. Or to be more exact, Nonna's and Klara's dorm as well. It was a three-person dorm that Katyusha lives in. And surprisingly, their dorm is as huge as a normal small house. And it's huge enough to fit for more than ten people who come for sleepover.

Miho and Maho both sat down at the chairs available at a table. Nonna went off to the kitchen to get the drinks for Miho and Maho. While Klara and Katyusha when off to somewhere else, probably finding some games for their visitors. Miho scanned around the room as Maho is checking on her phone, probably checking on Erika.

The dorm they had was very nice. Aside from the coloring of Light Coral and Light Salmon of the dorm's wall, the place is also well tidied up. Pictures of Katyusha, Klara, and Nonna are scattered around the walls, with a few of the photo's show that they took the pictures together. Decoration of Russian toys is placed properly on the shelves, with a banner of Pravda hanging on the wall to her right facing at the table.

After she scanned the room, she looks back at Nonna, who just came out from the kitchen and put a tray full of glasses with a teapot of tea on the table. Nonna joined to sit with as Klara and Katyusha came back to sit with them. Nonna kindly pours to the tea for both Miho and Maho, and Miho thanks her with a nod before sipping her tea.

As they about to converse, however, someone knocked on the door again, which means another visitor has come. Which prompts all of them to stand off their seats headed for the door. Nonna opens the door as everyone stood by, and found Hana standing at the door. Not only that, Hana had also said that the rest of the girls had arrived as well. To which Hana enters the dorm after she bowed at them. The next girls did the same one by one, starting from Darjeeling, Jajka, Marie, Erika, Éclair, Nishi, and lastly Anchovy. Along with their own respective bags.

When it comes to Anchovy, Miho greeted her with an open palm as she closes in at her. And Anchovy immediately gave a quick kiss on her lips. Miho rather enjoys that instead of taken aback, she just smiled at her and gestured her to the next room beside her. That's when both of them saw the girls snickering at them except for Hana, who felt jealous, having seen what they both did. It did make Anchovy blushed in embarrassment, for Miho, on the other hand, she had had enough of that.

"Can we move along now?"

Surprise that Miho wasn't blushing, Darjeeling continued. "O-oh, sure."

They all then headed for the table and sat down there as Nonna went off to the kitchen to get more glasses for the visitors. Katyusha only sat at the table as Klara looked around for a couple more chairs for their visitors. Miho sat down next to her lover like the rest of them sit in a circle at the table with Maho sitting across. Nonna and Klara came back with more glasses and chairs before joining them at the table.

"It's good to have you all here," Katyusha commented happily.

"I know," Hana added with a nod. "I want to have some fun with you."

"How's your day, by the way?" Éclair asked curiously as she sips her drink.

"Pretty great so far," Marie responded with a thumbs up. "Aside from dealing with both factions back in my school."

"How are Andou and Oshida doing?" Miho asked with a raised brow.

"They seemed to get along really well," Marie replied with a shrug. "It still surprises me how she doesn't have any trouble with the Escalators."

"And she didn't have any fight with Oshida until now?" Jajka asked as she raises her brows.

"Actually… never," Marie replied with a shook. "After Miho changed her mind."

They glanced back at her, though unable to say something as Miho interrupted in. "No, we are not talking about that."

"I mean, do you really have to bash her head to the table?" Nishi asked as they recall the fight in Kumamoto.

"She attacked me first," Miho responded flatly, not really defending herself of that statement.

"That doesn't mean you have to bash her head in," Erika added as she tilted her head.

Miho just gave her hands in the air for a moment as she flustered for a moment to respond. "I'm always that hard when I had to fight with someone."

"Like what you did to the Bonple girls a few months ago?" Anchovy asked as she recalls that again.

"I-" Miho paused for a moment. "Yes, just like what I did to those girls."

Miho then looked over to Jajka. "I didn't kill them, did I?"

Everyone gave an awkward glare at her, with Jajka became discomfort of what she said. "Umm, no, you didn't kill them. Just broken bones, that's all."

"Okay," Miho replied with a nod as she took a cup of tea. "I was hoping one of them dead."

Everyone leans back from her as they gave their terrified face though Anchovy was a bit irritated by her sarcasm. "Miho-chan, stop joking!"

"Alright, I stop joking now," Miho responded as she smiles.

"Do you have to make things grim? Do you, Miho-san?" Darjeeling asked with a raised brow, which showing her concern about Miho.

"Seldom," Miho replied flatly. "Only when it feels like it."

"That reminds me of something," Katyusha added as she recalls something. "Why did you chase Maho with a chainsaw?"

"That… was because I made her angry," Maho answered awkwardly. "I insulted her when we're planning the tactics for the match."

"Okay then," Klara responded flatly, before looking back at Miho. "But where did you get the chainsaw?"

It was Miho's turn to laugh at the Russian girl's question. "I thought you Russians are magicians."

Everyone is dead confused about her question, to which Nonna asked Klara. "Magicians?"

"Erm…" Klara awkwardly paused for a moment. "Not all Russians could make stuff appear like that."

"I know," Miho agreed as she lazily leans her back against her chair. "That's the other thing why I love the Russians."

"Something odd to say from a British girl," Hana commented as she gave an emotionless face.

"British-Japanese girl, you mean," Nishi corrected Hana.

"Thank you for your correction, Ms. Nishi," Miho responded with a smile. "And yes, Hana. It's something odd for me to say."

"You don't have any plan for making a Nishizumi Peculiar School, right?" Darjeeling joked with a raised brow and a charming smile.

Everyone laughed at that, with Miho only chuckled at the joke. "I'm not looking forward to that, Ms. Darjeeling."

"Me either," Anchovy added happily, she then sips her drink.

As they drink, Marie came up with a topic. "Hey, do you girls have heard about what happened in Okinawa?"

"About the attempt on Ambassador Douglas?" Éclair asked as everyone recalled watching that news. "Ooooh, that news was rather harsh."

"But he made it out alive thankfully," Nonna responded with a nod. "Thanks to the 141."

"Guess having the US Army and the JGSDF forces are not enough to protect him, huh?" Katyusha asked as she silently glancing at Miho who glanced back at her.

"Tell me about it," Maho added with a shrug, even though she got involved with that. "It looks like a battlefield in the news."

"And it was in Okinawa," Jajka added with a shiver. "I'm bothered about it."

"Are you referencing the battle of Okinawa back in the Second World War?" Anchovy asked as she leans forward.

"Yes," Jajka replied with a nod, she shrugged as she felt discomfort. "I don't like to think about it."

"But, Jajka-san," Hana added with an assurance. "It's really not that bad now."

"And thankfully no people got killed by those so-called extremists," Darjeeling added with a smile, then frowns. "But a few soldiers died from that attack."

"They will be remembered for their service," Miho responded with grief, bowing her head down for a moment.

They seem pretty surprised by Miho's tone of grief, except for Maho, Erika, and the Pravda girls. "Are you alright, Miho-san?" Marie asked.

"I'm fine," Miho replied with a nod and then drank her tea. "I'm fine."

They all stared at her while Marie added. "Well, talking about the 141s who were there to protect the Ambassador."

They all then stare back at Marie. "There is something odd about them."

Nonna then tilted her head to that. "Do you mean most of the soldiers on site were girls?"

"Well… aside from that actually," Marie replied with a small shook. "But yeah, especially the girls."

"What's making you think about that?" Maho asked with her brow raised a little.

"Do they look badass in the news?" Erika asked arrogantly.

"No, not that," Marie replied with a shook, along with her open palms. "But… those soldiers of women who were caps, beret, and sunglasses like that. They seemed familiar."

This statement made Maho uneasy about it, but Miho managed to stay calm. But Miho had cursed herself, so next time they're going to wear something more concealing. Or maybe not at all. Maho rubs her neck as she was discomfort with Marie's intuition. While Erika, Anchovy, and the Pravda Girls only hoped that their identity didn't blow.

"Well, now that you mentioned it," Darjeeling added in agreement. "They seemed familiar to me after I saw a half of their faces in the news."

"Me too," Nishi added in agreement, as she hastily finishes her tea. "They looked like someone I've seen before, but I'm not sure who."

Everyone except those who know then fell silent as they gave that opinion a thought. For them, maybe they know someone who looked like those girls on the news, maybe not. Anchovy, Erika, Maho, Katyusha, Nonna, and Klara hoped they didn't know who were the girls on the news. Miho indeed worried about it, but she stays calm.

That's when Miho made her cue. "Don't you ever think it might have just your feelings?"

"Huh?" Everyone looks at her with a confused look, as they think of what she just said.

As they contemplate, they slowly believed that it might have just their feelings of what they saw on the news. It looks like Miho managed to convince them. And Maho let out a silent relief from her mouth on that.

"I guess Miho is right," Jajka added in agreement. "It's just our feelings."

"I agree," Marie added with a nod and a smile. "I think I just saw things."

"It happens, Marie-san," Hana added as she tilted her head. "Everyone has."

"It's just a coincidence, that's all," Anchovy added as her head leans back. "That's all."

"You're right," Éclair added, she then lazily leans her back against her chair. "Oof, we need to get the steams off our heads to not to see anything weird."

"Katyusha," Erika called. "Do you have any games to spend the evening?"

"We have a number of them," Katyusha responded as she and Nonna stood off their seats. "I'll take a look."

"I'm with you," Nonna said to Katyusha before they left the room to find the games.

After they left the room, Miho then looked over to Marie, seemingly interested in something. "You did say that Andou is getting along with Oshida, right?"

"Oh, uh yeah," Marie responded quickly. "Why are you asking?"

"Do they have some kind of…" Miho paused as she struggles to find the right word. "A relationship?"

Marie blushed at what she said, as she sheepishly smiled and looked away. "Erm, now that you mentioned it. Yes, they do have a relationship."

"Wait a minute," Éclair interrupted in. "Do you mean they love each other?"

"Well, something like that," Marie replied with a nod. "But they didn't really show it that much."

"They need that kind of thing to be private," Hana responded. "You do how privacy works, right?"

"Of course I know," Marie responded with a nod. "But, I never seen them both so attached like that."

"They must be getting along really well," Nishi commented.

"I heard they hadn't had any fight with each other," Darjeeling added as she puts her index finger on her chin. "Even Andou avoided fighting the Escalators and her Examination Faction."

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to fight anymore after what Miho did to her," Klara added, much to the little bit of annoyance for Miho.

"Klara, don't mention that again, please," Jajka added with a sour look. "I don't want to imagine Miho is screaming like a Banshee as she attacks someone."

They all looked back at Miho as they chuckled, but they were surprised to see Miho suddenly froze on her seat. Her face turned a little pale with her eyes became wide, and the way she stares was looked like she has seen a ghost. And her hands somehow became numb and left a little open on the table with her backhands facing up. Their chuckles died down upon seeing her, Anchovy and Maho quickly became concerned.

"Miho, are you alright?" Erika asked, she then waves her hand in front of her face but she didn't budge.

"Hey, Miho-san," Nishi called. "Miho?"

"What's wrong with her?" Darjeeling asked as she stood from the table.

Miho ignores their questions or rather didn't hear them as she is drowning in her past. Just because Jajka said, "screaming like a Banshee."

* * *

"Banshee"

March 12th, 2016 – 08:33:46

1st Lt./Tank Commander Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141

Northern Afghanistan

.

"Why are we in Mazar-i-Sharif again?" Miho asked as she was the commander of the M1A2 Abrams. Being respected by the people in the 141, she was in charge of a Platoon of 6 Abrams tanks in the city, currently dealing with the Taliban, who suddenly decided to attack Mazar-i-Sharif for some reason. Apparently the fighting reached north now.

"I don't know, commander. I want to know that as well." The driver mentioned as he drove the tank. Her entire Platoon's tanks were outfitted with the TUSK, which provided extra safety. Another feature was that the tanks were heavily modified to focus on performance and to drift.

"Team 2, anything to report?" Miho contacted one of the tanks that were patrolling the area. She could hear machine-gun fire and shells.

"We are facing resistance with some of the T72s that the Taliban somehow managed to capture recently. Not only that, there are men with rockets on rooftops. We're just narrowly managing to avoid rockets here."

"Okay. When do we have support?" Miho asked. They were supposed to receive support, with her platoon entering first to scout the area. They weren't exactly ordered to wipe out everyone, as they didn't have the tools.

"Nice shot!" was the response she could hear. Probably from the loader in their tank.

"…Sorry about that, commander. The loader managed to kill the guy with the RPG using the sniper we have with us." Miho sighed in relief. Every tank had a crew member have the men carry the machine guns and snipers in case of having to deal with those RPG men on rooftops.

"Okay. Inform me if we have any situation developing." Miho replied.

"Yes, ma'am!" the connection got cut off.

"We should get moving." With that, Miho's M1 began to move forward. Racing through the deserted city, she could see some of the Taliban terrorists who began to shoot at the tank.

"Slow down. We have to deal with these guys." Miho ordered as she looked over at the monitors.

"Yes, ma-am." The driver slowed down, and the gunner immediately loaded the shell.

"Target the several men in front of us," Miho ordered.

"Roger." With that, the loader loaded the gun and fired, *BOOM* killing about five terrorists in front of them.

"We have to deal with more of these guys. Intel suggests that the city has been overrun, so the Afghanistan Armed Forces asked us to go ahead while they prepare their stuff." Suddenly, Miho got a call which surprised her. It was Team Five.

"Commander, the Afghanistan Armed Forces and General Shepherd, has finally arrived with reinforcements. They'll help us retake the city." The second in charge informed her.

"Thanks. Tell Major General Aarash Abdelrahman for his support." With that, she cut off the call. Unfortunately, the same commander called again.

"Commander, we got a problem." Her Team Five's leader told her.

"Why?" Miho asked. She didn't see anything wrong outside.

"You won't have many reinforcements. The majority of them are providing support to everyone else, but until we can allocate more, you won't have much backup." This was disappointing. This meant that she wasn't going to get much help.

"How much reinforcement?" Miho asked as they managed to kill all of the Taliban and start moving.

"Three tanks, one from General Shepherd and two from the Afghan general." Was the reply from that commander

"How much for others?" She asked.

"About five for Teams two to six." The driver replied. This meant about 28 tanks deployed. They had also deployed the Air Force of both armies, so they didn't have many ground forces for taking back the capital that was completely taken over by the Taliban.

"Okay," Miho said as she shut the call.

"Ma-am, we got good and bad news.". It was her gunner.

"Tell me the good one first," Miho ordered.

"The reinforcements are already here, right behind us."

"And the bad news?" She asked.

"In front of us, I think that is ten T-90s tanks that were somehow secured by the Talibans. The Russians phased out these shit by selling them to other countries, and looks like the Taliban somehow secured a lot of them for themselves."

"Looks like we are outnumbered. Anyway, what is the number of Taliban soldiers?" Miho asked.

"Fifty-plus on foot. I think I can take them out." The machine gunner said as he put on safety gear and armed the mini-gun that was on the tank. Miho's tank was specifically armed with a mini-gun as Miho wanted to try it.

"Good luck. Kill as many of those bastards as you can." Miho informed him as he nodded. He attached the minigun to the pod after removing the normal machine gun and began to fire, killing several of the men on foot. This was a wrong estimate, as several more of the Taliban soldiers exited several buildings nearby and joined in the fight.

*BRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTT-TANG-TUNG-TWANG*

"Really?" Miho asked sarcastically as the tank began to move. Her backup began to arrive and started to draw fire to themselves for them.

Her tank's driver began to reverse, as the T-90s tanks were getting close, and even if they were using Senshado techniques, it is useless in extremely close range, especially if they are right beside them.

"Commander, we have more reinforcements!" The machine gunner informed her as ten more tanks were seen behind them. It was ten Abrams with the US paint job. Probably from Shepherd. She also could see several Hinds and Apaches flying towards them as well.

"We can take the city from our side!" Miho shouted as the crew began to kill as many of the T90s. With the extra support from the reinforcements, they destroyed all of them with ease.

"Those tanks are hard to destroy, but we managed without losing any of our own. We have to keep moving, Commander." One of the reinforcement battalions called her.

"Right," Miho replied.

"I'm under your command under orders of General Shepherd, so we'll follow you." The leader informed her, which made her slightly happy.

"Okay. We will move through straight. Towards the intersection, and have the Hinds take the other areas that we are responsible for." She told her now second in command.

"Yes, ma-am." With that, she ordered the entire group to move.

With that, they fought their way and arrived at the Rawza e Mubarak Ablution Place. Sadly, this ended with them surrounded by the Taliban, as the terrorists decided to come for them for some reason. They were pushing everything they got by sending everything they had on them.

"I hope you got a plan, Commander!" The battalion leader told her.

"We have to defend this place until the rest of the others arrive. They informed me they took the rest of the city." She replied.

"I hope you're right." With that, they started fighting against 30 T-72s, T-90s and T-80Us all approaching them. The Taliban isn't supposed to have these things, but the reason why they were able to take the city was due to how they managed to secure these tanks in the first place.

While they were fighting, with being outnumbered, they lost all of their tanks except two of them, one of them is theirs. The situation is getting worse by the minute, and Miho hoped that she could hold out. As the minigunner was shooting at the Taliban, a sniper managed to kill him.

*BAM* "GYAHK!"

His body fell into the tank.

"Dammit! Fucking Sniper!" She shouted as she took his position and got ready to shoot. "You're dead!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" She shouted as she massacred several Taliban men on the ground, with a lot of them dead.

Her rage took the Talibans by surprise. They were scared shitless to see a girl like her went rampaging on the minigun like that. Even Miho could startle and killed the snipers in a blink of an eye. But it wasn't enough for her. Miho still wanted more revenge.

"Drive through the soldiers surrounding us! Now!" Miho ordered coldly and loudly. With the fact that the minigunner was a close friend. They all wanted revenge, so the driver immediately put the tank's accelerator to full power and started moving, getting as close to the Taliban soldiers on the ground. He ran over as many men as he can. He slowed down a bit later, seeing how Team three and Team five arrive in the area behind him, along with their support. They destroyed all of the tanks that the Taliban had from their parts of the city, so they arrived to support Miho.

Miho still wanted to get rid of these Taliban men. Making sure the knife and pistol were there, she exited the tank from her position and began to charge, shooting and stabbing at the running Taliban men. Team Two and Team Six arrived from other directions, destroying the tanks nearby. Miho ignored this as she kept chasing the running Taliban soldiers and stabbing those who were as close to her while shooting at those others with her G18. As soon as its ammo ran out, she reloaded it before continuing to chase them. She managed to get 13 of them died before she heard her communicator ring.

"Holy shit! What the hell is she doing!?" Team Two's commander asked in surprised. He never saw anything like it. "Miho!"

"Commander! Calm down! Team Three will handle them!" It was Team Five's tank commander, but still, Miho ignored that as she is bashing a downed Taliban's face so hard that it soon covered her with his blood. And she just keeps bashing his head harder and harder and harder.

In a sudden, someone quickly ran up to her and restrained her by her shoulders. Miho struggled as she still wanted to bash the bastard's face until she looked on who is restraining her. Miho then quickly calmed to see who it was.

"Commander Nishizumi. Enough. Take a breath and rest. We will take care of them." It was the Platoon leader that was under her command.

Miho was fell speechless for a moment as he stares at her. Then she turned her head to around her, watching the retreating Talibans run away and see how many bastards she killed from her resulting rage. Then the teams' tanks came into view and marched passed her and her Platoon Leader, but she could notice the machine gunners of those tanks are very unnerved of what they just witnessed. She took a deep sigh for herself, then looks back at her Platoon Leader

"Yeah… I guess I should." Miho said as she sat down on a bench nearby and took a cigar out and began to smoke. While the Platoon Leader could only stare at her and glad her rage was over.

[Three days later]

"So Miho, I heard that you were going in on a frenzy." Nikolai complemented. They were in the bar of the base, having a drink of a bottle of vodka each.

"Yeah. I guess I was outraged that one of my team got shot by a sniper." Miho replied with a frowned, sad, and guilty face.

"It happens. I mean, you experienced hundreds of people dead, so it is possible." He mentioned.

"Yeah…"

"Anyway, you did a great job. No one can do what you did. But you might want to be careful with the civilians. While some of the civilians joined the Taliban to fight for the cause, most are just dragged into it. The death toll of the Taliban was pretty much all of the original Talibans and the ones who joined them, while civilian casualties were next to none. They surrendered, so we just captured them and handed them over to the government." Nikolai said as he took a shot of the vodka.

"I'm guessing there's something else," Miho said.

"You managed to cause a casualty to a civilian that would have given up. Luckily, he was just injured." Nikolai said, and he noticed Miho sighed with guilt.

"I'm sorry." She said as she took a large shot and chugging down half of the bottle.

"The guys at the base said you look like someone who came back from the Pacific Theater during World War 2. They gave you a new nickname." Nikolai told her.

"Damn. What is it?" She asked when it comes to nicknames she would be so damned about it.

"Banshee. The one who heralds death. You were shouting while charging while chasing after the running Talibans. It fits." Nikolai said and laughed.

"Shut up, Nikolai," Miho said as she finished the vodka.

* * *

"Hey, wake up, Miho," Darjeeling called as she holds the rose under Miho's nose, she got the rose from Nonna's personal plant. "Come on, wake up, darling."

"Huh, wha-?" Miho immediately snapped herself out and looked up to Darjeeling, while leaning her head back from the rose under her nose.

Miho quickly fell silent after she saw Darjeeling's concerned face. She then looked around her to see everyone, including Katyusha and Nonna, who had come back from the other room to give their worries about Miho's current condition. She looks up at Anchovy and sees that she frowned of Miho's previous frozen state, also seems to wonder what's wrong. Miho only slowly turned her head towards Darjeeling.

"Are you alright?" Darjeeling asked as she narrows her eyebrows at her.

"I- I'm fine," Miho responded with a nod.

"Are you sure?" Anchovy asked, leaning her side of her body to the table to turn at her. "You've been staring like that for… 4, 5 minutes."

"Did I…?" Miho asked but trails off for a moment. "I see…"

"Is there everything wrong, Miho?" Nishi asked after she gives another cup of herbal tea to her.

"I'm sorry, it's just…" Miho paused for a moment. "It's just something about what Jajka said."

"Huh?" was everyone's responsibility, before continued by Jajka. "You mean that part when I said I don't want to see you screaming like a Banshee while you attack someone?"

"Erm, yeah, that one," Miho replied as she points the finger at her. "I just imagined if I were that person… long ago."

This made everyone surprised, including Maho herself. They thought that Miho was referring to her raging side long ago. Maho, on the other hand, had reminded of the story Vicek told her on how she got the name Banshee. Sadly, Maho only got to hear the very short version of her story. But asking that question to her now is a bad idea because of everyone's presence, and it seems Miho is not in the mood to talk about it.

"Oh, Miho, you're not like that," Anchovy assured her as she holds her shoulder. "Just forget about what Jajka said."

"Huh," Miho chuckled as she looks at her lover. "Alright."

Everyone then looks back at Katyusha. "So, did you find any games for us?"

"Yes, a few of them," Katyusha replied with a nod. "While Nonna and I are going to make some cookies for you while you're here."

"Ooh, cookies?!" Marie immediately asked as she was excited. "Can I help?"

"Um, no thanks," Nonna declines politely. "We'll be fine."

"Aww," Marie responded in disappointment as she shrinks into her seat.

"Nonna, I don't think that's wise," Miho responded with a shook. "Let her help you."

"Besides, Marie's more into making cookies and cakes," Darjeeling added as she sips her tea. "And also eating them."

Nonna only chuckled at the thought, then looked back at Marie. "Alright, you can help us out."

"Yaaaay!" Marie cheered aloud as she jumps off her chair.

"Don't get too excited, Marie-san," Nishi added with a smile, seeing Marie reminds her of Fukuda. "Just don't blow the whole kitchen with flours."

"Oh, you know I won't, Nishi-san," Marie replied with her finger pointed at her.

"Give your best to them, Marie-san," Erika cheered with a grin. "Maybe teach them a few things about making a cake."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary, Marie-san," Katyusha replied with a shook. "Unless… you want to give us your French recipes."

"Oh, I will be happy to teach you a few French recipes!" Marie enthusiastically replied as she jumps a bit on her spot.

"Alright then, follow me," Nonna replied to her before she, Katyusha, and Marie left the room and headed for the kitchen.

After watching them left, everyone then looks back at each other. "Should we converse for a moment now?" Éclair asked as she lazily lands her cheek on her hand.

"Yeah, let's stay that way for now," Anchovy agreed as she lazily tilted her head and leaned against her chair.

"So, Klara," Miho called. "What kind of games are we going to play?"

It felt odd for Klara, who knows Miho is a soldier, to know that Miho is okay to play some teenage games. But she doesn't bother about it. "We have a monopoly, games of chess, Bingos, Mahjong, Scrabbles. We can play other games aside that, or we could watch a movie."

"A movie?" Maho asked curiously as she crossed her legs.

"Yeah, a movie," Klara responded with a nod. "A World War 2 movie or a drama one?"

They all then looked back at each other, pondering on what type of movie available for them to choose. "Raise your hands if you vote for the world war movie," Miho ordered as she wasn't bothering to raise her hand.

There are only ten girls who are present, including Miho herself. As soon as Miho said that out, some of the girls raised their hands. Six out of ten voted for World War movie, which are Jajka, Éclair, Nishi, Maho, Klara, and lastly Erika. Miho, Anchovy, Darjeeling, and Hana, who didn't raise their hands, lost the vote.

"Really?" Hana asked annoyingly. "A world war movie?"

"I'm not really in a mood to watch any violence movie," Darjeeling added sourly.

"Well, it's a shame then," Éclair responded with false pity. "We want to watch that."

"Just make sure the movie only has people getting shot at instead of anything worse than that," Miho added. "I want to make sure Anchovy doesn't have to see anything much worse to make me concern about her."

"I can assure you about that, Miho," Klara responded confidently. "Just people are getting shot at. Nothing more brutal than that."

Anchovy lets out a sigh of relieve, Darjeeling commented gladly. "Now that's much better, darling."

"I hope you felt better to hear that, Anchovy," Jajka said to her as she leans forward with her hands folded on the table.

"I think I'll be fine," the last thing that Anchovy will be worried about is to have Miho when off the place to shoot people who made her angry. "I just need to worry about Miho-chan here."

"I'm pretty sure Miho wouldn't do anything… unorthodox for now," Erika replied as she winced her eyes to Anchovy.

"Erm, what do you mean by that?" Hana asked as she begins to have a feeling of discomfort.

"I don't go killing anyone," Miho replied flatly. "By metaphor."

"Aaah…" everyone left sweat on their foreheads, excluding Anchovy, who slowly facepalmed to what Miho just said. "Right…" Nishi added awkwardly.

"Do you always this grim, Miho-san?" Jajka asked as she is not sure whether she could feel her aura or not.

"I do not know," Miho replied with a shook and a shrug. "You tell me."

"Well, you are not always that grim," Éclair replied with a shook. "From what I see."

"Too good to be true," Miho responded as she points at Éclair. "As I said before, I do that if I felt like it."

Everyone chuckled to that, then the topic changed by Darjeeling. "Klara, I heard you were shot days ago. Was that true?"

"Uh, yeah, I was shot," Klara then shows where did she get shot on her stomach by pointing it with her fingers. "It was right here, but it's already healed."

"It must be hurt," Maho commented as she felt sorry for her.

"It was very," Klara added as she silently looked at Miho for a moment. "It was a rifle bullet shot through my stomach."

Everyone jumped on that statement, while Miho, Anchovy, Erika, and Maho only fell silent to that. "You survived a rifle bullet!?" Nishi said nearly aloud, her voice almost reached the kitchen.

"That's impossible!" Jajka commented in disbelieve. "You could be killed!"

"I know that, but I survived that somehow," Klara replied with a nod. "I'm glad to be back in this dorm than back at that apartment building."

Recalling about the shootout on the other side of Pravda city, the apartment building where Katyusha and her friends stayed in back there wasn't their apartment. It was their friend's apartment because they had homework to do together, though the said friend left them for a while because she wanted to buy some goods from the market. They were lucky that said friend didn't come back when Miho starts her rage at that building. It's funny to know the fact that the said friend of Katyusha's, Nonna's and Klara's knew that the area was roaming with Moeru Okane gangsters.

"I heard there were some 141 soldiers sweeping through that area to kill some gangsters," Hana added as her finger is on her chin.

"No, not some," Klara responded. "Only one."

That made everyone gave their perplexed faces, except those who knew deep about this event.

"Only one?" Darjeeling asked with a raised brow. "That seems impossible."

"I saw it," Klara replied with a nod. "I saw that lone 141 soldier manage to kill more than a couple of dozens of gangsters in a run."

"How could you knew and saw that a 141 soldier took them out in a single run?" Jajka asked she did not believe Klara's fact.

"Because that soldier, who is a she, was the one who shot me by accident," Klara immediately replied nearly aloud.

Her fact shuts them up real good. And they were rather horrified to hear that, including Erika herself. Miho could only frown to that with a feeling of guilt while Maho closed her mouth, and Anchovy rubs the side of her neck. Oh, could they believe that? How could a 141 soldier shot Klara like that?

"What?!" Éclair asked aloud. "That soldier shot you?! But I thought the 141 supposed to be protecting people."

"It was an accident," Klara added softly. "She didn't mean to shoot me. She thought I was one of the gangsters, and she took the shot. She mistook that after she saw I closed the door."

"She mistook you as a gangster?" Hana asked in a surprise. "What happened next?"

"She tends my wound for a moment before leaving us for a moment to kill the rest of the gangsters, before she was getting me, Nonna and Katyusha to the nearest hospital," Klara replied. "The soldier then apologized to us before she left."

"The 141 soldier apologized?" Erika asked in surprise, even though it is a lie.

"Yes, she apologized," Klara replied with a nod. "Whoever that soldier was, I hope we both crossed paths again to thank her for it."

Klara turned her eyes at Miho, who smiled back at her. Klara then looked back at everyone present in the room, which looked very joyful to have this conversation together. It seems Klara is glad to see Miho pretty relaxed by now. And now, it's time to spend their evening.

"So, watch a movie?" Klara asked them with her both eyebrows raised.

"Yeah, let's watch a movie," Jajka agreed with a nod before they all stood off their seats and headed for a certain bedroom.

Klara entered the bedroom first, followed by Miho, Anchovy, Darjeeling, Erika, Maho, Hana, Nishi, Éclair, and lastly Jajka. They are in Katyusha's bedroom right now, which contained a large TV aside from Katyusha's furnishing in the room. The bedroom is also pretty wide enough for them to be in. They all then sit down as Klara inserted a disc on the TV.

The movie was called Red Steel. It tells the story of a squad of a Russian tank crew that is battling their way toward Berlin with the help of Russian Shock Troops army. The Russian tank crew marched their way from Stalingrad, and then through the borders of Russia, before making the last step onto Berlin. There were a few notable and famous operations throughout the movie, and the most notable one was Operation Barbarossa. The movie could be said, interesting for Miho.

But seriously, watching the Russians charging out in the open to attack a heavily defended trenches on foot. That just looks stupid, because they had an idiotic death and they committed that very far away from the trenches. It's quite a miracle that some of the men survived that aside from the tanks to back them up.

As they watched the beginning of the movie, Marie, Nonna, and Katyusha came into the room with cookies and a few snacks on the plates. They watched the movie together to spend the next hour until the end. Klara keeps her word, no more brutal than people getting shot at, even though she didn't say there will be a lot of explosions in the movie. Overall, the movie is very good to watch and historically nearly accurate.

It's a shame they don't know about camera techniques back in 2016s. Or even had the technology advanced enough to do it.

She could say Anchovy rather managed to enjoy the movie despite the violence. Darjeeling frowned at the lack of manner in the movie, but she understands how war is back then. While Hana shows her discomfort in the movie, but she managed to enjoy the movie. The rest of the girls were pretty happy to watch this movie together.

The day is almost night to which they changed theirs for their sleepover. Hana and Nishi wear their Jinbei nightwear while Anchovy wears her babydoll pajama, which made Miho blushed a little because Anchovy's nightwear aroused her a little. Marie wore her Negligee French nightgown while Nonna and Darjeeling wear their normal nightgown. The rest of the girls wear pajamas except for Miho, who opted with a black T-shirt and light brown pants. A few of them brought their sleeping bags, prompting the girls to ask why they didn't bring their sleeping bags.

When they ask Miho, she replies that she can sleep anywhere. Even on the floor.

They spend their time with monopolies and chess for a moment, with Erika and Klara opted to play Mahjong. Miho played chess with her darling because Anchovy wanted to know who is smarter. Take note that Miho rarely plays chess, but she understands the rule of chess and how to play it. It's useful for demonstrating someone's ability to do a strategy. She heard once from a Ukrainian soldier said that making a tactical movement in battle is like playing a chess game against a rival. It took for about 10 minutes for Miho and Anchovy to play chess, and Miho won the chess, which made Anchovy frustrated that she loses.

But Anchovy had to admit she was damn smart, and she's a soldier after all.

Once they became bored with the games, they decided to play one most popular games in every year.

Truth or dare.

In all honesty, Miho is a little annoyed about this game.

Nonna took an empty bottle from the kitchen, and everyone sat down in a circle on the floor. Nonna puts the bottle down in the center of the circle. Anchovy is actually a little nervous about doing this game because she thoughts about what will she get to do if she chooses to dare. Miho rubs her back to comfort her and tell her it'll be fine. Anchovy only nodded as Klara went off to somewhere else.

Klara then returned and sat down with the group, but they noticed a bottle Klara is holding on her left hand. "What is that bottle you're holding there, Klara?" Marie asked curiously with a raised brow.

"Vodka," Klara responded, which made everyone taken aback a bit.

"Erm, you mean the non-alcoholic Vodka, right?" Erika asked with a smile.

However, the Pravdas gave her a poker face looks. "No, it's an actual Vodka," Katyusha replied.

Now that made everyone gasped of her answer. For Anchovy, she was a bit terrified to think about drinking while playing. For Miho, she doubts that the girls could even drink a bottle or even three glasses of it. Miho liked the idea, but the thought of bringing the girls along to drink that could be worse.

Well, not as worst as having the drunk Anchovy around. She will have great fun with her.

"Do we have to drink that?" Maho asked as she points at the bottle.

"Depends on the dare," Nonna responded as she tilts her head and looks away.

Jajka just sighed in respond. "I can't believe I got myself into this."

"Me either," Éclair agreed with a nod.

"I don't like the idea of drinking that one," Darjeeling commented with a frown. "Even though I drank wine before."

Miho turned her head at Darjeeling in surprise. "Which wine?"

"Red one," Darjeeling replied. "It's my favorite."

"Really?" Hana asked in surprise. "Me too."

"Oh come on, Darjeeling," Nonna assures her. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

"I'm pretty sure having a lot of drunken girls later would be the most concern for us," Maho commented as she sighed in disbelieve.

"I agree with Maho here," Nishi added as she leans near Maho.

"We'll be fine," Katyusha assured them, then reaches her hand to the bottle. "Alright, I'm spinning it."

"Huh, okay," Marie replied with a nod, though frowned about the drink the Pravdas. "Go ahead."

Katyusha spins the bottle and leaves it out until the empty bottle slowly stops and pointing at someone. Annoyingly, it points at Miho for the first round.

"Hah, Miho, first!" Erika arrogantly and cheerfully shouted as she points at her.

"Ah, shite," Miho swears as she looked away, causing everyone to laugh.

While Anchovy was startled by her swearing. "Miho-chan!"

"Sorry, Emerald," Miho replied apologetically with a nod.

"Truth or dare?" Nonna asked as she raised a brow at her.

"Truth," Miho quickly answered without a second thought.

"Alright, let me think," Katyusha pauses for a moment as she thinks of a question. "Oh, I got one. Tell us one weirdest thing you did back in London."

Miho surprised, showing it by raising her right eyebrow to that. "One weirdest thing I did back in London? Hmm… I think I got one."

"What did you do, Miho?" Anchovy asked as she frowned a little to hear that.

"Well, once I bought a longsword from an antique shop long ago," Miho replied lazily. "And I didn't have a car at that time, and I didn't want to waste my money away to get a taxi. So what I did was that I had the longsword along with its holster hanging onto my back and took a 5 kilos walk around London. I even encountered by the London police officers for about… Five times, but I managed to talk my way out from them. I even freaked out a few people to see I had a longsword on my back."

Everyone stayed silent about her answer. She indeed took a walk around the city with a longsword on her back. However, she didn't say about fighting the hooligans because she felt it wasn't necessary to tell them. Anchovy looked away awkwardly as she tried to process a little of what she said.

"Um… right," Nishi replied awkwardly, then looked back at Nonna. "Should we continue?"

"Of course," Nonna replied with a nod as she spins the bottle next.

The empty bottle keeps spinning until it stops and pointing at someone. And it was pointing at Maho.

"Oh great," Maho commented sourly as she leans back.

"Truth or dare?" Nonna asked calmly with a raised brow.

"Huh, dare I guess," Maho replied as she crossed her arms.

"Okay," Nonna gave a warm smile at her. "I dare you to kiss your sister."

Everyone looked at her bewildered, with Maho deadpans at her in disbelieve. "What!?"

Except for Miho, who reacts coldly to that and internally said to herself. 'Great.'

"I'm not going to do that!" Maho protests aloud and angrily.

"You have to do that, or you are out from the game," Nonna responded calmly.

The rest of the girls were either smirking or closing their mouths, with Erika blushed at the thought.

Maho only paused, shook her head, and looks back at her. "Ugh, fine."

Maho then began shyly to approach her face to her sister, with Anchovy rather embarrassed and felt blasphemous to see Maho is doing that to her lover. Surprisingly for them, Miho didn't even blush, and instead, she was annoyed. Maho closed her eyes as her lips are now right in front of Miho's. And from there, Maho can't dare to put her lips on her sister's because it was just too embarrassing in front of everyone. Maho's blushing is very red that put strawberries in shame.

Miho was rather sympathetic that Maho had to do that and can't even kiss her own sister. So instead of Maho kissing her, Miho pulled her head in and kissed her passionately. Anchovy fell shocked and left her mouth open wide along with her eyes disbelieving eyes, and her whole face is red. As for the rest of the girls, they all blushed and gave their blank stares at the two kissing sisters. Maho who is kissing her sister was startled and had her eyes open wide, and groans as Miho won't let go of her lips for the moment.

Maho swears she could feel Miho's tongue as they kiss.

For about 15 seconds flat, Miho finally lets her go as Maho immediately retracts her head back. Miho could see Maho is currently closing her own face with her both hands as she was embarrassed by what just happened. Anchovy actually gave a blank look at them as her eyes darken as she's still in shock with her jaw dropped. While the rest of the girls could only give their looks of disbelieve and blushed.

Miho only casually looks back at them with a shrug. "What?"

"Did… you do a French Kiss on Maho?" Marie asked shyly as her face is still red.

"Yeah," Miho responded with a nod, to which Anchovy immediately tackles her but not enough to make Miho fall to the ground.

"Mihoooo!" Anchovy called aloud with her eyes closed, and you could see her cute little angry and annoyed face as she blushed.

"Alright, calm down," Miho then kisses her lover again, using the same French kiss again on as Anchovy moans in enjoyment before they stopped. "Happy now?"

Anchovy sighed as she tries to ignore the blushing girls (with Éclair's nose bleeding), before returning with a nod and a smile. "I feel much better now."

"Glad to hear that," Miho then turns her head to the blushing girls. "So, where were we?"

"Miho, do you really have to kiss me like that?" Maho asked embarrassedly as she still has her face covered for the moment. "I could feel your tongue."

"EW!" all the girls responded in disgust and a feeling of hilarious.

"Ah, come on!" Anchovy responded aloud, with a bit disgust. "Don't say stuff like that!"

"Yeah, but really?" Maho asked as she wipes her mouth with her arm. "Why you kissed me like that?"

Miho just shrugged and looked at her as she states. "Well, I threatened to kiss you months ago, didn't I?"

Everyone gave a blank stare at her, with Maho only left sweat on her forehead. Maho remembered Miho did say that before, but can't remember when.

"Fair point," Maho responded flatly with a quick nod and kept her smile flat with her eyebrows raised.

Everyone stares at them for a moment before Klara breaks the ice. "Oookay, my turn."

Klara spins the bottle, and they wait for it to stop. Eventually the bottle pointed at Erika.

"Alright, I choose dare," Erika quickly responded with her arms crossed.

"Okay, Erika," Klara added with a nod, then give the Vodka bottle to her. "Take a sip of this Vodka."

Erika was surprised by her dare, and she shows her doubt to everyone in the room. Erika then finally looks back at Miho, who nods at her to sign her that she will be fine. Erika looks back at Nishi and Hana, who gestured the same as Miho, however with a small frown. After a moment, she looks back at Klara.

"Alright, give me that," Erika took away the Vodka from Klara and took a sip of it, and she gives a wry face to the taste. "Mein Gott, that's strong."

"I know," Darjeeling added with a nod. "Shall we continue?"

"Of course," Erika responded with a couple of nods as she wipes her mouth. "Who's next?"

They spend their next hour playing the game truth or dare with joy. But it wasn't that kind of joy that Miho saw. It was a clusterfuck. They play the game truth or dare until everyone managed to empty two bottles of vodka surprisingly, and the only person here who is not drunk is only Miho and very surprisingly Klara as well. Klara told Miho that she already get used to drinking the alcoholic one before changing to non-alcoholic because Klara didn't like that taste.

The only thing that Miho and Klara do right now only sit back on the chairs and continue to drink another glass of vodka while watching the girls, including Maho and Anchovy, playing with each other like children. Miho and Klara could watch them teasing each other and… groping each other, to Miho's and Klara's blushes. Miho concerned about this and asked Klara if they should do something about this. But then Klara gives a shook at her and just told her to watch what are they doing.

That's when they lost their shit when they saw the girls are beginning to undress and kissing each other.

"Боже мой, I told Katyusha this wasn't a good idea," Klara stated as she and Miho immediately got off their seats.

"I think we should-" whatever Miho was saying got interrupted by Anchovy, who barely has her babydoll undressed.

"Miho-chan~!" Anchovy called teasingly as she embraced Miho. "Can you play with me~?"

"Wha-, Chovy?" Miho was surprised by her offer. "But-"

"Come on!" Anchovy immediately drags Miho onto the bed, where the rest of the girls are bound to be, followed by Nonna and Klara unfortunately.

They spend the rest of their night to have some fun with each other.


	59. Chapter 56 - Relaxing Day

The day of the morning shall rise from the east slowly and shines its light upon the dorms of Pravda. To be most particular, shone its light onto Katyusha's apartment dorm. The light shines through the window that the girls forgot to close in the bedroom. The light did not wake up any of the girls who are sleeping in that one big bed. The light disturbed Miho's eyes, and she got her back off the bed.

Miho groans as she rubs her sleepy eyes with her fingers. Miho then slowly looked around to adjust her eyes to her surroundings. The first thing she looked at was the window that they forgot to close. Thankfully that window wasn't facing any particular building outside, so no one knows what they were doing in the bedroom. Miho then turns her head around her surroundings to see girls are still sleeping. Some were half-naked, including Miho herself, and some were bare naked, including the currently sleeping Klara and Anchovy.

It took her for 7 seconds to remember everything that just happened last night, and boy how fun it was. Guessed Miho had changed her mind a little of this, knowing they just committed an… orgy. Yeah, that's the word. Yep, Miho will never forget that moment of fun.

Especially at that time, humping with Anchovy.

But she frowned even if she had fun with Anchovy, seeing the girls around her were drunk that time and committed an orgy. Well, she can't blame herself or anyone else that this happened. Miho only rubs her head because she felt a little headache due to the drink she got last night. Miho straightened her back against the heading of the bed as she could see her bare breast after she looked down for a moment. Miho only sighed as she rests her head against the wall above the bed's heading.

Then she heard her girlfriend moans as she looked at her. Anchovy slowly opens her eyes and raised her head at Miho, knowing that she was facing to Miho when she was sleeping. Anchovy then slowly got her back off the bed as she is unconscious to know that her midriffs were out from the blanket. And she looks still dizzy from all that alcohol.

"Miho-chan..? Why do I feel so faint?" Anchovy asked in a soft tone as she holds her head with her left hand.

"Well…" Miho paused for a moment, not leaving her to stare from Anchovy's midriff up to her face. "I think you know."

"What do you mean I kno-"Anchovy immediately stops talking after she looked at Miho, who has her chest revealed, then Anchovy looks down to her bare breasts.

To which she was in shock before looking back to Miho and then to the girls sleeping girls around. Anchovy's face immediately from white to red beyond the color of rose and is in panic. She immediately covered her breasts with the blanket and screamed.

"KYAAAAAAAA!"

That wakes up all the 11 girls in the bed with their startled expressions. However, their reactions are much slower thanks to the alcohol they got last night. They all slowly got their backs off the bed, hold their heads because of dizziness. Except for Klara, who went shot off her back from the bed and quickly looked around. To have Klara blushed to see Miho half-naked with Anchovy fully naked, and quickly covers her midriff with her right hand with the left hand going for the blanket. Klara immediately remembered what had happened last night.

The girls took for a few seconds to snapped themselves out from their headache state. Darjeeling was the first to be able to realize the situation they are in. When Darjeeling shook her head and looked straight at the half-naked Miho, her eyes went wide and quickly covered her assets. The rest of the girls didn't have to look at Miho, because they already looked at each other who are half-naked and bare-naked. They all immediately cover their assets as fast as lightning and all blushed in embarrassment as they tried to avoid gazing at their friends' assets.

Miho did blush, but she managed to stay calm even though she was gazing at everyone's assets.

Miho did glance at Maho's and Erika's expressions. Their expressions are damn priceless. Maho and Erika looked away from each other in embarrassment as they cover their assets. But they occasionally looked back at each other to gaze at each other's shameful assets. Miho just shook at that.

While as everyone was in shock and frozen and blushing in their embarrassment, only Anchovy screamed this as she covers her face.

"KYAAAA!"

3 minutes later

All the girls, including Miho herself, are sitting around the table with their glasses of water in front of them. All of their clothes were hastily re-wear and looked tangled, including Miho herself who's shirt looked half-neat. Miho maintained her calm attitude as her eyes stare into blankness in front of her. Miho only took a sip of her glass of water and continues to stares blankly. Doing that as no one else made any noise.

Nonna and Klara went off the kitchen to find some snacks to lighten up their mood. As they wait, Miho could see the expressions of the upset girls around her with their reddish blushes.

Anchovy looked away from the girls with her arms crossed and kept staring at Miho, not willing to see how are the other girls doing. Darjeeling, Hana, Jajka, and Maho bowed their head down shamefully either with their hands put on their lap, on the table, or one arm crossed their chest. Erika, Nishi, Marie, and Éclair put their elbows on the table and cover their faces with their both hands shamefully, as they try not to make any sound or even show their faces for their perverted side. For Katyusha, she put her face on the table with her arms covering her head, and she was extremely embarrassed by this.

Nonna and Klara eventually came back and sat down with them with the snacks on the table. But they also feel the shame as well, seeing from their blushes. They only have their eyes looked down at the table with their frowning. Their hands were put on their lap as they tried to stay calm and keep out those dirty thoughts off their minds.

As no one didn't say anything in awkward silence, Darjeeling began with a question. "What had just happened last night?"

Miho just stared at her without expression. "The simple answer or the long answer?"

"The simple answer," Darjeeling replied flatly.

"We just had an orgy."

"MIHO!"

Everyone's respond, excluding Darjeeling was an embarrassing blasphemous shout.

"What?" Miho casually asked back with a shrug. "You all did that happily last night."

"Don't say something weird like that!" Katyusha pouted as she blushed with her eyes closed.

"I'm not," Miho replied with a shook, despite herself blushing. "we just did that happily."

"Miho, you-" Jajka paused for a moment as she looks away for a moment. "We were drunk!"

"Except for Klara and me," Miho quickly added flatly.

Everyone then deadpanned at her, and then everyone looks at Klara. "You both weren't drunk?" Éclair asked, hoping that Miho was lying.

"Yes, we weren't drunk," Klara replied flatly as she only gave an emotionless look at them.

"And you did nothing to stop us from doing that?!" Nishi asked aloud as she disbelieves what Miho and Klara said.

"Yeah…" Miho replied as she trails off for a moment. "We did try, but then Anchovy got me doing that first before Klara got into that as well by Nonna herself."

"WHAT!?" Everyone asked aloud as they are bug-eyed. "But, you weren't drunk!" Maho added as she deadpans at her.

"I know, but Anchovy and Nonna got us roped into that," Miho replied flatly. "So, we just decided follow the flow instead of making you angry while you're drunk."

For this moment, they can't say anything else about it. Remembering how people acted while they're drunk, Miho's logic was quite right. Darjeeling cursed under her breath for that, thankfully she mouthed to herself, so everyone didn't hear a word from her. Marie and Éclair looked at each other as they remembered a little of what happened last night, but then quickly looked away with a redder blush to remember they both had made out with each other. For the rest of the girls, only slowly looked away from both Klara and Miho as they tried to suppress the perverted thoughts from last night.

Nonna could only sigh a little as she closes her eyes and crossed her arms, before saying to everyone. "Let's just forget what happened last night, alright?"

"I can't promise you that," Miho quickly replied.

"MIHO!" Everyone called again, this time in irritation.

"I'm not finished yet," Miho responded as she raised her open palms. "I can't promise you that, but I can promise I won't tell anyone about this."

Anchovy only slowly facepalms with her fist. With the rest of the girls either responded with a slow shook or bowed their heads down. They figured that Miho couldn't forget about that. They could only sigh of that, despite that they think Miho might currently have a perverted thought.

"Alright, just don't tell anyone," Katyusha added to Miho.

"I will," Miho replied, but then internally said to herself. 'Maybe not for mother.'

Then they fell silent again, as they not sure what to say as they blush

"Umm…" Klara awkwardly began as her eyes looked to the girls. "Care for a snack… anyone?"

"Yeah" – Miho

"Sure" – Anchovy

"No, thanks" – Erika

"Nah." – Maho

"Nope, thank you." – Nishi

"Of course." – Marie

"Yep." – Éclair

"No, thank you." – Hana

"Yes, thank you." – Darjeeling

"Nope." – Jajka

Some eat the snacks, some didn't and want a drink instead. As silent overtakes them and none of them even moved an inch from their chair. Darjeeling lazily and weakly leans her upper body forward, elbow on the table, and her head landed on her hand, knowing that she still feels so tired after last night. Miho only leans against her chair and only sighed as she feels the air in her chest pumping in and out. With Anchovy only rubs her neck gently and softly as she awkwardly eats the cookie.

Then Nonna asked. "Does anyone wants to take a shower first while you are still here?"

Everyone looks at her for a moment, before everyone looks back to each other while Miho asked. "Who wants to take a shower first?"

The girls doubted if any of them wants to take a shower first before Anchovy speaks up. "I think I'll go ahead to take a shower first. I'm uncomfortable with my current hygiene."

Before Anchovy able to stand up, Miho called her. "' Chovy."

Anchovy turns her head at her. "Yes?"

The Miho kisses her on the lips, prompting the girls to blush awkwardly to that. Thankfully it was a quick kiss, so Anchovy immediately leans her head back with a blush after she kissed her. Anchovy is surprised by that and felt embarrassed because they kissed in front of the girls. But, she still loves her.

"Miho-chan~!" Anchovy called with a playful tone, but with a smug blushing face. "You're embarrassing me!"

"But you still love me," Miho responded with a faint smile as she gazes her eyes.

Anchovy awkwardly chuckles as the girls only smiled at them shyly. "Well… you got me there."

"Alright, go on ahead and take a shower," Miho replied with a nod as she pats her GF's shoulder. "I'll take a shower later."

"Okay, Miho-chan~," Anchovy replied happily with a nod before stands off her seat and headed for the bathroom.

Miho looks back at the girls, who are currently smiling at her as their blushes never leave their faces. "What?"

"Oh nothing," Éclair commented as she lazily lands her cheek on her fist. "You both are one interesting couple."

"And let's hope that the… the 'thing' we just did won't make her change her mind," Erika commented with a flat smile and a small concern.

"You mean orgy."

"Mih-, alright, orgy, I hope that orgy we just did won't change her mind."

Frankly, to have Miho correcting that word made them feel uneasy. "I'm sure she'll be fine. It was great fun with her, and it's my second time."

Everyone quickly fell silent as they deadpanned at her. "Wait, what do you mean it's your second time?" Nonna asked confusingly with her right brow raised.

"Erm," Miho lets Maho answer for her. "They made their first intimate love back in our residence."

Katyusha, who was drinking, got herself choked on her drink and spat next to her, with everyone got up with that. "Wait, you both were making out in your Nishizumi Residence!?" Hana asked aloud in disbelieve.

"Yes, we were," Miho replies, blushingly with a nod.

"And what of your mother?" Marie asked in concern.

"She was very okay about it," Maho replied with a shrug. "She doesn't see any harm to have them doing an intimacy in Miho's room."

Everyone is speechless of that, and even Darjeeling shows her priceless face to that. "Wow… that escalated quickly."

"R-really?" Klara asked in disbelieve as she made a cringy smile. "Миссис Шихо didn't mind about that?"

"Yep, she didn't mind about it," Miho responded with a nod, with a faint smile to show.

Right after that answer, Anchovy has returned and sat back down with them. Now she is dressed in her light magenta V-neck t-shirt and a red skirt. Her hair, for now, is tied into a ponytail. There is a white bow tied around her waist.

Everyone is rather surprised by Anchovy's change of hairstyle, but Miho loves it. "It's nice to see your hair tied like that."

"Oh, it's your favorite kind of hair," Anchovy replied with a smile as she straightened her arms.

Nishi raised a brow to that. "That's new."

"I just love that simple hairstyle," Miho responded as she shrugged and nods.

"I have to agree with her," Marie added in consent.

"By the way, Miho," Jajka said as she clasps her hands to each other. "I was wondering about your relationship with Anchovy."

Miho only raised her right brow and tilted her head to the left. "What of it?"

"What makes you fall in love with her in the first place?" Jajka asked curiously, and at the same time charmed by the couple.

It may sound like a simple question, but it was a damn hard question because stating the obvious thing has become unnecessary to the question. Miho was not sure what else she could say aside from her GF being beautiful and charming. So she paused for a moment of this question, which make her slowly to drown into her thoughts. And Miho wasn't aware if she was staring into a blank space.

"Miho?" Anchovy called, which snaps Miho out of her blank stare almost immediately.

"Huh?" Miho quickly asked, but then realized what was she doing. "Oh, sorry. That is a… hard question for me."

Jajka surprised of her respond. "I hardly call that question to be difficult."

"Well, not for me," Miho responded with a shook.

"Okay, so…" Jajka paused before asking again. "What makes you fall in love with her?"

Miho rubs her head for a moment as she thoughts, then she answers slowly. "For a start, I'm attracted to Anchovy because she is beautiful, charming, and she is… well… alluringly cute."

Miho stifles her chuckle to see Anchovy closed her mouth and made a bashful and nervous expression. "And… there's something inside of her that makes me… calm."

They began to be confused about that statement, but Erika manages to understand that. "You see something inside of her that can contain your temperament?"

Miho paused for a moment as she glanced at her before nodding. "Yes, something like that."

Miho then turns her head to Anchovy as she looks over her lover's face. "And… Anchovy is someone who could… endure me."

To have someone to endure her. The girls ever heard many obvious reasons as to why someone like a girlfriend or boyfriend. But to hear that Miho has met someone who could endure Miho herself was a very wondrous answer they ever heard for the first time. Alas, the girls, were beyond impressed by her last answer.

"Wo-wow, just… wow," Katyusha commented, awkwardly raised her open palms in the air. "I thought your answer would be the same as other people."

"It's the only answer I can think of in my mind," Miho replied with a shook, then unconsciously shrugs. "I have never thought of that question for a while."

"You must be very attached to Anchovy-san," Hana smiles to Miho. "That's mighty noble of you."

Noble. Miho wonders herself if that's a part of a hero; however she denies that one as a soldier. And thankfully she didn't show that side. "I don't know if I am really that noble."

That aroused the confusion for the girls, including Maho, who never thought being noble is a trait of a hero.

"Oh, come on, Miho," Anchovy then rubs her lover's shoulder. "She's complimenting you."

"Is she?" Miho asked her before looking back to Hana, after a pause, she chuckles. "Alright, thanks for the compliment."

"Your welcome, Miho-san," Hana replies happily with her eyes closed.

The girls became a little suspicious of Miho after they respond Miho gave to them. But then they forget about it because they think Miho only doubts that after all the things she did for her lover. Maho and Erika didn't give a thought about it and thought she's just embarrassed to admit it. For Katyusha, Nonna, and Klara, they wondered if her response has got to do anything about being a soldier and that event that got Klara injured.

Then Nonna gives a new topic for them. "You girls heard about the next match tomorrow?"

"You mean between Bellwall Academy vs Blue Division High School?" Erika asked with a raised brow. "It's been a long time to not have a match with them."

That reminds Miho of someone, notably Sheska and Emi Nakasuga. Miho met them both. However, she can't remember when. Emi Nakasuga was Miho's friend, a former driver of Panver IV back in Kuromorimine who had changed school to German, then to Bellwall Academy. Sheska, on the other hand, was a former German student who had been transferred to Kuromorimine and supposedly a second-year student by now. But now, that part made Miho wondered about something.

"Wait, Sheska is still in KMM school, right?" Miho asked Maho, to which making her surprised.

"Yes, she still is," Maho replied with her eyes widen.

Miho tilts her head to that. "Then how come I didn't get to meet her first when the first time I returned to that school after a year?"

That puts both Maho and Erika speechless for a moment and blankly stare forward. Sheska is a member of Sensha-do and is a commander of her tank. The reason why Miho didn't meet Sheska on the first day of Miho's to KMM school because she was attending a meeting in the school regarding the change school's policy since she got herself involved with the school council about it. They also wondered to themselves how come Sheska didn't meet up with Miho as she had numerous times of visit to KMM because she wanted to help. The odds didn't go well for her it seems.

"She had a meeting with the KMM student councils back then," Erika responded flatly to her. "As for the rest of the day, she didn't get to meet you. She was either busy, or she went somewhere else."

"Huh, not so lucky on that," Miho commented lazily with a raised brow. "Твою мать."

Katyusha, Klara, and Nonna are taken aback of her Russian swearing, but the girls confused about what she said. "What does that mean?" Nishi asked with a raised brow.

"You don't want to know," Klara responded with a shook.

"Why?" Marie asked confusingly.

"It's a swearing," Katyusha replied.

"Oh…" Marie paused for a moment before she looks away. "Never mind then."

"So…" Miho said as her eyes looking to her upper right. "Is she going to attend and watch the match tomorrow?"

"Of course, she can," Maho replied with a nod. "I still can't believe she got a sick call when you're trying to save Ooarai school."

"But she knew that I'm still alive right?" Miho asked, changing her tone as if she asking a stupid question.

"Of course, she knew," Erika replied with a nod. "She always keeps her ears on the news."

"What about Emi Nakasuga?" Miho asked curiously.

"Last time I heard from Bellwall Academy, Emi was saddened of your death after she transferred back to Japan again from German," Darjeeling answered, tipping her chin with her index finger. "But now… when Emi heard that you're still alive thanks to the news, she's hoping if she could meet you somewhere."

Miho raised an eyebrow to that. "She could have visit our residence days ago. Months ago."

"I asked that same opinion to her many days ago," Jajka answered with a shrug, and then her hand lazily lands on the back of her head. "She said that she doesn't see the point about meeting you in the residence if your mother is around."

Miho just sighed because she remembered what Emi disliked of her mother. "Is it because of the Nishizumi's way of Sensha-Do?"

"Yep," everyone responded with a nod, much to Miho's displeasure.

"Alright, I hope I also met her the next day," Miho replied as she tilts her head to Anchovy.

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea to meet them both at the same time," Anchovy commented with concern; both of her eyebrows raised a bit to show her worries.

"Why?" Miho asked as she raises a brow to her.

"Because… they have a quiet rocky relationship."

"You mean Tsundere-relationship?"

"Ah, wha- y-yeah… something like that."

Miho swears that she heard a lot of words that could describe the Animes from Japan. And those words could apply in real life.

"Oh, I'm okay with that," Miho replied with a thumbs up. "As long as they don't make me angry."

"I'm pretty sure you don't have any temperament issues about that," Darjeeling joked as she took a drink of a glass of water.

Everyone laughs at that, including Miho, who laughs a little to that. "He, he, he. You are so funny. It makes me want to kill you."

Everyone almost immediately fell into silence as Miho's expression suddenly changed into a cold one. The change of Miho's expression is unsettling, especially when Miho's eyes are glaring straight into Darjeeling's. Miho felt a little insulted to that, but then again Darjeeling didn't mean to make any trouble. A death stare is enough for her.

"Umm… forgive me, I didn't mean to offend you," Darjeeling slowly apologized, her both hands clasped onto her chest as her back slowly leans against her seat uncomfortably. She shyly looked away from Miho in a feeling of guilt.

"I forgive you, it's alright," Miho replied with a nod, immediately returned to her calm stature. "You wanted to joke. I am having nothing against that."

"Then why you gave her a death threat?" Éclair asked, perplexed as she tilts her head.

"I don't know," Miho flatly replied as she straightened her head and her back. "Maybe I'm starting to lose the plot."

"Please don't tell me your mind is going insane again," Hana fearfully asked, wondering if she would be gone insane and then chase down her sister, Maho, like that time back in the Exhibition Match.

"Well, unfortunately," Miho paused for a moment. "I'm won't going insane for now."

The girls pretty much sighed in relief, and Anchovy thanked herself that Miho's mental condition is still stable, for now.

Everyone fell silent again, to which Miho asks. "How are we going to spend the rest of this morning?"

Everyone begins to think, to which Katyusha answered cheerfully. "Oh, we could sing a song, you know."

"Sounds like a great idea," Nonna agreed, then continues with Klara. "Me too."

"I agree," Darjeeling added with a nod.

"But what kind of song?" Marie asked with a raised brow.

"And also in what language?" Erika asked wondrously.

"I can't decide," Nishi said with doubt. "Most of the songs I know are those we usually sang every day, aside from our own school's anthem."

Nishi then lists all the songs she knew to the girls. Miho had not heard any of the songs aside from the songs she heard from the modern year. Some of the girls acknowledged the songs, and some don't. Maho and Erika are both the only ones who don't other kinds of songs aside from their own KMM anthem song.

"Miho?" Jajka called.

"Yes?" Miho responded flatly.

"Do you have any new songs from your time in London?" Jajka asked.

"Umm, I do know some of them," Miho replied, then her eyes looked away in doubt. "But I'm not sure what to sing. Why not sing a song according to your suggestion?"

"No, we want to hear your song," Anchovy responded with a shook. "There must be a new song you heard while you were away, right?"

Miho looks up to her lover, content in her eyes. "Any song?"

"Any song," Anchovy replied with a nod happily, the girls agreed with their smiles.

Miho then looks forward, pondering on what song she'll pick. As she observed, the girls are waiting for her to sing. And it seems Erika and Maho hoped that it's not that Rocky Road To Dublin. Darjeeling seems to thought that Miho might sing an English. Miho stays silent as she thought what song she should sing for a moment.

Until she got one.

(Paul Brady Version)

"Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile,  
Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile,  
Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile  
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

'Sé do bheatha, a bhean ba léanmhar,  
Do b' é ár gcreach thú bheith i ngéibheann,  
Do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh méirleach,  
Is tú díolta leis na Gallaibh."

They are rather surprised by the song. But Darjeeling recognized the language, which is Irish. They began to enjoy the song as they wiggle their torso to left and right with their heads followed suit.

"(Darjeeling and Miho) Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile,  
Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile,  
Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile  
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

(Miho) Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile,  
Óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,  
Gaeil iad féin is ní Frainc ná Spáinnigh,  
Is cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

(Darjeeling and Miho) Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile, (x3)  
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

(Oooing)

Oro… (3x)

(Miho) A bhuí le Rí na bhFeart go bhfeiceam,  
Mura mbeam beo ina dhiaidh ach seachtain,  
Gráinne Mhaol agus míle gaiscíoch,  
Ag fógairt fáin ar Ghallaibh.

(Darjeeling and Miho) Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile, (x3)  
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

(Darjeeling and Miho) Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile, (x3)  
Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

(Miho) Óró Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile

B'fhearr Liom Thú Nó Céad Bó Bainne

(Darjeeling and Miho) Óró Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile

Anois Ar Theacht An Tsamhraidh

Abhaile

Abhaile

Abhaile

Abhaile

Abhaile

Anois Ar Theacht An Tsamhraidh

Abhaile

Abhaile

Abhaile

Anois Ar Theacht An Tsamhraidh."

After she finished the song along with Darjeeling, who sang along, everyone applauses her and Darjeeling for the song, which was so beautiful and charming, it was more than enough to make Anchovy real happy. Afterward, they continue to spend their morning with singing and chatting with each other — while one by one is taking a shower for each turn.

Then Miho continues to have fun with Anchovy and the girls in the dorm and maybe going out somewhere, surprisingly.

* * *

Personal Tank Training Field, Nishizumi Residence. 10:00 AM.

*BAR-BAR-BAR*

*DOR-DOR-DOR*

*BLAM-BLAM-BLAM*

*DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR*

"I'm pretty surprised you have an open range like this, Mrs. Nishizumi."

"It's my personal training field for tanks, Ghost-sama."

"Personal tank training field? It's more like you wanted to make a secondary base here."

"You mean you're the one who wanted to build another 141 compounds here, Ghost?"

"Heh, you got me there. But I won't dare to build one here."

"Why?"

"This field is your property, Mrs. Nishizumi. And I don't like taking someone else's property."

"You got a point, Ghost."

Currently, the five KMM commanders and Kay, who are in their casual clothes are having a shooting training in the Nishizumi personal training field, of course with Shiho's and Ami's consents for that. With Shiho, Ghost, Ami, and Kikuyo, who's been silent for now supervising them to train. Kay is training and teaching the girls at the same time on shooting the targets. It's a shame to know Anchovy, Maho, and Miho can't be here for shooting training.

The girls currently have a fast target acquisition drill with Kay and Ghost's help. A drill that practices to identify and shoot the targets which are hostile and avoid shooting civilians. A drill to help the girls to react faster and identify faster whether those are targets, civilians or allies. A practice that also helps them with the use of peripheral vision if in case there more than one individual to identify.

In other words, they are training on how to Aimbot in real life.

Yes, that is a thing among gun owners. Not sure for military, though.

Akaboshi still has her ACR, Geshiko's UMP45, Ritaiko's Tar-21, Sangou's Kriss Vector, and Mauko's P90. While Kay herself is holding an AK-104 and her VP70 pistol is in her sidecar pistol holster. They gathered around Kay as they loaded each of their respective bullets into their respective mags, with Mauko a bit amazed on the P90's horizontal mag and the number of bullets she needs to fill. And also Kay needs to make sure that none of them insert the bullets in the wrong direction.

That reminds her of the story of Carl the soldier, who screwed his own mag by inserting the bullets vertically.

As they are inserting the bullets into their mags, Kay explains the drill they are about to do. With Ghost standing behind her to make sure she gives the right explanation to them. While Ami, Shiho, and Kikuyo are observing from a bit afar. The girls are halfway to stock their mags fully.

"There are five things that are important in doing this drill," Kay then raised her fist, then open up her fingers one by one. "Which are fast at target identification, target acquisition, fast sight alignment, mounting the gun faster and getting rounds on the target. There are a few reasons for that."

Then Ghost continued her sentence. "The first reason is the time it takes you to mount your weapon and engage the threat could mean the difference between the threat shooting a few people or the threat being able to shoot you. And we like to give you a couple of examples."

Akaboshi raised an eyebrow to that as they listen to Kay. "The first thing if you're going in and confronting an active shooter going into like a school, market, or even a mall or an airport as soon as you have identified the threat the time it takes you to mount your weapon whether it's a handgun or a rifle and start engaging that threat could mean the difference between him shooting at one person, two people, three people, the longer you take time to engage him could mean the difference between those people are getting shot at or him turning around and starts shooting at you."

"It's like how much time we take to aim at another tank?" Geshiko asked her.

"Yes, something like that," Kay replied with a nod then continues to fill in another mag. "This is a drill to work on target identification, target acquisition, fast sight alignment and I'll be shooting a rifle to show you girls what I do. So…"

Everyone finishes their stock up, with Kay putting in her last full mag into her ammo pouch on her belt. "Let's do it."

Kay then led the girls to the training range. There is five target practice right in front of them, or people usually call it as USPSA targets. But the girls are mostly confused about the numbers randomly written on the USPSA targets. The target is numbered with two numbers each, head and torso. The numbers according to each USPSA targets are shown below from left to right.

Head: 1, 9, 4, 8, 2

Torso: 5, 3, 7, 6, 10

"Now you see we have 5 USPSA targets here, randomly numbered from 1 through 10," Kay points her hand towards the USPSA targets. "Numbered on the heads and torsos. And what are we going to do is Ghost is going to call out a number or a sequence of numbers, and I have to come from low ready or high ready and engage that number accordingly."

Kay then looks back at the targets then looks back at them. "So if he calls out number One, I'm going to shoot number one in the head for about one, two, three bullets, as many rounds as you want. If he calls for six, I have to shoot it in the head. So you gotta put the sights straight to the head if you want to shoot right in the T-zone hitbox. If you use red dot, you gotta aim it above the target to get T-zone hitbox."

"T-zone?" Ritaiko asked confusingly as the girls, including Shiho and Kikuyo perplexed on that.

"This T-zone," Ghost then points the T-zone that is located on his face. "That zone will kill people straight."

"Ouch," Sangou commented with a little bit of terrified expression.

"Damn right, it's ouch," Kay agreed with a nod, the gestures her arms at the targets. "Now, we are very close to the targets here. Because at this distance, this is more about driving the gun than just bringing the gun up. Because if we shoot these from far away, this drill will be more easier."

Kay then imitates how she aims her rifle in the air. "Because I don't have to pivot left and right so much to engage the target. As close as they are here, I've got to go from here all the way to here."

After an imitation of Kay aiming an invisible rifle from left to right quickly for about less than 150 degrees, she added. "If the targets were farther a bit, I would have an even harsher aim of angle to engage a target. If you have a range allow you to do that, moving the targets around so you can shoot 180 degrees, 280 degrees if you have a range where you can do that because that's really important for shooting."

Kay then holds her AK 104 with both hands, still pointing it to the ground. "Now we are about 7 yards from the target because this drill is more about speed and accuracy. Obviously for the headshots, I've got to be very accurate for those shots in the T-zone. And it's more about getting the weapon on the target, finding the good sight and shooting the target. So… let's do it."

Kay then turns around to the USPSAs and has her rifle in the ready. Her rifle is pointing forward, but the firing end is pointing at the ground in front of her. Kay sighed through her nose as she waits for Ghost to call out the numbers.

"8."

*DAR*

It's a T-zone shot.

"7."

*DAR-DAR-DAR*

Three rounds to the middle of the torso

"2, 3."

*DAR-DAR, DAR-DAR*

Two headshots on two and two shots in three.

"4, 6, 1."

*DAR-DAR-DAR*

One-shot each of the said numbers.

After that, Kay sank the stock of her rifle underneath her shoulder with the firing end aiming forward and upwards. She then turns around to the girls as she holds her rifle with one hand but aiming sideways with the firing end still pointing upwards.

"Now, you see that I'm not pulling my gun down," Kay explained to them, her free hand gestured to the rifle she's holding sideways and upwards. "This is what we called a proper follow-through. It's finding the second sight picture and getting reset on your trigger so you can fire more rounds. And you're not pinning the trigger into the rear. So, you don't want yourself doing something like this."

Kay then aims her rifle at one of the targets down the sights. *DAR* And quickly lowers her rifle front to the ground with her finger on the trigger. But notice that her head wasn't looking through the rifle's sight; instead her head is hanging in the air as her eyes stare straight forward at the targets and her finger is on the trigger. She then pulls her gun down and turns around at the girls.

"Then bring the gun back down. Just because you finished, the drill doesn't mean that you need to pull the gun back down immediately and keep pinning on the trigger. You need to get a second sight picture, get the need to unpin the trigger, and you need to be on reset so you can fire again if you need to," Kay explained to them, then turns around at the targets. "So it looked something like this."

Kay aims her AK at the target. *DAR* She then aims her rifle front and downwards to the ground, her eye is still on the rifle's sight, and her finger is still on the trigger. She then gets off the rifle's sight and pulls in her rifle until her stock is underneath her armpit and the firing end pointing front upwards. With her finger is not on the trigger, but on the wall of the trigger as her fingers turn on the safety. She then lowers her rifle and turns around at the girls.

"I found my second sight picture, and my finger is on the wall so I can fire if I needed to," Kay explained as she gestures to her said finger. "And that is a basic proper follow-through."

"I imagine not a lot of people knew about that," Akaboshi commented curiously, which made Ghost shrugged.

"We got that a lot," Ghost responded in agreement. "However, some of the armies practiced on that."

"If they are still a good shot even without a proper follow-through," Kay said to them as she tilts her head. "Maybe they'll be okay in my books."

"I guess I have to agree with you," Ami added in agreement as she crossed her arms and as they observe.

"Alright, who's up for aimbot drill?" Kay asked the girls immediately, to which Akaboshi raised her hand first. "Alright, you're up."

Kay gestured to Akaboshi to step up to the range and have her ACR Rifle ready, pointing forward but downwards with her eyes on the sight. She waited for Kay to say the numbers.

"7."

*BOR-BOR*

Two shots to the center of the torso.

"2."

*...BOR*

Headshot in the T-zone.

"6, 4."

*BOR-BOR BOR-BOR*

Two shots each, center torso and T-zone.

"3, 5, 8."

*BOR-BOR-BOR*

Three shots, one shot each, two center of torso, one headshot that nearly misses the T-zone.

"5, 6, 10."

*BOR-BOR BOR-BOR BOR-BOR*

Two shots each on the torsos.

"Nice. Enough."

Akaboshi then pulls in her rifle and aim it upwards. She then pulls her rifle down and turns around to Kay. Akaboshi leaves her rifle hanging around her shoulders. Akaboshi also makes sure that the rifle is on safety to avoid accidental discharge. She looks at Kay, who gives a thumbs-up as Ghost looked over USPSA targets.

"She did really well," Ghost complemented with a nod. "Almost all of her shots hit the center of torsos and heads."

"Damn, even though we just taught you on doing shooting drills for a few days," Kay added as she smiles with her arms crossed. "That is quite an achievement you did."

"Thanks, Kay," Akaboshi responded happily with a nod.

"Okay, who's next?"

As the girls continue training to shoot, Shiho, Kikuyo, and Ami began to converse with each other as they watch. They are pretty much glad to see the girls are ready for a shootout, probably. Of course, Shiho shows her concerns for the KMM girls if they got themselves involved in a firefight. Shiho also wonders when Miho is coming back home, aside from these girls shooting target.

Starting to wonder if Shiho should revise her Nishizumi ideology.

Shiho then tilted her head at her servant and Ami and said. "I wonder when she gets back home."

"Aw, let Miho have her fun," Ami responded playfully. "She's off-duty, right?"

"Yes, she is, Ami-sama," Kikuyo replied with a nod.

"She is having fun with her lover and her friends anyway," Ami replied, she waves her left hand in the air next to her. "Let's not ruin her moment, shall we?"

"I agree with Ami-sama," Kikuyo added happily, shuffling and neaten her kimono a bit. "Let her spend some time on herself. Besides, she can handle herself about it."

Shiho only contemplates for a moment of her servant's words, before sighing at her. "Okay, I agree with you. But I'll give her a call to know what's up with her."

"Should I get the call for you, Lady Shiho?" Kikuyo asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, please," Shiho replied with a nod, to which Kikuyo nods back.

Kikuyo then left the two women, to which they continue to observe Kay and Ghost teaching the girls how to shoot. Shiho only smiled as she observes how the girls shoot their firearms. And also get ready to duck her head down in case of accidental discharge.

Maybe Shiho will train to use those firearms one day.

* * *

Somewhere in Pravda Schoolship, bathhouse. 13:00 PM

"Remind me again why did we end up here?"

"We are here because Darjeeling complained of our hygiene back in the morning."

"And because Katyusha wants us to go here as well so we can sooth and stretch our bodies. That's why Éclair."

"Huh, this reminds me of something."

"Miho!"

"What?"

They paid for about more than 20.000 yens to spend their time in this public bathhouse, which is enough for the 13 girls to be bathing in one pool. And let's not forget, they are naked, again. This is the second time they are naked together, after that one time back in the dorm. And this time, it's in a different context than what they did in the dorm.

When they first agreed to go to the bathhouse, without an opinion from Miho, Anchovy immediately flustered into a red blush. Anchovy did suspect they maybe wanted to do the same thing back in the dorm, which this time they aren't drunk. Anchovy did protest about heading for the bathhouse after the perverted thing they did, but Katyusha, Darjeeling, and Nonna manage to convince her otherwise. Much to Anchovy's stress, is that Miho agreed with them. But Miho managed to calm her down from being so flustered and embarrassed.

They are currently soaking themselves in a large pool of hot water. It's been a long time for Miho to get herself soaked in a bathhouse, and with hot water. She nearly forgot to take a shower first before heading over to the hot tub, thanks to Jajka for reminding her. The reason for people to take a shower first is that the water from the shower would help them to enter the hot tub without any trouble due to temperature.

And she thought swimming in the Siberian water was worse.

Miho is sitting next to Anchovy and beside Nonna. While they are naked, Miho tries her best to avert her eyes from anyone's assets, especially Nonna, and excludes Anchovy. In all honesty, Miho is having a hard time to her gaze from anyone's assets, knowing how close they are sitting with her. Their chests are barely visible from the surface of the hot water, including her own. Miho blushed as she tries to contain the lust that is growing inside of her.

With uneasiness, Miho tries to look away from everyone. However, Darjeeling playfully grins to that.

"What's wrong, Miho-san?" Darjeeling asked playfully. "You looked uncomfortable."

"It's... it's nothing, Ms. Darjeeling," Miho replied with a shook as she blushes.

Darjeeling wants to tease her for a moment, albeit that she's blushing and slyly puts her finger on her lips. "Are you sure, Miho? You seemed interested in something."

"Uh, Darjeeling, what are you doing?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow, noticing that Darjeeling is rocking her body slowly in hot water.

"Just teasing her, why?" Darjeeling replied playfully, to which everyone blushed at that again, much to Anchovy's embarrassment.

"Darjeeling, I hope you're not thinking about what we did back in the dorm," Hana responded flatly, her face was a poker face.

"I'm afraid I was thinking about that," Darjeeling responded, this time her smile turns into a sheepish smile.

"Oh, not you too," Maho responded with irritation, everyone else responded the same.

"What makes you starting to think about that?!" Marie asked nearly aloud, and she immediately covers her assets.

Darjeeling only laughs a little, and then she leers at Miho. "After trying to forget about what we did back in the dorm. I'm afraid I let myself fell into lust."

They are very embarrassed to hear that and also very anxious to hear that. Darjeeling even made Anchovy covers her face after she said it. Miho only stared her down as if she distracted by her appeal appearance. She can't even decide who's more beautiful between Anchovy and Darjeeling.

"Well… I was about to say the same thing to you," Miho responded calmly, which everyone is surprised by her answer.

"Miho, I hope you're not thinking about doing that," Marie hopefully stated as she shook her head.

"No, I'm not," Miho replied with a shook. "Even though I won't mind doing that for another round."

Collective groans and complaints was received from her friends and her lover. Katyusha and Klara facepalm on that.

"Miho, no, just… no," Éclair responded shamefully with a shook.

Klara just sighed, before looking up to Miho. "Miho, sometimes Darjeeling can get a... dirty thought if you know what I mean."

Sometimes? It makes Miho questioned how did Darjeeling become a lady and overall commander of St. Gloriana in the first place. "I'm surprised you could hide that kind of thing."

Darjeeling just chuckled to Miho with a noble smile, then stick her tongue out to the left. "That's my secret. So, I can't help it."

"And sometimes Darjeeling imitates a scene from a novel book," Erika added with a shrug. "No matter how weird it is."

"Hey, that's not true!" Darjeeling pouted as she blushed and leaned her head back.

"Nope, that's true," Jajka replied with a shook.

"Do you remember that time back in the park with Pekoe-san?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow. "I was there with you. I saw you're doing that weird kiss on Pekoe after you finished the novel you were reading."

Darjeeling gave a defeated sigh. "Alright, you got me cornered. I did something like that before."

Miho just chuckled to that. "Looks like we're going to have a very long talk here."

Nothing much than that, they spend the next hours soaking their bodies and their skins in the hot waters. They enjoy their time as Miho, who is in front of everyone's view, silently rubs her lover's body softly and gently. This took Anchovy off-guard and surprised, but managed to stifle her yelp. Miho silently whispered to her, saying that she wanted to 'clean' her more, and wanted to touch her body.

Thankfully, when Miho meant 'touch,' it didn't mean to go 'intimate.'

Aside from touching her lover's body, Miho also plays with her pale green hair when she gets bored. Something that found the girls pretty interesting about it. Anchovy bites her lip for a moment before letting her fingers playing the hot water. All of that, while having a very great conversation with the girls. They would have a great time with each other, with Miho kissed Anchovy on her cheek when everyone wasn't paying attention.

After the bathhouse, they would return to their homes after a small talk on the road. It was a very relaxing day for them. They had a great weekend, Anchovy is happy, the girls are happy, Miho herself is happy. When they parted ways, Anchovy left a parting kiss for Miho before saying goodbyes. Miho and Maho both took a trip back to their residence on foot before by transport, they both chatted happily even for the occasional awkward silence.

Now, waiting for the next day to attend a tankery match.


	60. Chapter 57 - Father's Soul

After Maho and Miho both reached back home in the evening, they greeted their mother, who welcomed them with a bow. Shiho asked them about how's their day back in the dorms, and Miho responded that it was very, very fun. Explained to her that they had a very long conversation with each other, playing small games and truth or dare, and also a small movie. Of course, Miho didn't mention the part where they've been drunk and had an orgy back at the dorm because that could make Shiho furious about it.

And of course, that was Maho's opinion, not Miho's.

Nevertheless, Miho explained to her about what she and Maho did with the girls back in the morning. Before explaining to her that they headed for the bathhouse together. That kind of thing surprises her a little, especially the part where Miho bathed together with Anchovy along with the girls. And it made Shiho blushed to know Miho kissed Anchovy twice today. Shiho rubs her youngest daughter's head for the day Miho and Maho spend.

But then, almost immediately, Miho's eyes noticed her mother's small frown. Miho immediately leans her head back from her mother's hand as Shiho and Maho startled by Miho's reaction. Miho asked Shiho if there's anything wrong, but her mother responded with 'nothing.' It made Miho suspicious a little, but it made Maho wondered what's up with her. Despite that, Shiho told them that their dinner's ready, and they should take a bath first. They made their way into the house afterward.

After both Miho and Maho took a bath in turns, and also after Miho took her pistol from her room and hid it under her shirt, they headed for the dining room to eat. They meet Kikuyo and the other three maids of women there. Shiho relieved them from their duties before Shiho told them to make dinner. Miho was rather happy about it because it's good to have anyone else to talk with. Miho made small prayer for herself and anyone else in the room before continuing to eat. Unlike Maho and the maids, who said "itadakimasu" before eating.

The maids asked Miho and Maho about they did back in their friend's dorm. They both responded with the same answer when they were with their mother. But this time, Miho added with the word "intimating" in the middle of her answer, which made the maids blush mildly with Maho facepalming to what she said. Nevertheless, they continue to eat as they converse.

Miho and Maho asked the maids about what they did to spend their day. The maids mostly replied with duties they had around the house, and also they helped Shiho to tidy up the house, especially in her workplace in residence. The maids had to admit that they could Shiho's face soften a bit, aside from her cold, stoic, emotionless expression. Something that calmed Maho down a little of her mother's attitude.

Despite the great conversation they had, Miho frowned a little of something. It's odd for her to see her mother frowned of something. Well, maybe there was something that made Shiho upset about something. But, Miho dismisses that thought for a moment and changes into another thought.

And the thought that comes to mind was about her father.

Much to what Miho knew, she, along with Maho and Shiho, never talked much of the father. But she remembered her father's name, Tsuneo Nishizumi. Why did she think about this just now, she didn't know. She remembered her childhood when her mother was soft, humble and kind and their father was still in their lives. She remembered the last she and Maho asked their mother, about their father had gone to, Shiho replied with this.

" _He… has left us. He will never be coming back for us."_

Her respond that did shock her and her sister long ago. Strangely, they never discussed why her father wouldn't come back. She along with her sister assumed that their father left them to go out of country. They never asked Shiho why he left long ago, due to their fear of their cold-hearted mother before Miho spent her one year as a soldier in another universe.

She thought of this for a while, a little bit longer than her food nearly left untouched until someone asked her.

"Lady Miho, are you alright?" It was Kikuyo who asked her.

"Oh, um, I'm fine," Miho quickly snapped herself out. "I was just thinking of something."

"Thinking about what, Miho?" Maho asked with a raised brow.

Miho only continues to eat for a moment before looking at her sister. "Something that bothered me a long ago."

Everyone, including the maids looked at her; they stopped eating for a moment. "Is it about your mother?" asked one of the maids, her name was Suzawa.

"No, not that," Miho responded weakly with a shook as Maho continues to eat.

"Is it about your childhood?" the other maid asked, her name was Suri.

"Yes, something about my childhood," Miho replied with a nod, did make Maho stopped for a moment, but then continues to eat.

"What makes you bothered about it?" the last maid asked, her name was Ririn.

Miho stayed silent for a moment as she looked down, before looking up to them again. "It's about our father."

Everyone was very shocked by her answer that even Maho turns her head at her quickly after swallowing her food. It's been a long time for Maho to hear someone had a thought about that. Maho had never thought much about their father and didn't bother to ask their mother why he left. She remembered the last time Maho asked the cold Shiho after their father left, it's either she dodged the question or asked her to not mention about him again.

"I didn't expect you'll be asking about that, Miho," Maho said as she raised both of her eyebrows.

"I know," Miho added in agreement. "That thought has been bugging me just now."

"Why are you thinking about your father now?" Kikuyo asked as she pours herself a cup of tea.

"I don't know," Miho replied with a shrug. "Maybe I was just wondering why he left us long ago."

"I never wonder about it until now," Maho replied with a shrug, then drinks her water. "I just thought that is not my business anymore."

Miho only stares at her for a moment, before adding. "Do you mean you're afraid to ask mother about it?"

Maho ponders for a moment as a finger is on her chin, then tilts her head at Miho. "Both."

"I see," Miho responded with a nod. "But did you ask her about it?"

"I did, but…" Maho paused for a moment, remembering how's her mother's expression was due to that question. "She didn't answer it. I mean, she didn't want to answer. She was just angry to answer that."

Miho narrowed her eyes to her statement. Miho didn't show her suspicion; for now, maybe Shiho was just too angry to answer to know he left the family to go out of country. Miho understands that, why bother pushing her mother to answer while she's angry? Of course, she can't leave her thought about what happened to their father.

"I understand how hard was that for mother," Miho replied with a nod. "But still…"

Both of the sisters then turn their heads to the maids, and Maho was the one to ask. "Do you know why father left us?"

The maids fell speechless to that question. They looked at each other to show their anxiousness of the question. It seems they don't know about what happened to their father. But Kikuyo squints her eyes to the question, which means that she didn't expect to hear that kind of question — but also telling Miho's gut that she may know something about their father.

"Ms. Kikuyo," Miho called her. "It seems you know something about our father."

Kikuyo uncomfortably puts her hand on her chest, then replies. "I'm afraid I can't say anything about it without your mother's consent."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod, knowing she's a loyal servant to Shiho it makes sense she doesn't want to divulge the information. "Then, I should go ahead and ask mother about it."

"Yes, I think you should do that," Kikuyo paused for a moment as she eats, but then she remembered something. "Miho, I need to tell you something."

Miho raised an eyebrow to that, with Maho immediately stares at her. "What is it?"

"It's about your mother," Kikuyo replied slowly, which made Miho curious but made Maho be concern. "Something is up with her."

"Is there something bothering her?" Maho asked, knowing she didn't notice the slight change of behavior from Miho's observation when they got home.

Kikuyo ponders her words for a moment. "We have noticed a change in behavior. Usually in the evening."

"What did she do in the evening?" Miho asked curiously, tapping her index finger on the table.

"Aside from her usual stoic, frigid face," Kikuyo answered, then put her finger on her chin. "We have noticed that she has been upset about something. We seen her frowned before. And we did hear her mumble a little."

"Did you hear what was she mumbling about?" Miho asked as she is hoping for an answer. Unfortunately, Kikuyo gave a shook to that.

"Whatever she was mumbling about, it was too quiet to hear it," Kikuyo answered as she shook. "But, I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about you, Miho."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod.

"We asked her if everything's alright," Suzawa continued as her eyes looked down, before looking to Kikuyo. "She only said that everything's alright before she hastily left us."

"And she occasionally cooped up in her bedroom if she's not working in her workroom in the evening," Suri added. "Nothing else than that."

"I see…" Miho replied with a nod before she continues to eat. "Let's finish up our dinner then we go talk to mother."

"Of course," Maho agreed with a nod before they then continue to eat.

They finished up their dinner for a few minutes later, before finishing up their drink. The maids then took the dirty plates, and the empty glasses as the girls immediately looked at each other before leaving the dining room. They made their way down the halls to go to their mother's bedroom. Her bedroom was located on the second floor, the same floor where Maho's and Miho's bedrooms are on. They took a short walk up the stairs and headed down the hallway.

Upon reaching the said bedroom, to their expectations, the bedroom door is closed. Maho was about to knock on the door when Miho quickly grabbed her hand and told her to hold it. Maho was about to ask Miho why, when they heard a whisper, some mumbling from inside. It was definitely their mother's voice, but they can't hear clearly about what she's mumbling about. Her voice was as low as a silent whisper.

Miho then lets her sister's hand go and lets her knock on the door. Shiho's voice abruptly stopped from inside. Clearly, she wasn't expecting someone to knock on her door. They heard their mother clears her throat first, probably regaining her composure for a moment before Shiho replied aloud from inside the room, but not behind the doors.

"Who is it?"

Miho then replies. "It's me, mother. We need to talk now."

"I-I'll is there," Shiho responded, the abrupt tone of her first word made Miho surprised for a moment. "Just give me a minute."

"Are you okay in there, mother?" Miho asked again, this time aloud.

"I'm fine!" Shiho responded, her tone was in a bit of haste. "Just give me a minute!"

Miho and Maho didn't say a word of Shiho's respond. Being cold, stoic, then changed to soft after Miho's return was normal. But being sounded so hasty and upset, that suspects Miho about it. Miho didn't have time to stand in front of a door. Miho just immediately barges in their mother's room, with Maho too late to stop her.

"Mother," Miho said as she entered the room and looked straight to her mother on her right. "What are you-"

*TUK-PUK-SHRUUUUUG-BLAK*

Miho stood in surprise after witnessing her mother is sitting on the floor. Miho caught a glimpse of her mother quickly shuffles something into the closet next to her and quickly closed it. Maho didn't catch what Miho just saw and stood behind her with a confused look. Though, their surprise of seeing Shiho sitting on the floor and looking back at them didn't faze. Shiho fell awkward to see her daughters in the room, and surprisingly she seen to be anxious to see them here.

But Miho felt that her anxiousness was something else.

The room fell silent as for this moment, as Miho's eyes staring at her mother's. Miho scanned her room with her sharp eyes for a moment, but there was nothing out of place. The only thing she noticed was the additional furnishing of the room, the room was clean and neat, and there's a picture of Shiho with her daughters but without a glimpse of the father. Miho figured there was nothing wrong with it due to what Shiho said about her father left out of the country. Her eyes then look back at her mother's as none of them said a word.

"Miho, that was rude, you know?!" Shiho responded with a little anger. "You can't just barge in like that!"

"I was wondering what took you so long," Miho answered back calmly, noticing her mother's hands are moving away from the closet.

"I was… tidying my cabinet," Shiho replied with a little high tone, but Miho knew it was a lie. "Nothing much."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod and a flat tone.

"You could have stayed at the door and let me come over to you," Shiho replied as she stood up from the floor.

"Sorry for barging in like that, but.." Maho paused for a moment, with her hands clasping at each other. "But we need to talk."

"Well, now that you are here," Shiho just sighed as her head bowed down, then looked up to them. "What is it you want to talk about?"

"Mother," Miho called coldly as her mother looks away for a moment to scratch her neck. "I want to talk about our father."

Miho only stares at her mother, who just immediately froze to what she just said. Shiho's hand is still on the back of the neck as her head slowly turns towards her daughter. She is clearly showing her surprise, with her mouth opened a little, and both of her eyebrows raised. Then Miho noticed her mother's eyes immediately look down left and right. Miho knew what kind of eye gesture was that. It's a sign that she didn't want to talk about Tsuneo Nishizumi.

"Um…" Shiho paused for a moment awkwardly, as she sheepishly looked away for a moment. "I see…"

"Are you alright, mother?" Miho asked as she tilts her head, not forget to mention she narrowed her right eyebrow at her.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," Shiho sighed again with her eyes closed. "I just… didn't expect you want to talk to me about him."

"I know," Miho replied with a nod, Maho nodded to their mother as well. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Shiho responded as she looks back to the surroundings of her room, making sure there's nothing within then looks back at Miho. "Let's talk at-"

"No, let's talk right now," Miho immediately interrupted, which caught Maho and Shiho both off-guard.

"Miho, wha-" Maho was about to ask.

"No, it's alright, Maho," Shiho quickly interrupts her with an open palm. "J-just… just close the door."

Maho stares at her for a moment before complying. "Alright."

Maho then shuts the door behind her and then stood next to Miho. Maho then looked back at Miho and nodded at her. Miho then looks back at her mother.

The first thing Miho asked was. "How close you were with our father?"

That took her mother, off-guard. "I'm sorry?"

"How close you were with our father?" Miho asked as she leans her back against the wall beside her. "Before you changed, and he left."

Shiho covers her mouth with her right hand, looking down as she ponders for an answer. She then looks back up to her. "Very close. I was affectionate of him."

"Then why did he leave?" Miho asked as she crosses her arms.

Miho was waiting for her answer, but it seems Shiho doesn't have the answer to that. Shiho only stares her eyes down to the ground as she plays with her own hands on her waist. Shiho only shrugged and shook her head to her youngest daughter. Shiho sighed as she gave her upset face.

"I don't know why. He just left."

"I see…" Miho flatly responded. "Then, I have other questions to ask you."

The sudden change of her question caught Maho and Shiho both off-guard. Shiho actually expected that Miho would be asking her more questions about her father, not immediately changing into another topic. Well, Shiho was visibly relieved that Miho changed the subject. Shiho just shrugged and asked her.

"What else you want to ask?"

Miho stayed silent for a moment, getting her back off the wall and turned at Shiho. "Is there something bothering you, mother?"

Shiho only crossed her arms as she sighed again to the different questions but the same topic. "I told you, I'm fine."

"No, you're not," Maho replied with a shook. "You're not fine, according to Kikuyo-san and the maids."

Shiho gave her flustered face for a moment, before looking down with a thought. 'I should have told the maids not to tell them how I'm doing.'

"So I ask you," Miho said, then stretches her right hand in the air. "Is there something bothering you?"

Shiho just shrugged again before replying. "No, no, nothing is bothering me. I'm just thinking how's our family will be holding up in the future."

"You spend every evening to think about that?" Miho asked as she tilts her head.

"Yes, but not every evening," Shiho replied with a nod. "I believe Kikuyo-san told you that I occasionally cooped up in this room in the evening."

"It was Ms. Suri," Miho replied flatly.

"I see," Shiho replied with a nod. "I guess the maids have told you a lot, don't they?"

"Yes, they did," Maho replied with an agreement, then continued by Miho. "Especially when they said that you were mumbling about something."

Shiho just breathes out through the nose and covers her mouth hastily. Shiho was visibly agitated a little to the girls. Shiho looks away for a moment before looking back up to her.

"Miho," Shiho paused for a moment. "I wasn't mumbling about you."

"I know," Miho replied coldly. "What were you mumbling about?"

"Just stressed out a bit from the work I got," Shiho replied as her arm points at her. "I eased out my stress to the maids."

Maho narrowed her eyebrows to that. "Then why the maids said that you quickly left them when they asked if you are alright?"

Shiho should've thought twice for her answer. "Uh… I-"

"Are you hiding something, mother?" Miho coldly asked.

Shiho felt cornered right now. "Miho, I-"

"What did you hide in the closet?" Miho asked coldly and quickly.

Shiho turns her head back to the said closet behind her, before looking back at Miho quickly. "It was nothing."

"What did you hide in the closet?" Miho asked coldly this time slowly.

"Miho, you should go outside," Shiho suggested to her, she began to agitate.

"What did you hide in the closet?!" Miho asked coldly and slowly, this time aloud.

Maho begins to be concern of this situation; she then walks over to her sister and holds her shoulder. "Miho, I think we should go."

"We're not leaving," Miho coldly replied as she shrugs away Maho's hand. "What are you hiding, mother?!"

"You should go outside, Miho," Shiho said, but Miho ignores her suggestion.

"What did you hide in the closet?!" Miho asked again aloud as she took a step forward.

Maho quickly stepped up to her and held her shoulder from behind, but Miho shrugged her. "Miho, that's enough!"

"Miho, listen to your sister!" Shiho responded aloud, anger and concern about the situation she's in.

"WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?!" by this point, they could say that Miho is starting to go insane.

"Miho!" Shiho quickly walks up to her youngest daughter and immediately holds both of her shoulders. "Get out of the room now!"

Miho suddenly breaks free of her grip by diving her both hands upwards between her mother's arms and lashed them out, before quickly push-kicked her in the stomach. All of that happens in a blink of an eye. Shiho got kicked so hard, and she had to walk backward to keep her balance and ended up hitting against the wooden wall. And then Shiho immediately falls to the ground, sitting down at the wall with her legs retracted as if she wanted to hug her legs. Her hands holding the floor, with her elbows and arm against the wall.

This is the first time for Maho to witness Miho stood against her mother through violence. Miho just kicked their mother, literally, and thankfully not out the house. Shiho groans in pain, not even bothering to held her painful stomach. Miho was cold on what she did, as she stares against her mother.

Shiho looks up to Miho in anger, but somehow also in fear. Miho took a step forward towards the closet where Shiho hid something in it. Maho only stood back, fear if her sister suddenly lashes out if she intervenes. Miho quickly opens the said closet and then look into its content. Shiho and Maho stayed silent and stared at Miho, who's looking down into the closet, but they noticed the surprised expression she had.

Miho then slowly reaches her right hand out into the closet. Her eyes never leaving whatever is inside the closet. That is until she slowly pulls something out from the closet and brings it into their view. It was a small frame fitted with a picture in it, and it was cleaned recently from the dust. Maho comes closer behind her to look over on what is Miho looking at.

To their shock, the picture was the picture of their long lost father and their mother, smiling brightly in the picture.

They then divert their eyes into the closet Miho opened. And before them, it was a shrine. There is a shrine that is dedicated to their father. There is an ash casket for incenses to be lit, a couple of small ornate jars, a few flowers arranged in order around the casket. There were two other pictures in it, most notably a portrait of their father, Tsuneo Nishizumi is hanged in front of the casket. There were also paper talismans hanging in the closet, specifically around the hanging portrait in front of them.

Maho can't help but awe on what is their mother hiding. For Miho however, she only looked back at the small picture she's holding. Only frozenly starting at the happy mother and father in that picture. But the longer she stares at it, her eyes become much more than it should. And she knew Shiho's answer long ago was a lie.

Shiho became visibly shaken and afraid to see her youngest daughter's eyes darken pitch black. Shiho's anger is lost after seeing her eyes like that. To see her just stood like that, Maho had begun to notice Miho's expression as well, and she was surprised by it. Though, Maho began to realize why Shiho has a shrine like this.

However, Miho beat her to it. "He's dead, isn't he?"

Shiho only looks up to her, but couldn't say a word about it.

"Is he dead?" Miho asked again coldly, and she puts down the picture she's holding and closed the left door of the closet.

"Mother?" Maho called questioningly, but her anger of their father is visible.

"Miho," Shiho responded lowly; she was just felt so cornered that she can't say anything else.

"Is he dead?" Miho asked again, not bothering to look at Shiho. Maho only glares angrily at their mother.

"Miho, I can explain," Shiho responded, giving her open palm at her. However, before she could begin to stand up…

"IS HE DEAD!?"

Both Maho and Shiho were jumped of her shout. Shiho watched as her daughter is glaring scarily at her. Maho only quickly took a step back from her sister, and she's now concerning her sister's rage instead of being angry at their mother. Shiho was frozen after she saw what was in her youngest daughter's eyes.

Black eyes. Dark black eyes. By metaphor.

Miho only stood frighteningly in front of the sitting mother, glaring her eyes at her mother's. The kind of thing that made Shiho gulped.

And Shiho could reply, with a small tear from her eye. "He's… he's dead."

Maho could only feel to be horrified to know the truth of their father's status. But for Miho, that is beyond a KIA status, and they lost someone they know for a long bloody time. Their father died before Shiho changed the family's way of life from their childhood until Miho returned home after a war. How cruel their mother is to dare to keep the truth about their father as secret and change herself into a heartless mother.

However, Miho wanted to know more why her father died. She slowly reaches her hand behind her and takes out something from under her shirt. And she shows her pistol holding on her side. Maho fell silent but shows her shock at Miho, while Shiho could feel and hear her heart beating upon seeing her pistol. And slowly, Miho begins to step closer to their mother.

"Miho… what are you doing?" Maho's question was ignored when Miho was too close to Shiho.

"Miho?" Shiho retracted her legs back up and straightened her back against the wall, and she knew what is Miho going to do to her. And she fears for it.

"Miho?" Maho called again in concern. By the time Miho crouched down in front of their mother, and then puts the muzzle of the pistol on Shiho's forehead, she loses her shit. "Miho!"

Shiho was shaken to have the muzzle on her forehead, and she breathes frantically as she stares at Miho's eyes. "Miho, please…"

"Why?" Miho grimly asked, her eyes are in the shadow.

"Miho…" whatever Shiho wanted to say, it was cut off by Miho.

"WHY?!" with a shout.

"Please…" Shiho begged pathetically, won't even dare to move any single part of her body, including her head.

"My mistress, what-" Kikuyo happens to barge into the room, but then quickly horrified of what she witnessed. "Oh my gosh!"

"Why didn't you tell us that our father is dead?!" Miho asked aloud, and grimly, her eyes are still in the shadow.

Shiho paused as she tries to breathe calmly despite the muzzle on her head. "You weren't ready."

"BULLSHITE, WE WEREN'T READY!" Miho shouted back like Banshee as she presses the muzzle against her mother's head, her finger was nearly on the trigger. "Why didn't you tell us?!"

Everyone jumped at her response, Kikuyo was very afraid if Miho gets too violent. Kikuyo can't do everything, but to do the same thing Maho does, just stood there afraid if she lashes out. Shiho was very panic on the other hand, never been so vulnerable like this as she breathes frantically to calm down.

"I was afraid," Shiho admitted, her sweats came down from her head like rain. "I was afraid if you found out what happened to father, you would be broken or… you turn against me. I didn't know how you would have taken it. You had a right to know, but I kept it a secret because I wasn't ready to tell you."

"You should've told us long ago," Miho grimly and in a whisper, her hand clenching her pistol hard with her shadowed eyes narrowed unto her. "Long ago, before I got into that war."

"I know, I know…" Shiho replied weakly, breathes frantically for a moment before blinking in desperation. "I didn't tell you about it. I just want to forget him. I want to forget that he was a part of our family. I changed our way of life because the emotions he granted to us are bringing us down. I used Sensha-Do so I could bury our past. I exiled you because you were so much like your father. I don't want to lose you…"

"What does that have anything to do with me?" Miho quickly asked grimly, notably because of the last her mother said.

"It's why he died," Shiho paused, sniffed as her eyes slowly turning red from grief. "He died because he was trying to save the people he knew."

Maho was taken aback of what her mother said, while Kikuyo could only remember what Shiho told her that story. Miho, however, was pretty much worse. Her expression was like she is about ready to kill Makarov with only her bare hands. Shiho could see and feel Miho's grip is tightening on her pistol, which makes her gulped.

"How did he die?" Miho asked grimly. A tear was noticeable on her right cheek.

Shiho stayed silent for a moment before she able to reply. "There was a fire in one of the Sensha-Do's office. Your father was there."

"Continue," Miho responded grimly.

"He got out from burning office that time," Shiho responded, she pauses for a moment as she sniffed. "When he heard that some of his friends were trapped in the building, he ran back into the burning office to save them. I arrived at the site after he entered the building, and I was… speechless to heard your father came back into that building. A few minutes later, his friends came out of the building unscathed. But they told me that… your father was trapped in the building, he was crushed by a fallen boulder to his legs, but he was still alive. By the time the firefighters managed to disperse the fire and got him out from the building. He was… severely wounded and had a third-degree burn. We got him to the hospital, but then he… succumbed to his injuries, he died."

If there's anything about what she had said, Maho really wanted to hit her mother for hiding what happened to their father to unleash her anger. But Maho unable to show it while Miho is putting their mother in a close gunpoint. Maho wanted to hit her, not kill her. All Maho can do is only to stare at her pathetic mother. While Kikuyo could only cover her mouth as she hoped that Miho didn't hurt her.

Miho gritted her teeth as she applies the pressure to the pistol's muzzle against her mother's forehead. Eyes are still shadowed from her rage, but Shiho could barely see her scarred eye through its shadow. This was her reason to forget her father? The reason why her mother push her away from her home?

"Back in the 62nd National Tournament, I was worried that you killed yourself when you tried to save your friends," Shiho paused, she sniffed for a couple of times. "I was scared if I lose you. That's why I was angry at you. That's why I exiled you from the house. You were so much like your father."

Miho just shook her head to that, gritting her teeth angrily as her finger is already on the trigger. "You bastard…"

Everyone flinched at her harsh words. But for Shiho, it felt like a knife had gone through her chest. For the first time, one of the Nishizumi sisters dares to insult her with such harsh words. But Miho did it for a good reason, Shiho shouldn't have done that. And Shiho never has expected that she will face a deadly confrontation such as this.

"Miho, I'm sorry," Shiho is beginning to tearing up, her voice was weak and high. "I'm so sorry!"

As Shiho is tearing up, frantically breathing and sulking, the room fell silent. Kikuyo and Maho stood there; they both began to feel pity that Shiho had to be in this sick confrontation by her youngest daughter. They won't dare to make a single step with Miho is still around. Miho's face was so angry, so dark, so grim, so cold, a kind of expression that is beyond Shiho's expression. Her face is so dangerous that it might costs Shiho's life for it.

After a few seconds of silence, Miho asked one question that took her off-guard. "What were his last words?"

Shiho only looked up at her, still tearing up. "Wha-?"

"What were his last words?"

Last words… she was there before. Shiho was in the hospital when her husband reached the hospital. Shiho lost all hope and witnessed her husband dying from his severe wounds. She remembered his gleaming eyes, his dying face, the severity he had. Despite all of that, she remembered what Tsuneo said to her before he died.

Shiho looked up to her youngest daughter in fear, despite the tears raining down on her face, she replies.

"Take care… of our family… and remember… our love will never fade."

That's all she could say… for now. Those were Tsuneo's only last words before he died. His words were comforting and caring despite that he's long gone. It comforts Kikuyo and Maho's hearts, but Miho… Miho was still in her same posture. The pistol is still on her forehead as Shiho trembles in fear and cries from this confrontation and her memory.

"I'm sorry, Miho," Shiho apologized frantically. "I'm so sorry."

Miho just pressured the pistol more on her forehead, Shiho is fear for her life. "Miho… please…"

"Miho… don't do it," Maho begged lowly from behind, despite that, Miho ignores her.

"Miho, don't hurt her," Kikuyo pleaded as well, her both hands clasped to each other on her chest.

"Please…" Shiho begged weakly as she cries, what a defeated mother she is. "I implore you. Don't do it. Please… I'm sorry."

Miho only glares her down, sharp as a tiger's dark tooth. Contemplates on what her mother could say to her own daughter. Shiho can't do anything, but to close her eyes, and expect for the worse.

"Please…"

*CLICK-DAR*

A loud bang goes through the whole residence. The only ear-ringing sound that Shiho would only hear in the world and the dark void as her body frightened into a stone. Despite what she did throughout the years, she was defeated at the end. A bullet sent by her youngest daughter destroyed her.

But oddly, the pain didn't come to her. But the ringing sound… remains.

That's when Shiho decided to slowly open her eyes and see why she didn't feel the inevitable quick pain. As her tears stream down her face like a fountain, she saw that the pistol was no longer on her forehead. In which she is facing directly to her own youngest daughter. She slowly gazes her eyes away from her to her left, and she sees it. That same M9 Beretta is aiming at the wall next to her head, and there was the hole in that wall.

Miho had directed her aim to the wall and shot next to her head.

Why had she directed her shot?

Shiho could only breathe as panic as she could as she fell speechless. She should be dead for keeping their father's fate as a secret. Why didn't Miho kill her? Wasn't Miho so angry at her, that she could cause harm to the people around her?

She erases those thoughts, as she only looks back at Miho. And she could feel that Miho is lowering her pistol down back to her side. Miho only glares her down with her shadowy eyes, but at least Shiho could see her eyes clearer now. Shiho only sighed deeply as she is still tearing up, but not as frantic as before. For this moment, they both only stared at each other, between a raging daughter and a defeated and pathetic mother.

To which then Miho states. "You wondered what I meant by many people died under my watch."

Everyone perked on what they just heard, with Shiho only widen her eyes despite her cries. "One year ago. There's a terrorist attack known as The London Massacre. I was one of the victims."

They widen their eyes in horror, with Shiho left her mouth open as she cries. "5 terrorists managed to shoot and kill 354 men, women, and children before I could stop them and kill them. Only 179 people survived. I nearly died at that time."

Shiho only stares her as she listened and teared up. "That's how I got my scar. Do you know how much pain I went through all that?"

Then, Miho stood up slowly and wordlessly as her gaze is still on her mother. Shiho only looked up to her for a few moments, before Miho turned around with her bowed and her pistol on her side. She steps past her sister and the maid before leaving the room completely. Shiho only looked at where Miho had left, before bowing her head down with her eyes wide open. Shiho can't believe what she just heard. Was this her fault to put her in this position?

Shiho never moved an inch, frozen like a statue on the floor. Never speak a word as her tears streaming down from her eyes. Her breathing was a little frantic, but it was calmer as her breathe can barely be heard of. Her eyes became redder from their emotional confrontation, and her eyes blankly stare forward. She can barely think straight, as her mind becomes numb as a shell.

Maho can't even be angry with her mother about the truth she was hiding. Shiho is already traumatic enough to have Maho hitting her. Maho only steps closer to her as the maid, Kikuyo stood back and became extremely concerned about her mistress's condition. As Maho steps closer, Shiho didn't even move her head, or even her eyes to look up to her eldest daughter.

"Mother, are you alright?"

Shiho can't even answer her daughter's call, knowing how traumatic she was from the confrontation. She was in a catatonic state.

"Mother?"

Shiho made no response as Maho got close to her then crouches down.

"Mother, do you hear me?"

Shiho is still silent as she stares into a blank space. But Shiho became conscious once Maho holds her shoulder. However, she didn't move any part of her body for an inch.

"I'm sorry…"

Maho saw how scared she was to be in a vulnerable position. From a cold, the stoic, and heartless mother changed into a scared, weak, and defeated mother. Seeing how badly she teared up, Maho couldn't dare to hit her. Instead, she gently wraps her arms around her defeated mother and hugs her deeply. Shiho didn't move an inch as she was being hugged.

"Calm down, mother."

"I'm sorry.."

"It's alright."

"I'm so sorry."

"Please, stop saying that, mother."

"I'm sorry…"

"Shh, it's alright, mother. it's alright."

Time went on as Maho tries to comfort her mother. Kikuyo, seeing how distressing this was for her mistress with Maho calming her down, she opted to leave the room for privacy without a word, and she should tell the maids about what happened. Maho could only hug her, rubs her hair and comfort her with words to calm her down. Hopefully that Shiho will be quiet, and she will get herself some rest. Getting through confrontation was somehow tiring for them both.

They spend the rest of the evening with Maho hugging her before Maho helps Shiho to get some rest.

* * *

4 hours later.

Miho is currently sitting on a chair, facing at the window as her pistol was left unattended on the table in front of her. She watched as the bright moon slowly arise from the east and shine its dim light throughout the dark night. Miho's posture was solid on her chair. Her backs straight against her chair, both hands are on her knees, and her head leans back a little so that her eyes blankly stare out the window. For now she wasn't angry, she is upset.

The confrontation she did against her mother reminds her of what she said to Yuri before.

 _"Я доверял тебе, Юрий. Я доверял тебе... Что вы наделали?"_

Miho shook her head from that thought, snapping herself back to the present. It's been hours since she confronted her mother hard. Of course, she was so angry that Shiho never told her anything about her father. Not even telling her the truth that he was dead.

However, Miho thinks that she confronted her mother too far.

She had a plan to take a look at her mother to see her how's she doing now. But… seeing how far Miho made her be traumatized, she thought that might a bad idea considering how afraid Shiho was to her youngest daughter. She only sits there as she contemplates her actions.

That's when she heard her door opened.

She turned her head to behind her and saw that Kikuyo entered the room. She had a frown on her face as her eyes stare straight to Miho's. She was upset and concern. Kikuyo stood before her as Miho sighs.

"Why are you here, Ms. Kikuyo?" Miho asked, her tone wasn't of cold but emotionless.

"I need your help, Lady Miho," Kikuyo replied softly. "It's about your mother."

Miho only raised a brow on that. "Why?"

"I think you should see her for yourself."

Miho frowned at that statement. Miho only sighed deeply before stood off her chair. Then she turns around at her and points her open palm at her.

"Lead the way."

Kikuyo only gave the nod before leading Miho to her mother. And by chance, Maho came out of the room just in time to ask what are they up to. When she heard Kikuyo that she needs Miho's help about their mother, Maho agreed to help. They both followed Kikuyo down to the living room where her mistress is in.

When they reached the living room, the first thing they notice was the smell in the air. They could smell a kind of alcohol that is familiar with Miho and Kikuyo. It was the smell of Sake, or in other words, Japanese Rice Wine. Miho ever tasted a Sake back in London, which was an import, it was not bad, but she's still sticking with the Vodka and red wine. Maho wasn't familiar with any alcohol except for Vodka. Maho heard about Sake but never tasted it.

When they found their mother at the only table in the living room, they are rather upset about Shiho's condition. For Miho, she felt pity for her mother. Shiho is drunk, and she is currently sleeping on the table with her left arm covering her head. She had an empty glass in her right hand, and surprisingly, there were two empty bottles of Sake next to her. She only wears her white shirt and her black pants for the moment.

"Oh gosh, mother?" Maho commented sadly as she approached her mother.

"Hegh, mumlemum Tsuneo.." Shiho mumbled unconsciously, can't even speak straight.

Miho only sighed deeply in regret. "I shouldn't have gone too far."

"I agree," Kikuyo added with a nod. "Did you have to put her at gunpoint?"

Miho really can't help herself with that. "I was too angry at her. My mind just went off the grid after I knew the truth."

Maho could only look back at her, still upset about what had happened. Maho wanted to scold Miho, but because Maho didn't know about her father's truth until Shiho spills out, she lets that slide and internally thanking Miho for it. Maho also understands how emotional Miho is if there's one life is lost, after what happened in Yokohama. They then hear another mumble coming from Shiho. Well… she's too drunk to move her head or even an arm.

Maho only sighs. "I guess rinsing her down with water is not an option."

"Seeing how late the day is right now," Miho added as she crosses her arms. "I'm sure you don't want her to miss a good night's sleep."

"I should help you to pick her up," Kikuyo offered, but Miho gave a shook to her.

"Thanks, but we both can handle her from here," Miho replied, then points at the bottles and the glass Shiho's holding. "I just want you to clean up the mess she made."

"If you say so, Lady Miho," Kikuyo responded with a nod.

"Alright, let's pick her up."

Miho and Maho then walked over to their mother, with Miho putting the glass that was in her hand. They both then try to lift their mother's upper body straight. At one point, Shiho mumbled lowly, calling their father's name again. She did open her eyes, but she was unconscious. When she saw Miho, she thought that she was seeing her husband, Tsuneo. Miho wondered what the hell is in the drink that made her mother so delusional like this?

Then all of a sudden, after Shiho called at Miho with father's name, Shiho suddenly hugged and kissed Miho. Right in the damn lips.

Both Maho and Kikuyo flustered to see that happened so fast. Alas, Shiho is done kissing her daughter whom she thought as her husband.

For Miho, she's starting to be irritated. 'Great, I kissed my sister. Then I got kissed by my own mother on my bloody lips. Why the bloody does this keep happening to me aside from my girlfriend?'

"You alright?" Maho asked with a raised brow, noticing her sister's irritation.

"I'm fine," Miho then sighs. "Let's just pick her up."

Maho and Miho continued to pick her up, eventually getting her up to her feet while unconscious. Even though their mother is a little taller than the daughters, they could lift her without problem, of course except the part that she is drunk. They both lift her by her shoulders, with her arms hanging around both daughters' shoulders. They manage to get her away from the table as Kikuyo began cleaning the mess on that table. Miho and Maho made sure that their mother didn't slip and fall.

It didn't take long for them to carry her around. Then comes the hard part.

The bloody stairs.

Thankfully, they don't have to drag her all the way up. Miho and Maho were of their footings as they made sure Shiho's feet weren't stuck on the stair step. They reach the top, and then they headed for their mother's bedroom. While on their mother mumbled again incoherently, saying that she doesn't want to be alone. She must be talking about their father when she said it like that.

Upon reaching the bedroom, Maho opens the door with her right hand as she straightens her grip on her mother. They then went in and moved straight to Shiho's bedroom. They turn around in a circle before slowly and gently settling Shiho down on bed by sitting first before they slowly lean her head down to the pillow with Miho lifts her legs to the bed. After that, they both put the blanket over their mother to warm her.

And done, their mother is sleeping on her bed right now. Miho took a sigh as Maho looks over her mother's sleepy face. Even Shiho is still drunk in her sleep; her face looks so cute to look at. Something nice to see for the daughters aside from their mother's stoic and cold face. Maho sighs as her hands are on her hips with Miho stares at her mother's soft face.

After a moment, noticing how late the day is, Maho turned her head at Miho. "We should return to our room."

Miho contemplates on her words, before looking back to her drunken mother. "I think I'll stay here."

Maho raised an eyebrow to that. "Why?"

"She's still drunk," Miho replied. "I want to make sure she's not doing something a pillock would do."

"What's a pillock?" Maho asked.

"A fool."

A few seconds of silence. "Oh."

Remembering their time being drunk back in Katyusha's dorm, that was a rational reason.

"Alright," Maho replied with a nod. "I'll be heading off to my bed now."

"Go ahead," Miho gestured at the door. "Have a good night."

"You too, Miho," Maho then headed out the room after the last look on her sleeping mother.

After she left, she took a look at her mother before turning her head at the closet where the shrine of her father's in. She walked over to the shrine and opened the closet. She gazes her eyes on her father's shrine for the moment. She felt gutted to see his shrine, but at the same time, mourning for her loss. Her mother reminds her of Yuri but in a different kind of reason and a different kind of event.

She then closes the shrine and walked back next to her sleeping mother. She then decided to sit down on the floor next to her at the night table. She leans her back against the night table as she retracts on the leg to support her elbow. She then took a sigh as she looks over her sleeping drunken mother. Miho then warmly smiles to her to see her soft face.

Then Miho turns her head forward and leans her head against the table. She's thinking about what she should do so she didn't get bored aside from watching her mother. When there's the first thing comes to mind, she unconsciously tilts her head before just shrugging it off. It was already late anyway.

It's time to drink herself to sleep in her mother's room.

* * *

The next morning. 06:30 AM

As the morning sun shines through the clear window, its ray of lights lands upon the eyes of the head of the Nishizumi. Shiho felt little pain from the light on her eyes as she slowly opens her eyes and winces them. She groans lowly before she gets her back off her bed and rubs her own face. Moreover, she felt her head had gone through the mill. Dizzy enough for Shiho to hold her head.

She opens her eyes again to adjust to the light. After that, she takes a moment to look around, but only what's in front of her. She was pretty surprised to see herself in her bedroom, right on her bed. She was too drunk that time, so she couldn't just get up and sleep here; she was at least sleeping back on that table. Shiho took a deep sigh, but then widen her eyes to what she just smelt.

A smell of alcohol in the air.

She traced the smell by turning her head to her left, and alas how surprised she was.

Miho is sitting on the floor next to her, resting her back and her head against the night table. Her right leg was retracted so her elbow could rest on her knee. Surprisingly, she is wide awake by now seen from her eyes staring blankly forward. And there is an empty bottle of Smirnoff Vodka next to her.

Shiho is pretty much frightened that she's here, after what happened yesterday. She immediately backed off from her in fear and didn't dare to say a word. Shiho is afraid if Miho wanted to hurt her this morning. Shiho actually trembled of her presence because of how dangerous she was, she nearly killed her before because of what happened to her husband and kept it as secret.

As Shiho shook in fear, Miho responds to her calmly. "Good to see you're awake."

Shiho was still nervous but managed to reply. "Y-you too."

A few moments of silence afterward, Miho then turns her head at her mother. Seeing how concern she is, Miho just sighed.

"Calm down, I'm not here to hurt you," Miho told her, which somehow comforts her.

Shiho calms down, but only a bit as she is seen patting the collar of her shirt. "W-why are you here?"

"I'm only here to look over on you," Miho replied with a shook. "Nothing else than that."

"What's… with the alcohol?" Shiho asked as she points at the empty bottle.

"I was drinking myself to sleep," Miho replied as she looks over to the empty bottle. "I have insomnia, so the least thing that can help me to sleep is to drink alcohol."

"I see…" Shiho responded with a slow nod as she looks down, then looks back up at her. "How did I end up here?"

"Maho and I picked you up from the living room last night," Miho replied as she leans her head against the night table. "Ms. Kikuyo helped clean the mess you made back there. I didn't know you were a drinker."

Shiho just sighed to her disappointment; she didn't want her daughters to see her doing something like that. "Kind of."

Miho looks at her for a moment, before looking back forward as she retracted her other leg and hugged them. "There's nothing wrong with that."

Shiho raised an eyebrow to that. Then, she backs up and leans against the heading of her bed. By now, her concern about Miho's presence is barely gone. She knows how calm Miho is right now despite what happened yesterday. They've been silent for about a minute as they have nothing else to say; both only blankly stare forward. Shiho felt not good to talk to her daughter now while Miho herself been silent and possibly contemplates on the situation they're in.

Then Miho breathed out and bowed her head, she is upset. "I'm sorry."

Shiho turns her head at her, did take her off-guard. "What?"

"I'm sorry," Miho said again, with her softer tone. "What I did was too far."

Shiho stares at her for a moment, before she decided to turn herself around and sits on the bed. Then Miho continued. "I nearly tried to kill you because I was too angry to hear about what happened to my father. I made you scared by putting your life at risk by myself. I didn't mean to do that."

Miho is full of remorse about what she did to her mother. Something a daughter shouldn't have done to their parents.

But Shiho has remorse of her own as well. "I want to apologize too."

Miho wasn't so surprised about it, despite that, she looks up to her. "I shouldn't have hidden the fate befell your father. It was reckless and selfish of me. I only did that because I wanted our family to stay intact, and as I said before, to forget about him because I hate that he left us. To forget what could destroy our family."

Miho only stared at her with a pathetic look, before sighing. "You don't have to forget about him."

Shiho looks at her in unsure. "What do you mean by that?"

Miho only stood up and then sat next to her mother, who is visibly a bit agitated, but managed to calm down. Miho then replies. "Captain Price ever said that we would try to honor their deeds, even as their faces fade from our memory. Those memories are all that's left for us to remember, to remember what all they did for those they love. To thank them, what good they give when they're still alive."

Shiho looks down as she contemplates what she said before Miho added. "Do not hate him for what he did; he tried his best for his friends, and for our family. Remember his name, remember the deeds he did for us. Our love will never fade, no matter what."

Shiho felt so comfortable with her words. It made her think about what actions Shiho herself had done. She blamed her husband for getting himself killed, even though what he did was a good deed. Shiho then looks back up to her.

"I'll give some time to think about what you said. Thank you, Miho."

Miho just chuckled. "You don't need to thank me."

Shiho is rather glad to know that they manage to mend their relationship back to normal. Still, they both still remembered sourly of what happened yesterday, so they both frowned together about it. They both then looked back at each other to see each other's eyes. They both then smiled at each other.

To which then Shiho asked something. "I was too drunk, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," Miho replied with a nod.

"I hope I didn't do… something weird," Shiho hopefully said.

"Well, you kissed me while you're drunk," Miho replied, which made her mother blushed a bit.

"I'm pretty sure that was fine," Shiho responded with a smile.

Miho gave a poker face at her. "You kissed me on the lips."

Then Miho received a shocked glare from her mother. By now, Shiho's blush is redder than before and mortified. But she began to concern if Miho is so pissed that Shiho kissed her like that while drunk.

"I… I…"

"Nah, it's alright," Miho responded as she waves her hand to her. "Besides, I kissed Maho in the lips before."

Shiho turns her whole upper body at her in shock and mortified, and also that took her off-guard. Her whole is already red by the time she said that. Then she looks away from her.

"Never mind what I just said," Miho replied with a sigh. "Right now, Let's get prepare for the day. I'll clean up my mess."

"Alright, Miho," Shiho replied with a nod as they both stood up.

Miho took her empty bottle from the floor and headed for the door. Before she leaves however, she gave a last glance to Shiho.

"And mother," Miho paused. "Pick an outfit that is more… colorful."

Shiho replied with a warm smile. "Okay, Miho. And one more thing."

"Yes?"

"You told me what happened about the London Massacre. I'm very sorry to hear what befell you."

Miho frowned for a moment to that mourning before she gives a flat smile. "Thank you."

Miho nodded at her, then leave the room. Shiho just sighed to herself as she was glad that Miho didn't hurt her; instead she advised what she had done for her family. She will take the thought about that later. Right now, they are going to have a visit to a tankery match nearly in the afternoon. And surely they won't miss that.

And now, Shiho should think about what colorful clothes she's going to wear.


	61. Chapter 58 - A Kill Shouldn't Be Made

Tottori City, Tottori Prefecture. 11:45 AM.

.

"I'm surprised you wore something colorful for today."

"Well… Miho suggested to me about that."

"It looks good on you, mother."

"Thank you, Maho."

"How are you both getting along after what happened yesterday?"

"Pretty much shaken. But I think we'll be fine for now, Maho."

"If you say so, Miho."

They have reached the place where the tankery match will be held. The place is at the mall known as Ottori Fukuba Mall. It was a three-four story building, with the ground they are in has a ceiling of glass with the next floors are on the north side of the clear glass ceiling. It meant to let the pedestrians enjoy the view above their heads while at the same protecting them from rain. The glass ceiling is located above the mall lobby, where Miho's family is in now.

They are currently sitting on a bench, pretty much waiting for the match to start. And also, they're sitting and waiting for Anchovy to show up along with a few friends, which includes Emi Nakasuga, and Sheska. Miho is expecting to meet them both after her year of disappearance. Because, one, Miho wanted to know them more. And two, she has a promise to keep with Emi Nakasuga, to meet her again someday to continue their friendship.

Miho wears her gray shirt and blue jeans, of course, along with her small pouch on the center of the belt. For today, she didn't bring a gun nor did she bring a knife. She didn't want people asking the question on what she brought, aside from her lighter and cigars. She is pretty sure there's no trouble in the match, so she didn't bring her weapons, not even her tac-baton.

Maho wears her KMM outfit, and she did bring her official Sensha-Do jacket. Aside from that, she's the only person who brought a tac-baton. Assuming that she felt that there's something wrong in around here but doesn't know what it is. Miho doesn't see anything off for the moment, but Miho agreed with Maho's intuition and kept a sharp eye out.

Shiho, on the other hand, she's finally wearing her blue shirt and long yellow skirt along with a white coat. For a long time, Miho and Maho were waiting for their mother to finally wearing something colorful. Maho was pretty happy enough to see her not in those unnerving black outfits and white shirt. For Miho, she had hoped that Emi would change her mind when she lays her eyes upon Miho's mother.

They have met up with other friends from other schools. Starting from the commanders of St. Gloriana, Chi-Ha-Tan, Pravda, KMM, Maginot, Saunders, Anzio except for Anchovy, Jatkosota, BC Freedom's overall commander, and lastly most of Miho's friends from Ooarai including her former Anglerfish team. They waited for a moment, and someone they know come over to them. Much to their surprise, it was the Shimada Family. Chiyo and Alice are here to watch the match, and they seem glad to meet their rival family.

They stood up from the bench and greeted them with a bow, Miho only gave the nod to them and stayed silent. "Kon'nichiwa, Shimada-sama."

"Kon'nichiwa," Chiyo responded, both her and Alice returned the gesture. "How are you doing?"

"We are all doing fine as always, Chiyo-sama," Shiho replied with a nod.

"You know, I'm pretty surprised that you have decided to pick something more colorful," Chiyo commented with a smile. "What happened with black and white uniform?"

"Well, Miho suggested me to wear something colorful," Shiho replied with a smile. "I feel different now."

"I guess Miho gave some insight yesterday, doesn't she?" Chiyo asked happily.

But when she mentioned "yesterday," the Nishizumi Family suddenly frowned much to the Shimadas' surprise. Alice and Chiyo didn't like the expression they gave.

"Did something happened yesterday?" Alice asked with a frown as well.

The Nishizumis didn't say a word for a moment. But to see them so silent like this was pretty unnerving for Chiyo. Never she had seen Shiho so upset of something that she didn't speak a word along with her daughters.

"What is upsetting to you?" Chiyo asked Shiho.

Shiho didn't answer immediately, but then Shiho eyes up to Miho, signaling her to answer that. "It's about our father."

Chiyo raised an eyebrow to that. "About your father, who left you?"

They then gaze Maho, who surprisingly gave a sharp gaze. "He didn't leave."

Chiyo and Alice were both surprised at her response. Chiyo didn't understand what she meant by that aside from the story she heard from Shiho on how did he leave without a word. Chiyo also wondered why did they come up with that trouble in the first place. She then turns her head at Shiho.

"He didn't leave?" Chiyo asked confusingly. "What does that mean?"

Shiho sighed before she responded. "I lied to you. About… what happened to our father."

Chiyo and Alice both stood with a frown. When she says it that way, she understands what she meant.

"He died?"

Shiho nodded in response. "I'm sorry for lying to you."

Shiho then looked over to both of her daughters and told them. "I think it's better if you leave us to talk for a moment."

Chiyo then looks down at her only daughter. "You too, my dear."

"Yes, okaa-san," Alice replied with a nod before the daughters proceeded to leave their mothers alone to their conversation.

Now that the three daughters are all alone in the middle of the mall, Miho asked the group. "What shall we do now?"

"Didn't you say that you're waiting for Anchovy and the others?" Maho asked.

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod. "I just want to know if you have any plans for now."

"I want to check out the Boko Shop around the corner," Alice answered flatly. "You're coming?"

Miho is pretty affectionate about Boko teddies. It is her hobby to collect those kinds of teddy bears. The reason she chose Boko bears was the kind of personality that bear has. Very optimistic, never give up even if its weak, but yet it had arrogance. But most of all, she likes Boko because of its willpower. But now… she's not really a Boko collector now, but she won't mind buying one. But of course, she didn't want her lover and her other friends to worry if she's not keeping up her promise.

"Sounds great, but I can't," Miho refused politely. "I don't want Anchovy and the others worrying I'm late. Why don't you take Maho with you?"

"Sounds good enough," Alice agreed with a smile. "But, I should ask okaa-san to give me some money."

"Wait, Alice," Miho then pulls out her wallet and pulls out some money. Then she reaches her money to Alice. "Here's my money. I hope that's enough for you."

"Hang on, how much is this?" Alice asked, noticing the high amount of money she had in her hands.

"5.000 yens."

That's pretty much a blasphemous amount of money for 14 years old. "Wha- are you sure? It's too much for me."

"Yeah," Maho agreed with Alice. "Don't you think it's too much?"

"Nah, it's fine," Miho replied sincerely. "I don't you to bother your mother while they're talking privately."

"You got the point," Maho agreed as she tilts her head.

"Also, Alice," Miho added as she raised her index finger. "Try to buy one for me if you can. It doesn't have to be a limited edition."

"Okay, Miho," Alice replied with a nod and a smile. "We'll be heading off now. Be seeing you."

"Okay," Miho returned the nod, then looks up to Maho. "Keep an eye on her."

"Don't worry, she'll be fine," Maho assured her, be heading off to the Boko shop.

Miho is all alone for now in the middle of the mall lobby. She only stood as her head turns around to her surroundings. A lot of students and civilians are walking around the mall, eating from Anzio stands, chatting with each other, discussing the tankery match, taking pictures, examining the display of tanks and banners and stands, playing board games, and waiting for the match. Miho did spot her Anglerfish team friends in the distance, both Miho and the team spot each other and exchange a wave to greet. She watched them left, and she waited again, but now wondering what took Anchovy and the rest too long. However, she spotted a couple of BC Freedoms on a bench on her left.

She decided to take a closer look as she walks over to them. To her expectation, it was Andou and Oshida sitting on the bench. But they seem to do something on the bench, and she takes a much closer look at them when she reached them. She was about to greet them when she saw something unexpected on what are those girls doing.

Andou and Oshida are currently kissing each other passionately.

It was rather surprising for Miho to see them from hating each other to loving each other for a few months. Guess it was a secondary consequence of fighting with Miho. Andou chose not to fight, and slowly Oshida became affectionate of her. Either that or… Miho made Oshida worried about Andou's condition a few months ago.

Miho decided to interrupt them. "Mm-mhm."

Both BCF girls startled and stop their kissing, then quickly turn their heads at Miho. They both immediately blushed and stood off from the bench. They both then quickly look away from others shyly as they attempted to deny the fact she just saw. She noticed they both took a step back from her, maybe because they scared a bit if Miho responded with something harsh.

"Mi-Miho, it's not like what you think!" Andou responded quickly.

"We both were just practicing!" Oshida responded aloud in denial. "It was her idea!"

"No, it was your idea!" Andou denied, thankfully, she was shy to say it instead of angry.

"No, it was yours!" Oshida denied aloud, blushing redder than before. "You asked me to teach you how to kiss!"

"Alright, calm down you both," Miho interrupted them flatly. "You don't have to hide the fact that you love each other from me."

"N-no, you got it wrong!" Andou responded as she shook both of her open palms at her.

"Look," Miho responded as she bowed her head and reached her open palm at her, before continuing. "Marie told me about what's going on with you two."

That response made both of the girls to stood silence. They blankly stare at Miho for a moment before Andou asks her.

"Wait, Marie told you?"

"Yes, she told me."

Then Andou slowly facepalmed to herself in embarrassment while Oshida just sighed to what Miho said.

"I told you to not tell Marie about that, Andou!" Oshida scolded her, but she's angry a little about it.

"Well, I guess it's my fault," Andou replied shyly with a smile while rubbing her neck with her left hand.

Miho shrugs to Andou's comment, agreeing to what she said. "I think it was too early to tell you that."

"No, not really," Oshida responded with a shook. "I'm pretty much glad I didn't end up fighting with Andou."

"I thought you said Andou doesn't want to fight with you anymore," Miho stated as she narrowed her eyebrows to that.

Oshida could only chuckle as Andou sighs with a smile. "You got me there," Oshida replied with a nod.

"Since when did you both fall in love?" Miho asked curiously, putting her hands on her hips.

"A couple of months after what happened in Kumamoto," Andou replied as she crosses her arms. "I think I made Oshida worried enough about me."

"Of course, I was pretty worried about you!" Oshida added quickly, can't help but to say it in a lighter tone. "I don't even know if I want to hate you or to hit you."

"There was a saying that you keep your friends close," Miho said to them. "And keep your enemies much closer."

"Looks like we both are too close enough, don't we, Oshida?" Andou asked jokingly her, which amused her.

"Aw, quit it, Andou," Oshida replied with a smug smile, gently pushing her shoulder with her fist.

"Anyway, you're here for the match as well?" Miho asked them as she gestures her hand at their surroundings.

"Isn't it obvious?" Andou asked happily. "Aren't you here for the match too?"

"No, not really."

"Huh?"

That confuses both the BCF girls for a moment. "Then why are you here, just walking around like a headless chicken?" Andou asked confusingly, of course, with a hint of arrogance.

"I have an appointment to meet with someone," Miho replied, clasping her hands to each other and put them on her waist.

"You mean Anchovy?" Andou asked as she rubs her head. "Your lover?"

"Not only her."

"Huh?" Oshida commented as they both were surprised. "Who else?"

"Are you familiar with Sheska and Emi Nakasuga?"

They are dumbfounded of the names, but they both nodded. "We do know them. Are they your friends?" Andou asked curiously.

"Emi Nakasuga is actually an old friend of mine back in elementary," Miho then paused as her eyes looked away. "As for Sheska… she's an acquaintance of mine from KMM."

"That's funny," Andou commented with a raised brow. "Isn't Sheska supposed to be your friend instead of an acquaintance back in KMM?"

"If I had a chance to get to know her before that bridge incident, then maybe," Miho replied flatly and with an unamused face.

"Wow, you're right," Oshida agreed, surprised of her respond. "Sucks for you."

"Yes, sucks for me," Miho agreed with a nod then sighs.

Andou could chuckle of Miho's response, before asking. "Do you mind if we tag along?"

"You know," Oshida tilts her head as she shrugs one of her shoulders. "Seeing we don't have anything to do here."

"Aside from letting you both kissing each other?" Miho asked as she points at them.

"Wha-?" Oshida wanted to scold her, but remembering what Miho could do, she halts for a moment as they both blushed. "Y-yes, aside from that."

"Alright, you can tag along," Miho replied, then turns her head to her surroundings. "I wonder where is-"

"MIHO-CHAN!"

They immediately turn their heads to the source of the voice. To their happiness, it was Anchovy along with Teramoto, gladly Emi Nakasuga and Sheska, her other old friends Hitomi Yuzumoto and Chihiro Yusa, along with with other two she didn't recognize but are twins, and another two girls she didn't recognize. Miho waves her hand at Anchovy as they walked over to them. And Miho took a good look at the new friends with her. They look nice, emphasis "nice."

Firstly, the twins that both look the same. Both have long blonde hair tied with a black hairband, with a few strands of hair sticking out from the left or right side of her head. They have light blue eyes. They are both short and are wearing a cream-colored sweater over the Bellwall Academy shirt and spats underneath their skirts.

The next one is a tall girl with messy short purple-brown hair and light brown eyes. She has a noticeable ahoge. She wears a black fur coat over a white v-neck, along with the skirt from the school uniform. Miho also noticed that this girl has shark-like teeth, nearly took that one as an illusion from her time drinking alcohol. The girl's appearance looks pretty fierce and somehow ruthless

The other girl, on the other hand, looks like the counterpart of the previous girl. She's a tall girl with long blue-black hair and dark blue eyes. She wears the Bellwall uniform shirt with a beige sweater and a long (ankle-length) skirt. She has a very calm but intimidating aura about her. Which is oddly satisfying for Miho to see.

Miho noticed both Andou and Oshida visibly shaken of their presence. Presumably because of the two tall girls with their intimidating appearances. Miho shrugs just that thing off like it's not a burden for her.

Eventually, the group reached them, with Anchovy hugs her. "Good to see you, Miho-chan!"

"Good to see you too, Emerald," Miho replied warmly as her lover lets go of her. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine as always, Miho-chan~," Anchovy happily replied, then she gestured her to Miho's old friends. "How about you?"

"Same as you, I suppose," Miho replied with a thumbs up, then looked over to her old friends behind her. "And how glad I am to see you."

"We're glad to see you too, Miho," Emi replied happily with a smirk. "I've been waiting to meet you for a long time."

"How long we haven't met each other?" Miho asked, her hands widen to her sides.

"For too long, Miho-san," Hitomi replied with a smile. "Too long."

"Hitomi," Miho then shook her hands with her. "Good to see you. And Chihiro…"

Miho then proceeds hugs her tightly, before letting her go. "Glad you're here as well. You look pretty grown-up."

"That's very obvious, Miho-san," Chihiro replied with a nod. "But, I sure miss you so much."

"Miho," Sheska called flatly and bowed to her as Miho turns her head. "It's good to meet you."

Miho returned her greet with a nod. "It's good to meet you too."

"It's very nice to see your reunion, Miho-san," Haru commented with a smile.

"Yes, it's nice," Miho agreed with a nod. "And I see you brought some new friends."

"Yes, we did. Everyone, this is Miho," Emi replied with a nod, then gestures to her schoolmates. "Miho, these are-"

"We are the Kawashiba sisters!" the twins introduced aloud together. "Bellwall's Famous Motor Vehicle Club!"

"Aren't you both real charming?" Miho complimented with a smirk.

The Kawashiba sisters were taken aback of her compliment. "Wha- The hell you're talking about?!"

"She's complimenting you, Baka-Shiwaba!" Emi responded with a rather annoyed tone.

"What is it with you, gorilla woman?!" One of the sisters, Kanako, pouted back.

"Calm down, you three," Miho said to them. "Before I have to kill all of you."

Everyone fell silent and stare back at her with their rather blank stares. "What did you just say?" Andou asked from behind her, stupefied.

"It was nothing."

Both Teramoto and Anchovy were unsure if she's gone crazy or not. Everyone else just dismissed what she said with a nod. "Right…" Sheska awkwardly commented as they looked away from her.

"Moving on, this is Neko Yamamori," Emi introduced as she gestures at the tall girl with an appearance of a shark. "Jagpanther commander of Bellwall Academy, and also the leader of her band of the delinquent."

Miho raised an eyebrow to that as she could felt the two BCF girls behind her visibly shaken. "She's a hooligan?"

"What's a hooligan?" Neko asked with her eyebrows narrowed at her.

"Another way to describe a delinquent."

"Oh? That's good to know, Miho-san" Neko reaches her hand at Miho, to which they shook together. "This girl next to me is also a delinquent leader with her gang."

Miho then looked at the blue-black haired girl, to which that girl introduces herself with a bow. "Chifuyu Doi, a pleasure to meet you."

"A pleasure to meet you, too," Miho replied with a bow. "And I must say, I'm starting to like your calm demeanor. Something rare to see from a delinquent."

"Thank you for your compliment," Doi replied with an envious smirk. "I, as a leader of my gang of delinquent, can do a better job than Neko here."

"Oh, are you trying picking a fight, huh?" Neko asked threateningly, narrowing her left brow at Doi.

"Hey, hey, don't try to start a fight here," Anchovy told them as she shook and points at them.

"Why, are you worried that one of us gets hurt?" Neko asked her with a smirk.

"No, I'm not," Anchovy replied with a shook. "I'm pretty much concern if Miho got involved in your fight as well."

All the Bellwall girls are pretty much surprised by her words. Neko and Doi, on the other hand, gave their curious look at Anchovy.

"Wait, Miho can fight?" Emi asked in disbelieve. "Like a real fight?"

Miho just sighed to that. "You don't want to know."

"No way!" The Kawashiba sisters responded in disbelieve.

"Actually I agree with Miho," Teramoto added as she tilts her head at Miho.

"I think I ever heard you fought with the Maginots before," Sheska added with a narrowed brow.

"About 15- no, 16 of them, yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod, which surprises the Bellwall girls, especially Emi and the delinquents. "They had the worst of the beatings."

"You fought against 16 Maginots students?" Neko asked with a smirk but disbelieved on that. "I can hardly believe that."

"Let me try to remember," Miho paused for a moment as her eyes lookup. "I slammed a Maginot's face onto a table, I threw 3 of them out the window, 4 of them slammed onto the tables, I broke six students' bones and stabbed two Maginots in their hands. Yeah, I think that's all of them."

Those who knew about what Miho did to the Maginots only gave their awkward expressions. Emi, Sheska, Hitomi, and Chihiro give their widen eyes, and Hitomi shows her horrified eyes in shock. Neko and Doi, on the other hand, were surprised by what Miho did to the Maginots a few months ago. Something that a girl like Miho herself should be impossible to do.

"No wonder Geshiko asked me not to make you angry," Sheska commented with discomfort. "And she says that right before I got here."

"That's quite an achievement for a girl like you," Doi gives a flat smile to her, showing her surprise. "I'm sure your Nishizumi-style taught you a lot of fighting for yourself."

"Actually, I trained myself on defending myself," Miho replied with a shook. "Not through Nishizumi-style teachings."

Emi leaned her head back and raised her eyebrows. "Wait, your mother didn't teach you about that?"

"Why should she?" Miho asked back.

"You know, never mind about that," Emi replied in haste. "Where did you go after that incident in Ooarai?"

Miho just shrugged. "I washed up in London, UK."

"Huh?" the Bellwall students gave their disbelieve glares, with most of their heads, including Emi's tilt to the side. "That's… across the globe, Miho-san! There's no way you washed up there from Japan," Hitomi exclaimed as she isn't convinced about that.

"Maybe you should ask the sea to know why I got washed up there," Miho replied, waves her arm at Hitomi.

"Is that sarcasm I hear, Miho-san?" Chihiro asked with a raised brow as she pockets her hands in her jacket.

"Nearly," Miho replied. "Aside from that-"

"Hei, bos!"

Everyone turn their heads to the source of the voice to Miho's left. There's an average tan man in a black leather jacket with a blue t-shirt underneath it along with dark blue jeans. His head is nearly bald, with a sign of thin hair around his head. No mustache nor beard, but he has a distinctive face of Dayak people. Miho recognized him as one of her 141 members and one of the Indonesians in her Task Force, and his name was Surandi.

"Nona Miho!" Surandi greeted her after he reached them, surprising all the friends with Miho. "Senang sekali bertemu dengan ikau di sini."

"Wah, Pak Surandi," Miho replied with a smile as she shook hands with him. "Saya tidak kepikiran anda akan datang ke sini."

The realization that Miho can speak his language was pretty dumbfounding and incredible for the girls, even Neko and Doi open their jaws to that.

"Saya pengen lihat pertandingan tank ini seperti apa," Surandi replied as his hands are on his hips. "Saya penasaran bagaimana cara mereka memainkannya."

"Kukira anda sudah nonton lewat TV," Miho questioningly replied as she tilts her head at him.

"Ah, kurang asik, Miho," Surandi replied. "Lebih memilih menonton secara langsung agar saya mengerti."

"Ah, begitu ya," Miho nodded at him. "Nanti ada yang lain datangkah?"

"Kayaknya cuman si VIcek aja," Surandi replied, but hearing Vicek's name perked Anchovy's ears up. "Sisanya asik sendiri di rumah."

"Ah, ok," Miho replied with a thumbs up. "Pertandingannya belum dimulai sih. Jadi, kamu keliling saja di sekitar sini. Cari sesuatu untuk menyibukkan dirimu."

"Ada jualan Mandau gak disini?" Surandi asked as he looked around.

"Perasaan gak ada-," Miho quickly halts. "Surandi, saya harap anda tidak ada rencana untuk melakukan Mandau Terbang di sini."

"Yaahh… kenapa?" Surandi asked, playing dumb to Miho, who knew he is of Dayakese descent.

"Kamu ingatkan terakhir kali bagaimana kejadiannya di London tahun lalu?" Miho asked to him, reminding him of what happened last December ago. "Kamu hampir menciptakan kepanikan massal setelah merayakan hari natalan tahun lalu di bulan Desember."

"Saya saat itukan cuman mau nakutin teman kita," Surandi responded with a jokingly high tone.

"Yah, cara kamu nakutin orangnya hampir memanggil polisi sekota, tahu?" Miho responded annoyingly. She had displeasure of that event last Christmas. "Untung saya bisa urusi para polisi itu,"

"Ok, ok, tenang aja. Saya gak ada mau aneh-aneh gitu kok," Surandi replied as he chuckled. "Ikau gak makankah?"

"Saya sudah makan di rumah," Miho replied with a shrug. "Saya mungkin nanti keliling mal sama teman-temanku nih."

"Dan sama pacar cewekmu yang itukan?" Surandi asked curiously, much to Miho's surprise, he didn't go against loving the same gender, knowing how people of Indonesia usually react to that.

"Ya, sama dia juga," Miho replied with a nod.

"Ok, yaku pergi dulu ya," Surandi replied with a nod. "Nyari makan dulu."

"Ok, hati-hati di jalan."

"Tenang aja, bos."

Surandi waved a bye at Miho before leaving the girls alone. After watching for a few moments until he's out of sight, Miho turns her head to all of her friends. And of course, she couldn't help but notice the flustered gabbed expressions they have now. Both Emi and Sheska blinked for a few times as to what language they just heard. It seems they thought that having Miho speaking in German was enough for them, and this was out of her line.

"Miho," Andou called. "In what language were you talking just now?"

Miho turns her head at her and tilts down. "Indonesian."

Everyone looked at each other for a moment before looking back at her. "You ain't kidding," Chihiro replied with widen eyes.

"How did you learn that language?" Teramoto asked curiously.

"Oh, it was bloody easy," Miho replied with a chuckle. "It took me a day or two to understand the language fully."

"What was that about Mandau Terbang?" Anchovy asked, which made Miho glares at her. "That's how you say it, right?"

"I rather not tell you," Miho replied with a shook.

"And why is that?" Sheska asked with an annoyed look. "Is that a little secret of your own affair?"

"No, it's not," Miho said as she turns at her. "It involves losing someone's head off, literally. And he did that before literally."

When she adds literally, they took 5 seconds to realize what she meant. But then Miho added. "Not the killing part, just flying the damn Mandau part."

Anchovy sighed in relief. The rest, on the other hand, fell agitated except for Neko and Doi.

"You sure have interesting friends, Miho-chan," Anchovy commented with a smile.

"I sure have," Miho replied with a nod.

"From where did you get him?" Emi asked, raised her arms in front of her hip.

"Somewhere outside of London, I guess," Miho replied with a shrug. "He's in an immigration program before."

"Nearly like a student exchange program like Emi-san?" Doi asked curiously in her scarily calm tone.

"Something like that, Ms. Chifuyu," Miho replied with a nod.

"Oh, there's no need for formality, Miho," Doi replied with a chuckle. "We are friends, after all."

"If you could gain her trust, of course," Oshida added sheepishly.

"Trust issues, eh?" Neko asked with a smile. "That's pretty normal for us, Bellwall students."

Miho just chuckled to that. "You keep talking like that, and I'll starting to consider we'll be best friends."

Neko and the rest laughed slightly to that, Doi and Miho both chuckled to what Miho had said. "Don't worry, Miho. I'm pretty sure we can work out as best friends," Emi replied with a thumbs up.

"Miho, can I ask you something?" Chihiro asked curiously with a raised brow.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Why do you got a scar on your eye?"

As Miho touches her old scar, the Bellwalls and Sheska soften their faces. "I heard you got scratched by a tiger, right?" Sheska asked, to which all the Bellwalls turn their heads at her.

"Got scratched by tiger?!" Hitomi asked in terrified, continued by Emi, who responded in anger. "Have you lost your-!?"

"Whoa, calm down now, Emi-san," Anchovy calmly replied, to which Emi abruptly stops her scolding. "Sheska is right about what happened to Miho. About how she got that scar."

Emi winced her eyebrows at Anchovy, before turning around to Miho. "That was true?"

Miho didn't answer but replied to her with a nod.

"I see," Emi replied with a nod, then puts her finger on her chin. "I guess your life back in London is very nice."

"A little rough might be correct," Miho replied, then she rubs her neck. "But I'm doing fine until now."

"Okay," Emi then turns her head to Sheska. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Sheska replied with a shook.

"Well… I guess our promise is fulfilled," Miho stated to her. "Right?"

"Well, not really," Emi replied with a shook and a flat smile.

"What do you mean by that?" Miho asked in a bit of confusion, unaware that she smirks by herself.

"Our promise is not only that we meet each other again," Emi replied with a smile. "We also do our tankery together again. Just like old times."

Anchovy and Miho frowned on that, of course, Miho states her comment. "Right… just like old times."

Kakano Kawashiba noticed the expression she showed. "Why are you frowning like that? I thought you'd be happy to do a tankery with Emi-san."

"Yeah, why are you frowning?" the question continued by her sister Tsurugiko.

"We were expecting you'll be happy about it," Hitomi stated in confusion.

Emi narrowed her eyes to Miho in suspicion. "Is there something wrong for you?"

"Um, Emi-san," Oshida called before clasping her hands together with a clap. "I'm afraid Miho doesn't do any tankery anymore."

"WHAT!?" All the Bellwalls, including Sheska, loudly responded. "What do you mean you don't do tankery anymore?!" Emi retorts to Miho.

"After what happened back in the 62nd National and that incident in Ooarai," Miho sourly replied in discomfort. "The tankery has been giving me nothing but negative effects."

"That's nonsense!" Neko exclaimed, waved her hand at her. "You're a Nishizumi."

"It has nothing to do with her being a Nishizumi, I'm afraid," Teramoto added with a frown as well.

"Of course, it has anything to do with that," Chihiro replied in denial. "Sensha-do is in her blood."

"But my path is different," Miho replied with a shook. "Not the path of my own tankery but the path I chose in my life."

"You got to be kidding me," Emi was starting to be irritated. "After what we were through years ago when you want us to do tankery as one united friend. You want to throw that away?!"

"I don't choose that path, not threw them away," Miho coldly replied.

"Then what about that time you joined the tankery back in the Exhibition Match?" Sheska asked as she frowned.

"That was different," Miho replied with a shook. "I joined that match because I was preventing Ooarai school from getting shut down."

Before things get escalate real quick, Anchovy quickly turns at Emi and holds her by her chest. "Easy now, Emi. I think it's best not to make things worse than they should."

Emi is already irritated about that, but when she looks back at Miho, Miho's face softens with a hint of a frown. "I'm sorry."

Emi had enough of hearing her keep saying sorry long ago. But it seems Emi calmed down and controls her breathing, seeing it was unnecessary to fight over Miho's path of tankery.

"Alright, we're not fighting over that," Emi then sighed, then turns her head to Anchovy. "What do you suggest we should do?"

"You still have time before the match, right?" Anchovy asked her to make sure.

"Yes, why?" Emi replied with a nod.

"Why don't we go to buy something for ourselves?" Anchovy asked with a smile. "To keep your spirits up for the incoming match against the Blue Division."

"Besides, we don't want you to be upset while you have your reunion," Andou added as she points her thumb to behind her. "How about we go to the souvenir and accessories shop on the third floor?"

"Wait, why don't we just stay on this floor?" Nakano asked with a raised, then continued by her twin sister. "You know there's a souvenir shop down hear."

"Oh, believe me," Andou replied with a smirk and a shook. "The shop on the third floor is better than here."

"Andou's right about that," Teramoto added in agreement. "The shop on that floor is greater than here."

Everyone looked at each other one by one, each of them considering if they should go to that shop to see something nicer than this floor. Miho honestly thanked Anchovy and her friends to make sure their reunion stay fine as ever. After a few moments for the Bellwalls and Sheska to look at each other to consider it, they all then turned their heads at Anchovy. With Emi turning her head at Miho for a moment.

"Sounds like a good idea, Anchovy," Emi responded with a nod. "Let's go then."

"Alright," Andou happily replied as she gestured them to follow her. "Let's go."

"Miho," someone called from a distance, stopping them in their tracks abruptly and then see on who called her. Much to Emi's dislike and discomfort, it was Miho's mother coming up to them.

"Mother," Miho responded as Shiho reached them. "Something's up?"

"Where did Maho and Alice go?" Shiho softly asked in concern.

"They went that way," Miho then points to the direction where they have gone. "They are in a Boko shop over there."

"I see," Shiho then turns her head at the Bellwall students and Sheska for the moment.

For everyone, including Anchovy, Andou, Oshida, and Teramoto were very, very surprised at what outfit Shiho had worn. This is the first time they saw her mother wearing something pretty much colorful aside from the usual cold black and white outfit. Even Emi flustered with a tilted head to see that Shiho's expression was not of cold and careless aside from her colorful outfit. Emi and Shiho stare at each other for a moment, before Shiho smiled at her.

"Good day to you, Emi-san," Shiho warmly greeted. "How are you getting along with my daughter?"

"Oh, erm…" Emi awkwardly pauses for a moment, noticing the Kawashiba sister took a step back from Shiho. "We are doing just fine. But… I'm just disappointed that Miho can't do a tankery even she had the skills for it."

"It's alright," Shiho replied with a smile and a nod. "She has a good reason why not to."

Everyone seems surprised by her warm respond, then Anchovy comments in amazement. "You look so… different today."

"I thought a change wouldn't hurt," Shiho replied as she clasped her hands below her waist. "Miho suggested to me about it, of course."

"I see…" Emi is pretty much dumbfounded of what Shiho just said. "You look great."

"Thanks for your compliment, Emi-san," Shiho then looks over her daughter. "I guess I'll leave you to it to let you have your fun."

"Of course, mother," Miho happily replied with a nod. "I'll see you later then."

"See you," Shiho responded with a bow, before looking back at the girls. "Excuse me."

Shiho bowed again at them before she leaves with her calm demeanor. The change in Miho's mother's personality left everyone stunned except for Anchovy. Sheska is pretty much shocked to see Shiho's behavior of a caring mother, knowing she is the headmistress of KMM. For the Bellwalls, especially Emi, Hitomi and Chihiro left their blank stares of Shiho's change of personality. Teramoto, Andou, and Oshida, on the other hand, were confused to see Shiho like that.

"Well…" Oshida awkwardly began as they look at each other. "That was… interesting."

"I never have seen her so calm and… radiant before," Sheska is merely confused on the head of the Nishizumi's expression.

"Did… something happens to her?" Hitomi asked in concern.

"Actually, we argued yesterday," Miho admitted with a sigh. "But then, we able to get along again back in the morning."

Anchovy winced her eyebrows in suspicion, while the rest of the girls were surprised of Miho's answer. "What kind of argument you had with your mother, Miho?" Anchovy asked, showing her concern when it comes to an argument.

Miho frowns to that question, with her bowed for a moment before looking up to her. "A kind of argument you don't like."

"What do you mean by that?" Oshida asked, visibly confused with an eyebrow raised.

Miho stood frozen for a moment, before turning her head to her. "Remember what I did back in Darjeeling's tea party, Oshida?"

That turned their faces to pale, Sheska and Teramoto are also included because they heard about it. The part Miho meant was when she almost choked Momo to death. The Bellwalls didn't know about that but became confused to see everyone frightened like that. Anchovy silent in shock there, trying to process what she had said.

To which then Anchovy asked. "Miho did you-?" She didn't dare to continue her question.

And instead of answering her, Miho only looked at her in silent in the sense of heavy guilt.

"Oh, Miho," Anchovy was so disappointed and sad about it.

"I'm sorry," Miho quickly apologized, bowed her head in shame.

Anchovy stays silent for a moment before asking. "But you both managed to get along?"

"Yes, we did," Miho replied with a nod, then turns her head to the elevator. "I'll tell you while we're walking."

The group begins to walk to the elevator ahead of them. Everyone entered the elevator with Miho as the last person to get in the elevator. Miho pressed the button, and the elevator is bringing them up to the third floor. Miho talked about what happened yesterday while they're on the way. The good thing was that Miho leaves out the part when she gun-pointed her own mother. It's safe to say that she will tell Anchovy on that part later when they're alone.

To hear her argument about what happened to her father and why Shiho kept it as a secret, Emi is pretty much angry internally to hear it. The Kawashiba sisters, Neko and Doi, could wince their eyes in disgust. Hitomi shook her head in disbelieve with Chihiro stood in silent. Anchovy and the rest felt sorry about the argument Miho had with Shiho.

When they almost reached the top floor, Miho takes a look behind the group. And again, Miho saw Andou and Oshida kissing each other for a moment. Which immediately attracts everyone's attention to that. When both girls looked back at the group as they kiss, they both quickly pull away and look away from each other in embarrassment. Miho could only sigh to that.

Once they reach the destined floor, they walked down the hallway and found the shop that Andou mentioned. It is a very nice and clean shop on this floor. There's a huge banner on top of the shop's entrance, and it's called "Touhou's Souvenir." It took no more than 5 minutes to find that shop.

Once they're inside, they began to inspect thorough the shop. They were impressed that Andou kept her word about this shop is better than the ground floor. There was a lot of merchandise inside, and its main theme was about tanks. From stickers, pencil cases, vases, small bags, toys, teapots, spoons and forks, miniature figures, etc. It's safe to say that everyone is pretty interested in the antics in the shop.

Everyone splits up from there with Miho, Anchovy, and Emi headed to the north section of the shop. Andou didn't mention that the shop is going to be a little wide, so there would be more antics for them to examine. Emi is interested in the miniature tanks on the left shelf. Anchovy is very interested in small tools and appliances for probably cooking, and also for decoration. For Miho… let's just say that she's still having trouble to find something interesting for her.

But then something caught her eye.

"Huh? What's this?"

Anchovy and Emi heard that and turned their heads to her. The object in question was a snow globe on the right shelf. To be specific, a snow globe with the Big Ben Tower in it. It seems that snow globe made her stood unresponsive, with her eyes still staring deeply into the snow globe. But unfortunately, with a frown on her face.

To which Anchovy remembers what Miho had said about the massacre back in London and around Europe. It was clear for her why Miho frowned on that.

"Hey," Emi then holds Miho's shoulder, surprising her a bit. "You okay?"

Miho stares at her for a moment in reluctance, before nodding. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm just…"

Then Miho looks back at the snow globe. "It's been a while to see a snow globe such as this."

Emi then looked over to the said snow globe in front of her. "UK theme, reminds you of London, huh?"

"Yes, it does," Miho replied with a nod, then picks the snow globe. "And it caught my interest."

"Then, you're buying one, then?" Anchovy asked with a small smile.

Miho examined the snow globe for a moment, before happily looked back at her lover. "I guess I'll buy one."

"Ok, Miho," Anchovy replied with a nod. "I think we got everything we want. Let's go back to the cashier."

They then headed back to the cashier with Miho stepping ahead of them. They chatted a little when they almost reached the cashier. But somehow Miho felt there is something wrong right now. Miho frowned to that feeling, which Emi and Anchovy didn't notice. And Miho noticed something else as they walk.

There were small noises heard in the distance. Those were concerned and scared voices that she heard. But Miho currently can't focus on what she's hearing due to Emi and Anchovy chatting behind her. But when they are out of the rows of shelves, they meet up with something unexpected — the only thing they should have avoided.

A robber is putting everyone in the store at gunpoint.

And that everyone was all Miho's friends who are with her. And also the owner of the store himself.

Miho slowly raised her hands in the air with her lover, and Emi did the same before the robber points his handgun at them.

"Sugu soko ni motte!" the masked robber then quickly waved his gun to this right. "Yukkuri kauntā ni ashi o fumiirete kudasai!"

"Easy," Miho calmly replied, her hands are still in the air.

"M-Miho," Anchovy shook in fear, her hands still in the air, and her eyes never leave the robber.

"Just do what he says," Miho calmly said, to which then they stepped slowly toward the counter. "And stay calm."

It is a very tense situation as the girls approached the counter and stood next to the cashier. The owner shook in fear as his hands are in the air. The Bellwalls, Sheska, Andou, and Oshida were pretty tensed but managed to stay calm. Miho could notice that Andou gulped and afraid of the armed robber.

It may look possible to call the police. But given the situation, the girls are in right now, if they make the call and the robber notice it then someone will get shot. Moreover, everyone in that area is standing in a circle, which giving the robber an advantage if any of them doing something suspicious. What makes the robber smarter is that he stood 7 feet away from the counter. Which makes the possibility to disarm him impossible, knowing only Miho could disarm and take him down.

Maho was right if there's something not right today. Miho regretted not bringing a gun.

"Now stay there!" the robber ordered with authority as he points his gun at the girls. "Don't do anything stupid."

"We won't," Miho replied calmly.

"Good, now shut up!" the robber then points his gun at the shop owner by the cashier. "You! Get the money out of the cashier!"

"O-okay," the owner then hastily opened the cashier and began taking the money out from inside.

"Empty the cashier! Quickly!" the robber said aloud, gripping his pistol tightly at the shop owner.

"Okay-okay!" the shop owner is getting agitated as he tried to get the money out the cashier quickly.

Miho didn't notice this, but Emi noticed Anchovy's eyes were starting to look at something behind them. Emi slowly and carefully turned her head very little to her left and used her peripheral vision to see it. She sees a phone left unattended on the long counter behind the girls. Emi quickly turns her head forward as Anchovy did the same, but Miho didn't notice what was Anchovy up to now.

As the robber is busy keeping an eye on the cashier, Emi whispered to Miho. "Miho, Miho."

"What?" Miho whispered back, but their heads still trained forward at the armed robber.

"Anchovy," Emi whispered back, to which make Miho widen her eyes.

Miho turned her head a little at Anchovy just in time to see her backing up slowly. "Anchovy, what are you doing?"

"I'm going for the phone," Anchovy whispered back, still stepping backward slowly with her hands in the air.

"Don't do it, Anchovy," Miho whispered at her in concern.

"Anchovy, don't," Andou whispered to her.

But the robber heard their whisperings and trained his handgun at them. "Hey, what are you talk- whoa hey!"

The girls tense up with Miho still in her same posture. But Anchovy stops for a moment before she very slowly took one step back again to the counter.

"What the hell do you think you're going, girl?!" the robber demanded loudly, Anchovy was busted.

"' Chovy," Miho called lowly, her eyes are sharp on the robber. "Don't do it."

"Anchovy," Neko called lowly. "Stop."

"I'm not going anywhere," Anchovy responded to the robber, brave but also concern are on her face.

"You take one step back, and I'll shoot you!" the robber shouts, aiming at Anchovy with one hand. "You hear me!?"

"Alright," Anchovy responded, Miho noticed one of her lover's feet very slowly took a step back.

Miho turned her head at her in heavy concern. "Anchovy, don't-"

The robber noticed the slow step Anchovy made. "Oh no, you don't."

*DOR*

"NO!" - Miho

"ANCHOVY!" – Emi and Andou.

"AAAH!" – Kawashiba sisters & Oshida

"Oh God!" – the rest

"That what happens if you don't listen, bitch!" the robber then looks back at the shop owner. "You! Put the money in the bag!"

Miho, Andou, and Emi quickly knelt to Anchovy after the gunshot, with the rest of the girls stood frozen in shock. Miho is glad that Anchovy survived that, the bullet hits her left shoulder and bleeding. But still, this is very bad.

"You alright?" Miho hastily asked as she checked her wound.

"I'm fine. I'm fine!" Anchovy quickly replied, then groaned from the pain of her wound. "Aagh."

"You'll be fine, Anchovy," Andou assured her as she puts the pressure on her wound. "You'll be fine."

"Stand up, you three!" the robber ordered them, pointing his handgun at them. "And don't make a goddamn move or I'll shoot you!"

Emi and Andou were reluctant to follow the robber's order. But Miho gave a different kind of expression. Emi and Andou didn't notice Miho's face turned dread and dark. Only Anchovy noticed that right after she looked away from the robber gun-pointing at them. Anchovy's face turned into the horror of what she saw straight into her lover's face.

The cold, ruthless, and deadly image of Miho Nishizumi's true self. The Banshee herself arisen from her heart.

Anchovy could only widen her eyes with fright before she asks her. "Miho, don't do it."

"What?" Emi asked both she and Andou were confused about what Anchovy said. "Why are you asking that to Mih-."

When both Emi and Andou looked at Miho, they were startled with her dreadful expression. "Miho, are you alright?" Andou dared to ask, her face was something more than what she saw back in Kumamoto.

Miho didn't reply despite the robber's demands with gunpoint. Miho only slowly stands up with her dreadful eyes that are still on Anchovy. Anchovy is getting more concern about her lover with the girls who have their hands still in the air wondering why Miho is acting like that.

"Don't do it," Anchovy pleaded to her, then shook at her. "Don't do this, Miho."

Miho ignored her pleads. Instead, she calmly turns her head and looked up at the robber. The girls were stunned to see Miho like that as if that wasn't her true self. The robber took notice of Miho but was confused to know if her current reaction wasn't of scared. The robber then immediately points his gun at Miho, who didn't flinch nor move a muscle.

"Put your damn hands up, you little shit!" the robber ordered aloud and angrily, his finger on the trigger. "You hear me, girl!?"

Miho didn't respond for a moment, but then she shook at him twice. Before saying one sentence to him.

"You're a dead man."

Before any of the girls and the shop owner registered what she said, Miho begins her step toward the robber. To their shock, there was no fear or concern in Miho. Only the aura of a raged girl Andou could feel.

"Hey, stay back!" the robber demanded, but Miho didn't stop walking to him. "You damn-!"

*DOR*

The bullet hits her right arm as the girls frightened to the shot. But…

Miho didn't flinch and didn't stop walking towards him.

"What the-?"

"RAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGHH!"

*DOR*

Miho tackled him by his stomach and pushed him forward as his handgun misfire. Thankfully, the bullet hits the counter, and the girls avoided that unscathed. But they were amazed and slack-jawed to see Miho is still pushing him away with a strength that a girl couldn't have against an adult. By the time they nearly reached the window, Emi, Neko, and Doi were about to run to them. But Miho pushed him away until they crashed through the window.

*PRRAAAAANNNGGG*

This leads them to their fall in the air with Miho's scream of rage and the robber's scream of fear.

"MIHO!"

They were too late to reach them. They only could stand frozen there, lost on what to do next. Anchovy, on the other hand, with her back off the floor and holding her wound, she was horrified of what had happened.

Would she survive that?

This was it. All her rage happened just because someone hurt her lover by a gunshot. She is glad that Anchovy survived.

But she won't let the bastard get away just like that.

As they are freefalling from the third floor and both of them are screaming, they were halted for a moment by three cables handing across the air. Of course, the robber's back was used to land against the cables, and Miho is safe on top of him, which is decreasing their momentum in the air while the gravity is doing the work for them both. But then the cables snap, and they continue to fall. Until they landed hard onto the ceiling of glass above the ground floor, breaking their continuous fall.

Both of them immediately separated from each other with groans of pain. Miho flipped off from the robber, but the robber's back is in pain as he lies on that point of landing. Not only their hard landing frightened the people below on the ground floor, but it also leaves a huge crack on the surface of the glass. Thankfully the glass didn't leave a hole. And thankfully, the robber is lying above the huge crack of glass.

But now, he's still a threat to her.

Miho breathes for a moment, her front is on the glass, and her head lifted from the glass. She looked down through the glass to the ground floor, with her pain is numb on her arm. She then lifted her head up and looked at the robber. The robber is slowly standing up with a loud groan from that painful fall. He was half-standing when the first thing he went for was the handgun right in front of him, and it was across Miho. She steadies her both arms as she grinned angrily at the bastard.

The robber noticed what Miho is up and quickly points his handgun at her.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't have a chance to pull the trigger.

Miho suddenly pounced at him with a war cry, tackling him down to the surface of the glass and his handgun thrown away. Now, Miho is on top of him, and the robber is stunned for the current moment. Miho's dreadful face shown to him before she lifts her right fist and strikes down to his masked face.

*BAK*

Then her left fist.

*BAK*

And again and again.

*BAK*

*BAK*

*BAK*

*BAK*

*BAK*

*BAK*

Her fist covered with his blood as his mouth bleeds from those hits. She then immediately noticed the long three cables that were snapped in the air by them before. She didn't give a second thought or give a conscience about it. Her rage burns because of her wounded lover.

Miho just grabbed them and tied them around the bastard's neck for three times and stopped. Miho then quickly chokes him down with all her might as the robber struggles for air and tries to fight her hands back.

"RAAAAAAAAARRRRGHGHHH!"

After an everlasting 10 seconds of choking him to death, she lets his neck go and went back for the cable she tied on his neck. Miho quickly gives the last tie behind the bastard's tied neck.

A dead-knot tie. With deadly efficiency of a noose.

She then goes back to the robber and lifts him off the glass with an angry cry. Then in order, holding his both shoulders one by one. Before proceeding to push him down to the cracked surface of the glass with a harsh force.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!".

*PRAAANNNGGG*

And they both freefall again, this time one of them is on the noose.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!-HYUEKH!"

The robber suddenly hanged in the air. Only Miho continues to free fall. Until…

*BRRAAAKK*

She crashed through the edge roof of an Anzio stand before ended up landing onto the ground floor with her back. Pain strikes her back like a hundred needles on her back. Miho only made a silent groan from that pain then she slowly stood her back off the floor. Miho lifts her head slowly and calmly. Then she turned her head to her surroundings.

To which she regretted to do.

Everyone is looking straight at her. All the civilians, all the students from different schools, and all of her friends who are present there are now staring at her.

All of her friends from Ooarai's tankery team, including her former Anglerfish team, were so dreadful of what they just witnessed, only staring at Miho with widen eyes and with Yukari closed her mouth in shock. While Anzu, Murakami, and Ogin could stand frozen like statue as they stare at her. Kuromorimine students were right next to them, and she could see all the commanders there dropped their jaws open wide and shook with extreme fear. Akaboshi puts both hands on her chest to calm herself down.

Looking over to the Bonples, they were terribly in fright, including the commanders, Jajka, and Uzska just fainted on site. And then the St. Gloarianas, those students took a step back from her in fright. Rosehip, Assam, and Pekoe are visibly shaken to what they saw. And of course, Darjeeling stood frozen with disbelieve and unconsciously drops her cup of tea to the ground, her hand she used to hold the cup is still in the air and doesn't move a finger.

Then she looks at the Anzios, Pravdas, and the Chi-Ha-Tans. Aside from all the students are very scared. The first she noticed was how scared Katyusha is that she had to be accompanied by Nonna and Klara. Carpaccio and Pepperoni didn't even blink on what they saw, only looking both at the bastard she hanged and Miho herself in heavy disbelieve. Nishi, Fukuda, and Haru Tamada were frightened enough that Tamada puts her both fists in front of her waist with Nishi and Fukuda nearly cover their mouths.

Saunders, Jatkosotas, Maginots, and BC Freedoms are very horrified of the event. Naomi, Alisa, and Kay, who is the 141 Operator on-site stared at her in disbelieve and shock. Mika can't dare to continue playing her kantele as Aki and Mikko visibly shook, and their eyes shrouded in shadow and fear. Éclair and Fondue stood there and shocked with widening eyes, and Éclair nearly fainted from that. Marie, who is the overall commander of BCF gasped in shock and found out what made Andou worried about Miho.

Alice, Maho, Shiho, and Chiyo were already there by the time Miho hanged the bastard off the ceiling. Alice was so horrified of what Miho had done, turning her skin as pale as a ghost and nearly wanted to scream if not for Chiyo closed her eyes and hugged her. Maho had never thought that her younger sister would go far to killing someone like a hangman, something that Maho found terrifying to Miho's age. Shiho… she could only take steps forward twice before she stopped, and asks "Wha-?"

Goddamn, now here she is. A girl who's been trying so hard to contain her emotion that ended up killing one fool who hurt her lover. No gun, no knife, just with her bare hands and three cables to kill him like a judge, jury, and executioner. A kill that she shouldn't have committed without a second thought or conscience. Might as well, she calls it an unofficial justifiable kill. Why should she call the judges if this kill had already happened?

Miho glanced at everyone on that floor before she shook to herself with self-pity and remorse. Miho makes herself comfortable as she sits on the floor, then looks back up at the dead-hanging robber on the ceiling above her. She sighed twice and blinked once at the hanging corpse. She then reached for something that is inside her small pouch on her belt by her left hand while her right-hand reaches for something inside the pocket of her jeans.

The cigar is on her left hand and the lighter on her right hand. She flicks the lighter thrice before the flames are on and lit her cigar. She then puts away her lighter and breathes in her cigar before letting out a fog of smoke out of her mouth.

By all accounts, the behavior Miho is showing right now is so bashful for the witnesses and the students. She just smoked her cigar as if everything around her was normal. As if there was nothing rotten in the air when there's no corpse around. Not even minding the poor sod, she just hanged on the ceiling.

Miho only looks up at the poor sod again for the time being. Watching the bastard is hanging in there, his body twitches no more and swings around in the air slowly on his own. The bloody robber is dead, and there's no need for an autopsy to know how he had died. But, of course, she disappointed about killing him. The reasons she shouldn't have done that in front of anyone, and she should've contained her anger were not her disappointment.

Her worst disappointment was… she should have hanged Makarov instead of him.


	62. Chapter 59 - Aftermath

7 Hours after Miho's kill. Tottori Police Department.

After what had happened in the mall, the tankery match had to be paused until further notice from the proper authority. Miho Nishizumi, for the current moment, is in custody of authorities under the supervision of Captain Ami Chouno of the JGSDF. The event that had happened has put everyone, including Anchovy herself, on edge after witnessing how ruthless Miho became. How merciless she was when she hanged that robber on the ceiling of the mall's ground floor.

Even the police officers there visibly shook a bit to know a girl like Miho could do that.

Although Miho was the one who hanged that robber, the officers were confused about Miho since she just sat there and smoked. She is very cooperative and complied with the officers. The officers even confused when Miho happily obliged to handcuffed herself before heading off to the station. Usually, when people committed a crime, there's a chance that the person would try to avoid the police, or even ended up doing something stupid in front of the officers. In Miho's case, her patience was pretty unnerving to a few officers but very glad that she understands what she had done.

Miho is currently in the interrogation room, with a few officers watching from the other side of the two-way window. Of course, the interrogator was Ami herself and a police lieutenant, whose name is surprisingly Nobuji Nazen, who was involved in helping the 141 to stop a robbery back in Tanabe City. Nazen got promoted and recently transferred to Tottori for another temporary assignment. Miho heard him in the news once, so she's a bit surprised to see him here.

Her friends are waiting in the main lobby, including the mothers, waiting to hear what kind of sentence Miho would receive from her kill. Emi, Alice, Kay, Maho, Shiho, Chiyo, Darjeeling, Nishi, Jajka, Éclair, Marie, Andou, Anchovy, Yukari, Anzu, Katyusha, and finally Mika are the people who are waiting in the main lobby of the police station. Everyone was pretty shaken after that event and didn't even say a word while they wait. Emi, Alice, Jajka, Marie, and Éclair were pretty traumatized of the event, while the rest of them can't banish the thought of what they saw, which in turn showing their visible concern and discomfort.

Anchovy sat on a metal bench with Shiho and Chiyo with Alice sitting on her lap, while the rest of them stand and waited near the counter or lean against the walls and sit on nearby chairs. Anchovy's bullet wound has been tended, but for the current moment, she needs to use the shoulder sling to stabilize her wounded shoulder and decrease her arm movement. It should take for at least 5-7 days for her wound to be healed fully. Unless she is experienced in quick recovery, and it would take less than five days at the maximum.

Anchovy sighed to herself before looking over to her friends, Shiho and Chiyo, around her. Alice looked so tired and pale for now and maybe she was pretty distressed when she saw what Miho did back there, can't really blame her about it when you know that she is an innocent young teenage girl. Andou seems agitated about Miho; she only bows her head down and keeps rubbing her arms on their own without her conscience. Marie ever mentioned Andou ever said about something that concerned her about Miho and she was right about it, only that she didn't expect to see Miho carried away like that. Katyusha, who knew Miho is a 141 aside from Anchovy, mumbled to herself with a frown, and she's been tapping her foot on the floor non-stop. Éclair and Jajka look so alarmed that they've been staring at each other with their tired eyes, exchanging the same look and same thought about what Miho did that time.

Emi looked so disbelieve about what Miho did; it made her cross her arms and gave a cringed look into a blank space. Nishi and Darjeeling sat across Anchovy with their frowns, Darjeeling even covers her mouth with her hand up until now. Kay, Anzu and Maho show their concerns to each other; they are quietly conversing that Anchovy knew that it has something to do with what happened to the 141. Yukari looks broken down as she leans against a wall, she rubs her face to relieve the distress she had from witnessing her favorite friend or she could call a sister-in-bond, Miho from hanging the robber. Mika rests against a wall while she's sitting, she's nearly asleep from all that event. Shiho and Chiyo have been so silent until now, never exchange looks or say a word, only staring forward with a blank stare.

Anchovy closes her eyes and sighed before she straightens her back. At least, she tries to open a conversation.

Of course, by clearing her throat.

"Eh-hum."

Everyone turns their heads at her, including Shiho, Chiyo, and Alice, who sat next to her. "How is everyone holding up?"

There is no response coming from either of the girls. But Darjeeling gasped twice in disbelieve before she shook her head at her. "In all honesty, I'm pretty freaked out."

"I'd say the same. But…" Jajka paused, continued with an uncomfortable shrug. "What the hell?"

"Wish I could say something more explicit than that," Kay added as she crosses her arms. "If not for Alice-san to be here."

"I know," Alice replied with a nod, didn't show any emotion except for her being tired.

"Anchovy-san," Andou rubs her face before she shook. "Merde, I'm scared. I can't even think straight."

"Just take it easy, will you?" Marie asked as she comforts her with a pat to her shoulder.

Yukari sighed before she looks up to Anchovy. "I-I just can't believe this is happening."

"I can't help but noticed her aura at that time…" Mika paused for a moment with a shaken tone, fiddling her fingers altogether. "Her aura rots in the air."

After a few comments from some of the girls, Emi shook her head agitatedly. "Anchovy-san, what happened back there?"

"Emi-san, you saw what happened back there," Anchovy replied as she gestures to her side.

"No, I mean," Emi replied with a shook. "Before Miho attacked the robber, you kept saying 'don't do it' to Miho."

Emi then steps closer to Anchovy and glances at her. "Did you know this would have happened?"

"Yes, I did," Anchovy replied flatly with a nod.

"And you knew she could go far like that?" Emi asked, winced her eyes at her in suspicion.

Anchovy looked away from her and looked down at her feet. "I-"

"Did you know that she could go far into killing someone?" Emi asked a bit different question.

Anchovy is taken aback of her question. She knew Miho killed people before, just the bad ones. Including her rage into killing people. But Anchovy had to lie about it.

"I- no!" Anchovy replied with a shook as she tried her best to lie; thankfully, her words were very convincing. "I mean- I knew she could go far like that, but… she would never go far into killing someone."

"Until we witnessed her killing," Katyusha shook to herself in a bit fright, who knew why Anchovy lied. "I guess Miho-san didn't show that part for your sake, until now."

"I Agree," Éclair added with a nod. "She doesn't want to show her dark side."

"I just can't believe about that," Emi protested with a sigh. "Miho took a bullet to her arm, um Gottes willen!"

"Yeah, but-" Maho was quickly cut off by Emi, pointing a circled finger at her.

"But!" Emi continued. "Miho didn't even flinch! She ignored the gunshot wound she got and just pushed him out the window along with herself! Now tell me how did she shrug that wound off and kill the robber straight without a problem!"

That left everyone speechless, including a few officers in there who overheard her and stopped as they glance at her. Anchovy, Shiho, Chiyo, Alice, Kay, Maho, Anzu, and Katyusha stay silent but knew that Miho might get shot a lot before that Miho already used to it. Andou seems pretty quiet, and to think about what Emi said had her agitated. Yukari breathes out with a frown; she remembered Miho ever said that Miho killed someone before she killed this robber. Nishi, Éclair, Jajka, Marie, and Mika looked terrified about what Emi witnessed. As Darjeeling, let's just say that she's already lost her mood to drink a tea.

"It's a scary thought," Andou added as she looks away, agreed to Emi's statement. "She even survived that fall through the ceiling."

"Right after she hanged him," Nishi continued, noticed that Chiyo is closing her daughter's ears. "Oh, we-we're sorry. We shouldn't have talked about this in front of Alice-san."

"No, no, it's alright, it's just…" Chiyo paused for a moment before looking over to Alice. "Dear Alice, you want to get a drink or something to eat?"

"I…" Alice fell silent for several seconds before replying. "I don't need any, Okaa-san."

"Alice, please," Shiho convinced. "You're pretty tired. You should get something to eat or drink. You don't want your mother worried about seeing you very exhausted, don't you?"

"You know, after what Miho did back there," Jajka added. But she received the glares from everyone excluding Alice, describing that is 'not helping.' "Erm, sorry, I shouldn't say that."

Alice took her time for consideration with a bow before she sighed. "I think you're right."

Alice then looks up to her mother. "Let's get something to eat, Okaa-san."

"Of course, my darling," Chiyo gladly replied, then looks back at everyone. "We'll be back for a few moments."

"It's alright," Anzu replied with a nod. "Just take your time, we'll be here."

"Ok, come on, my dear," Chiyo then leads her daughter out from the lobby until they are out of sight.

"Now, where were we?" Jajka asked she lost the plot.

"Um, how did she shrug that wound off and kill the robber straight without problem?" Shiho asked them, tilting her head twice.

"Right," Emi clears her throat. "She should have been hurt and can't do anything about it. Or at least, she held her wound with a scream."

"Maybe she is pretty resistant to pain because of the life she had in London," Mika suggested with a raised brow.

"What does that have to do with her life in London?" Emi asked as she confused about what Mika said.

"Miho mentioned that she had a rough life in London," Katyusha replied, knowing that's a lie. "She has been in a few fights before, probably that's why she is resistant to pain."

"There's no kind of fight could compare with getting shot by a bullet," Kay disagreed with that, following along with what Katyusha said. "Unless she ever got stabbed."

"Kay, don't try to scare me," Anchovy already felt unnerving on that.

"I'm not scaring you," Kay shook her head. "I'm just saying my opinion."

"That makes sense, but…" Emi shrugged uncomfortably with a sigh. "It's still bothering me."

"Tell me about it," Éclair replied with an open palm points at her. "It's our first time to see her killed someone."

Everyone didn't say a word or nod but agree to what she said.

Then it's Yukari's turn to tell. "Well, that's our first time. But not for Miho."

Everyone perked their ears on that. Those who knew Miho is a 141 taken aback of what she said. Those who were still sitting stand up immediately upon hearing that.

"Yukarin, what do you mean by that?" Marie asked as she frowned on that.

Yukari's eyes looked down for a moment before diverting to them. "She killed someone before."

Everyone fell shocked immediately with mouths agape and widen eyes. Shiho and Anchovy quickly straighten their backs to hear that, because they don't know since when Miho told that to her. Maho, Anzu and Kay were very worried and didn't expect to hear that after Miho gun-pointed Anzu to find Ogin. Katyusha froze like a statue, as she remembered how Miho slaughtered all the mobsters back in the apartments in Pravda schoolship. And Andou's tan skin turned pale immediately as she felt she wants to fall into a catatonic state.

This wasn't something that should have been said inside the police station. But seeing that every officer in the station is very busy at the moment, no one paid attention to them.

Emi was rather disbelieved and deadpanned to what she said. "W-what, she killed someone before?!"

"Yes, she did kill someone before," Yukari said as she lands her hand on her chest. "But… she didn't explain who was the man she killed or why she killed him."

They didn't like what they hear. "Did she mention with what she killed the man before?" Darjeeling dared to ask.

"Well, here's the thing," Yukari frowned because she knew they would hate to hear this. "She has a gun."

Their eyes are immediately shadowed with dread; even Katyusha looks concerned about it. Excluding only two of them, which are Anchovy and Shiho themselves. Andou is noticeably shaking in fear of what she heard along with Marie. Mika, Jajka, Éclair, Nishi and Darjeeling froze on the spot, seemingly their brains shut down a moment. Emi looked furious but shocked at the same time. Maho, Kay, and Anzu looked away from her, frowned, and disappointed to know that Yukari blew that part. That part that shouldn't be said to them.

"Wa-wait, she has a gun?" Éclair looked pretty stupefied of this. "Since when?"

"My guess," Yukari replied. "Since London."

"No, no way," Nishi won't believe that as she shook her head. "That's impossible. How can she get a gun?"

"Maybe the better question is when did she get a weapon permit?" Darjeeling asked as she crossed her arms, and, of course, she sighed in displeasure.

"I'm afraid I don't know about that," Yukari then turns her head at Shiho. "Shiho-sama, I believe you know anything about Miho's possession of a weapon?"

Shiho just sighed and can't deny them about that; at least they don't know who Miho really is. "I'm afraid I do know about that."

The girls are stunned to hear that, but Emi looks furious about it but managed to ask her with a calm tone. "You let her have a gun?!"

"It's not my authority to question Miho's intention," Shiho replied with a frown and a shook. "She has her own reason why too."

"A reason so she can kill someone?!" Emi exclaimed back at her angrily. "What kind of-?!"

"Hey, enough!" Anchovy quickly stood up and walked over to Emi. "I know you don't like Shiho-sama, but don't blame her about it!"

"Wha- what makes you say that about me?" Emi asked back. Her expression turned into a mix of surprise and anger.

"Because Miho ever mentioned about that before today," Anchovy replied as she frowned. "She said to me that if you actually keep antagonizing her, she has no choice but to hate you like what she said to you back in your elementary days before."

Although Miho had killed someone today, Miho's statement about that left everyone stunned. Shiho and Maho were both surprised by the statement. Yukari fell into disbelieving to hear that. But Emi is very taken aback from the statement that Miho said to Anchovy before. Miho screamed she hates her once because of Emi's cold, arrogant, and selfish attitude back then, and worst of all, Emi didn't want to show her true self at that time.

"Wait, no," Emi denied that with a shook. "She won't say that I knew her."

"That's before she changed," Anchovy replied with a shook. "You don't know who she is now."

Emi could stand unresponsive to Anchovy's answer because the only person who knew Miho too well is Anchovy herself. Aside from Shiho, Kay, Anzu, Katyusha and Maho knew who Miho is until now, some of them knew her deep too. How can Emi reply to her statement? Anchovy was right about Miho's change of true self.

As the atmosphere fell into silence, they heard footsteps coming from the cubicles behind Emi. They turned their heads to that direction right when Chiyo and Alice came back right in time. They saw Miho, along with Nazen and Ami, walking over to the group un-cuffed. They are pretty surprised to see her here, looking so calm and in control. Miho, Nazen, and Ami then stopped in front of the group.

Nazen put his hands on his hips and began. "Well, I got some news about your friend, Miho Nishizumi."

"And that is?" Katyusha asked with a raised brow.

"First," Ami answered with a pause. "She's not going to jail."

Everyone is so relieved on hearing that. "And Two?" Emi asked to them.

"Her actions are marked as self-defense," Nazen then glances at Miho. "Even though she ended up killing that poor robber."

"And three?" Andou asked, touching her chin.

"It's clear that my actions would be written in the police reports," Miho replied with a shrug. "So, the police will be keeping an eye on me for the current moment."

Darjeeling raised her eyebrow in suspicion of Miho's release. "Miho, forgive me for asking you this, but… did you bribe the police for your release?"

That left everyone stunned for a while until Miho shook her head. "No, I didn't. Nor does Ms. Chouno did."

"The reason we spent more than 5 hours on keeping Miho here was that we had a lot of discussions with the judges directly," Ami replied, resting her hands behind her. "Right after we interrogate her thoroughly."

"Wait a minute," Mika halts for a moment. "So you're saying that she's…"

"She's innocent," Nazen replied, then bows awkwardly. "Even after what she did."

"The robber took the shot first," Ami replied as she looks at Miho. "And hurt Anchovy. Everyone with her saw that. She did what she had to do to stop him from hurting others. But… thankfully the judges are pretty tolerable about how angry Miho was until she ended up killing him."

"And by tolerable, you mean…?" Chiyo asked as she tilts her head.

"They understand why I was angry about it," Miho sighed to that with her eyes closed. "I knew I shouldn't have killed him but-"

"Miho," Anchovy called, halting Miho mid-talk as she glances to Anchovy's shoulder sling.

"I…" Miho paused, looking over to her fist she used on the robber before continuing. "I didn't realize I got carried away."

"Miho-san," Marie told her with a shook. "I hope you're not blaming yourself about it."

"I-" Miho was about to say.

"Miho, stop," Shiho softly and hastily replied; she doesn't want to hear it. "Just stop. Please."

Silence fills the air again despite the constant noises of officers working around the station. Everyone, especially Anchovy and Emi, seems to understand why Shiho asked her to stop what Miho was about to say. They could see the guilt she had after committing her to kill. She never wanted that to happen. But it happened anyway; Miho stifled a sigh as she rubs her head.

Nazen then began. "Anyway, Miho has been discharged from custody so that she can return home now."

"Alright," Shiho then bowed to them. "Nazen-sama, Ami, thank you for looking over my daughter."

Miho then smiled and looked back at Nazen. "Want to meet again someday, Leftenant?"

"Sure," Nazen replied, surprising the girls of how friendly are they. "Give me a call if you want a meetup."

"I will, Leftenant," Miho then salutes him with her two fingers. "Have a good day."

"You too, Miho-san," Nazen then headed back through the cubicles with a smile as everyone watches him leave.

Miho turns her head to her friends and the mothers, who are staring at her in confusion. "What?"

"Did you get interrogated and had a nice talk at the same time?" Mika asked with a dumbfounded look.

"Yes, I did," Miho replied with a nod. "He's nice enough."

"Erh-hum," Ami clears her throat. "Shouldn't you get going now?"

"Of course," Miho replies with a nod. "You coming?"

"No, I should stay here for now," Ami shook her head. "I need to make sure the trouble you made is finished here. And also, I need to discuss with some officials about the canceled match."

"I'm sorry I ruined your match back there," Miho apologetically replied with her head bowed.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take it from here," Ami happily replied. "You just go ahead and head home."

"If you say so, Captain," Miho then turns her head at her friends and mothers. "Shall we move out?"

"Yes, we should," Alice agreed with a nod.

Miho then turns her head to Ami. "See you soon, then."

"See you soon," Ami responded with a bow, before Miho, the girls and the mothers began to leave from the main lobby.

As soon as they leave, Ami sighs before she turned around and headed through the cubicles. It was a short walk for them to reach the front door of the police station. And none of them said a word when they reached the door. They go through the door before walking down the stairs, passing a few officers who are heading for the door.

After they walked down the stairs, they stopped to meet a couple of individuals standing in front of them. Much to everyone's surprise, those couples are Vicek and Rinnai Chiyomi. Emi didn't recognize them, but the rest sure did. Miho really didn't expect to meet them here.

"Vicek-sama, Okaa-san?" Anchovy called with her high tone. "What are you doing here?"

"We both heard about what happened to Miho back in that canceled match," Vicek replied flatly with his arms crossed.

"So we both decided to head here to see how you are doing," Rinnai replied as her open palm points at Vicek.

"Wait, 'we'?" Miho asked confusingly, doesn't remember anything about Mrs. Chiyomi knew Vicek except for Garhaaye. "I don't recall you know Vicek, Mrs. Chiyomi."

"Well, we met by accident and had a small conversation in the middle of the road," Rinnai replied with her thumb's pointing behind her. "When I know he's a friend of yours, we both decided to get here together."

Miho could notice right before Rinnai lowers her hand, she signaled number 1-4-1 with her fingers. Miho nodded at her to confirm it's true he's 141, thankfully everyone excluding Anchovy and Shiho are unaware of that.

"I see," Miho replied with a small smile. "But I didn't expect you want to meet me here, right after I'm off from custody."

"I could guess that made you tired," Rinnai replied with a smile.

"I'll say the opposite, actually," Miho replied, clasping her hands below her waist and points her head to behind her.

"True," Shiho agreed with a frown. "We have to wait for her for hours inside the station."

"Thankfully, we don't have to wait in there for a full day," Chiyo added as her arms hug around her only silent daughter. "My dear Alice, is getting very tired."

"Hey, don't forget about us, Chiyo-sama," Kay added with her hand raised.

"We're also tired too in there," Anzu added as she points her thumb to the police station.

"And I almost slept in there," Mika added as she stretches her arms.

"Well, you're still standing here," Vicek replied, widen his arms to his sides at them. "I guess you're not that tired."

Miho then turns her head at Emi by chance and remembered for introduction to her. "Ah, I almost forgot. Emi, this is my friend and relative, Vicek and Mrs. Chiyomi, Anchovy's mother."

Emi then shook hands with them. "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

"The pleasure is ours," Rinnai replied with a bow, with Vicek nodded at her. "I hope you have a good day."

"It's more like an agitating day for us than that, I'm afraid," Emi replied with a tone of doubt and a frown.

"I can understand why," Rinnai replied with a nod, but frowned at that statement before smiling again. "I think we should take a walk to a park not far from here and also some treats for ourselves. So that we lighten our mood up and talk about what happened."

Everyone looked each other for a moment. It seems that everyone wasn't in a hurry about getting back home. They all turned their heads back to Rinnai and agreed with a small nod.

"We can do that, Chiyomi-sama," Yukari replied with a smile. "Let's go."

Everyone then begins to go to the park from the station. There is a small park a bit far from the station but reachable on foot. There's no need for them to find transport and get there because it would be a hassle to do so. It was no longer than a 7 minutes walk until they reached there. Anchovy felt much safer for now because Miho is here, and Vicek is here as well, who is actually one of Miho's men.

By the time they reach the park, they immediately looked around for nearby food stalls to get some snacks. Most of them ordered Senbeis and Anpans. But for Vicek, he ordered a snack called Manju, and Miho ordered a few cookies called Melon Pan. But Alice doesn't seem to need a snack, even though her mother is still insisting that Alice should eat a small snack aside from the one back in that station.

After a while, they head in deep into the park and find someplace to sit down. They found a couple of picnic tables in the area and sat down there. Enough for the 19 of them to sit down. One table is for Emi, Miho, Anchovy, Shiho, Chiyo, Alice, Rinnai, Andou, Kay, and Maho. One other table for Mika, Darjeeling, Anzu, Jajka, Éclair, Vicek, Marie, Yukari, Nishi, and finally Katyusha. They sat down and eat their snacks, as the group who sat with Vicek talked to each other a little.

Those who grouped with Miho didn't say a word and ate their snacks. Miho's frown was visible for them but everyone still has their poker faces on them. The funny thing was when the girls and the mothers were about to eat their snacks, Miho's snacks were already finished. And more surprisingly, Miho's eating sound was unheard of. It took them 7 seconds to turn their heads at her and notice it's gone.

"Miho, where's your food?" Maho asked with a raised brow.

"I already ate them."

They paused for a moment, as the group on the next table wondered why they paused.

"Something's up?" Vicek asked them.

"M-Miho just finished her snack," Andou replied as she points her open palm at Miho. "We were just about to eat our snacks."

Vicek just giggled, much to their confusion. "Good ol' Miho. She's just fast when it comes to eating snacks. Dining in a restaurant or a house, slow like a turtle."

"I appreciate the irony, Vicek," Miho replied with a sigh. "You don't have to remind me about it."

"You're not having food stress, right?" Vicek asked back to her.

"What do you think?" Miho lifts her hand a little on the table. "I had two hours of interrogation and five hours talking with the judges. But not so stressed enough that I need to get more food."

"So… that's a no?" Rinnai asked confusingly.

"Yeah, no," Miho replied with a shook, before landing her elbows on the table. "Instead, it feels like a burden for me."

Emi raised an eyebrow to that. "How can you feel guilty about it because you-"

Emi noticed Alice's expression but nodded at her to continue. "Because you murdered someone who tried to hurt us and hurt Anchovy."

Miho only shook her head before looking up to her. "You would understand what I mean if you were in my position. Because it's hard for me to explain."

"Then explain," Emi asked her.

"I don't even know where to start," Miho replied with a shrug.

"Ei, Miho," Vicek called, which Miho noticed he was using another language.

"Sim?" Miho responded, but everyone confused about her word.

"Quer jantar depois disso?" Vicek asked, asking if he could get his captain a dinner.

"Não, eu te disse," Miho replied with a shook, the girls around her try to understand what she's saying. "Estou bem com isso."

"Não depois que você enforcou o pobre bastardo," Vicek replied with a shook.

"Sim, não depois disso," Miho then sighs about it. "O que eu fiz lá atrás, se tornou viral, não?"

"Sim, Tenho certeza de que toda a cidade tem medo de você," Vicek replied, tilts his head on his hands.

"E os nossos homens no quartel-general?" Miho asked him, wondering if her men heard the news. "Eles ouviram sobre o que aconteceu no shopping?"

"Sim eles fizeram," Vicek replied with a nod. "Os legalistas ficaram desapontados por o bastardo não ser Makarov."

Miho only gazed at him half-alarmed. Everyone tried and didn't understand every word they said that it took them off-guard to see her gazing like that. Anchovy was exceptional, however, because she heard a keyword that got Miho pissed before.

Makarov.

Anchovy puts a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Miho snapped at her and realized that Anchovy might understand what Vicek was talking about. Miho only turns her head front and sighed. Before looking back to her comrade.

"Desculpe, Miho" Vicek apologized. "Eu não quis aborrecê-lo."

Miho just waves at him. "Está tudo bem. No momento, estou preocupado com o que todos pensariam de mim depois disso."

Once both of them finished talking, Marie asked. "You're speaking in Portuguese, I presume?"

"Yes, we did," Miho replies, then rests her hands on the table. "Just uh… wondering what would happen next after the media gone wild."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad, Miho," Chiyo is so optimistic about it.

"You sure?" Miho asked with doubt. "The public saw that, Mrs. Chiyo. What would everyone think about that?"

"But you did that to defend yourself and us," Andou replied.

"I doubt I was defending myself or you," Miho shook her head in disagreement. "When that robber shot Anchovy, my mind's off the grid."

"No second thoughts?" Yukari asked fearfully.

"No second thoughts," Miho then sighs to herself. "I was too late to realize that."

As Kay munches her snack, she lifts her index finger at her. "By the way, I just heard from a lot of people back in the mall gave you a new nickname."

Everyone surprised Kay's statement. But Miho and Vicek are both caught off-guard. Miho can't believe that many people would want to give her a new nickname that quick. Even Miho suddenly felt so alarmed about it that she really wanted to erase her police records via server hack or burn them. And she thought her nickname Banshee was enough.

"Oh, in Queen Elizabeth's sake," Miho looks away for a moment before looking back at Kay. "What did they call me?"

Kay quickly comforts her seat before leaning her head forward to Miho.

"The Hangwoman."

Miho can only deadpan at her as the rest are in a bit awe of her nickname. Miho blinks twice before rubbing her both eyes as hard as she can. The Hangwoman? Jeez Louis, she really didn't see that coming. I mean, really? Is that the nickname those people had in mind?

"The Hangwoman, really?"

"Yep, The Hangwoman."

Miho slumps back a little, then chuckled. "I was expecting something darker than that."

"Oh, don't be like that, Miho," Shiho replied as she leans forward and looks to her left. "It's just a nickname."

"Yeah, just a nickname," Miho replied as she nods and pokers face. "A nickname I gained from hanging the poor sod."

"This is not a good time for sarcasm, Miho," Darjeeling replied with a frown.

"That wasn't sarcasm, it was a fact," Miho replied as she points at her. "You saw what I did."

"She had a point," Maho said as she points her hand at her. "And you survived a fall from the third story building. Which should be impossible for a girl like you."

"Didn't I just do that before?" Miho asked her.

Her question pauses everyone to eat their snacks and raises their brows at her. "Which one were you referring to?" Jajka asked.

"The 3 vs 3 team Exhibition Match," Miho looks over to them as she pauses. "That time I jumped from the roof of a building to land on the moving Panzer IV?"

That refreshed their memories back. Rinnai, on the other hand, only ever heard about it but also baffled to hear that despite that Miho is a 141. Anchovy and Alice only sit still to remember that. While the rest of the girls and the mothers, just a lot of "oh" and slumped heads.

Anzu leans forward onto the table and points her finger to Miho across the next table. "Yeah, I forgot you're crazy."

"Insane might be better, Anzu-san," Katyusha added, recalling to herself about the anger Miho had back in the apartments. "Because, you know…"

"You don't need to continue on that," Anzu grins at Miho before looking at Vicek. "Good ol' Miho, right?"

"Yep, good ol' Miho," Vicek agreed with a nod, much to Miho's annoyance.

Miho just sighed and crossed her arms. "Thankfully, Chrome isn't here."

That brought the annoyance to Vicek, Anchovy, and Shiho. "Ah, ah, ah, don't remind me about that Canadian," Vicek immediately replied to her.

"Alright, I won't say anything about him," Miho replied as she noticed everyone knew who are they talking about.

"What of him?" Éclair asked curiously.

Vicek giggled to her question before replying. "Thinking about him writing a lot of "sorry" on tank shells before using them for the Panzerfahren match."

Everyone didn't say a word but to stare at him, and Éclair's poker face at him with an awkward reaction. "… I think I can understand why."

Because the ones who feel bad to themselves are the ones, who got shot by Chrome's shells, not Chrome himself, that's why everyone wasn't so sure to comment on that.

They continue to eat and chatter to themselves for a moment. Miho only rests her arms on the table as she is silently observing her surroundings. However, by 'observing,' she meant that while her eyes are staring forward, she focuses her hearing to her surroundings. Nothing was off she heard except for the breezing wind, crackling leaves, and pedestrians walking around in the distance, also using this time to think of something.

Alice noticed Miho's blank stare in wonder. "Are you okay, Miho-san?"

"I'm fine, Alice," Miho replied as she stares her. "Just thinking how did I get myself here again."

Emi chuckled at her. "Why do you need to think about that?"

Miho just shrugged, before replies. "Wondering if I did something wrong back then."

"I know how that feels," Éclair replied with an agreement. "Especially the part when you have to defend yourself."

Miho only tilts her head to that but didn't sense anything wrong about it. "Yeah, especially that part."

Anchovy, Shiho, Rinnai, and Chiyo began to look at each other in concern. The way Éclair just said it right now… They know what she was talking about. They then looked at Darjeeling, who stopped eating her Anpan.

"Miho, I have a question for you," Darjeeling said, without looking at her direction.

Miho looks at her. "What is it?"

Darjeeling sighs, before looking at her. "You know, you have told us pretty much about yourself. From your life in London until now."

"Yes," Miho nods, opened her palms. "So?"

"So," Darjeeling paused, before looking up to her. "Why did you never mention that you have a weapon permit?"

Miho stares at her, alarmed. Her eyes jagged onto hers.

A part of her secret was busted.

"What are you talking about?" Miho asked, slowly leans her back off the table as her eyes never leave Darjeeling's.

"Yukari told me that you had a gun, was it?" Darjeeling said as she and Miho both look at Yukari, who seems trying hard to hide her agitation.

"Y-yes, a Browning HI-Power one," Yukari replied as she slowly sunk into her seat. "I'm sorry, Miho-san."

Miho has only been staring at Yukari for a moment before Mika asked. "Are you angry at her, Miho-san?"

Miho didn't bother to look at her, but she only sighed to herself. "Wish I could."

"Wish you could?" Rinnai asked confusingly.

Miho sighed again before rubbing her own eyes. "Everything is going over my head now. And I'm angry at myself."

Everyone raised an eyebrow to that, but Nishi narrows her eyes at her. "Why did you have a gun, Miho?"

Miho didn't reply; she instead only stares at her. Her face was cold but look sincere to herself.

"Miho, we need to hear an answer from you. Honest," Nishi said to her, as everyone excluding those who knew her as 141 gave their suspicious glares at her but also notably, concern. "Why did you never told us you had a gun?"

Miho straightens her back as she replies to her. "Because I don't want you to be afraid of me."

"Not afraid of you?" Jajka asked in disbelieve. "We're pretty much scared to know that you could fight people and chase your sister like that."

Ignoring the fact that she had her insane side after she shot Maho, Miho opens her palms and replies. "I know, it's just… I didn't mean that kind of fear."

Miho paused as she glanced at every each of her friends and mothers including her lover before she continued. "I got myself into a shootout once."

A lie that she had to make up for their sake; they cannot know about herself as the 141 yet. "There was a robbery at a store. Three armed robbers against 2 London Police Officers and I was caught in the middle of it."

Everyone raised their eyebrows to her as they interested to hear her story. "I nearly went inside the store when the police car arrived right behind me and told me to stay away from the store. I was a bit late to realize that the robbers were pointing their handguns at the officers, and me. I made a break for the police car as I ducked my head down when the robbers started firing at us. Once I was behind the police car, the officers returned fire at the robbers. It was no more than… Eight shots before one of the officers got shot and wounded."

Emi looked pretty stunned to hear her story. "And what happened next?"

"His pistol dropped next to me when he got shot. I didn't think of anything else at that time, but I quickly snatched the pistol and shoot at the robbers. My first shot was surprisingly in the head of one of the robbers. The other officer helped me to shoot the other robbers and managed to wound them. But those robbers still resisted and kept firing at us. The officer covered me as I tried to reload the handgun with difficulty. I shot back at them again, and that time, I managed to kill the last of them by shooting their chests. I was a bit shocked to know I killed them first but… I was defending myself along with the officers. Because of that incident, I immediately asked for a weapon permit at the Scotland Yard and got myself processed to get that permit. After that, I bought myself a weapon for self-defense."

Everyone takes contemplation of Miho's story. It makes sense for her to have a gun so that she would be prepared for the next life-threatening situation. Everyone was about to agree about what Miho said.

Unfortunately, Yukari beats them to it.

"You didn't use it for only self-defense."

Everyone turned their heads to her, Rinnai and Anchovy were surprised of this. "What are you talking about, Yukarin?" Anchovy asked.

Miho stayed stoic despite this. "Yukari-"

"Miho tried to shoot Ami-sama before," Yukari replied, narrows her eyes at Miho. "She ever put Anzu at gun-point and ever shot a bullet at the 3v3 teams' Exhibition Match."

Rinnai and Anchovy are both horrified of what Yukari said; Miho didn't tell them about it. Maho, Kay, Anzu and Shiho deadpanned to what she said, but show their concern for Miho. Emi wasn't sure whether to be angry or shocked at Miho. Chiyo, Alice and Vicek sat immobile in their seats; their backs are straight and didn't move a limb like statues. With the rest of them disbelieved of what Miho did, and their trust to her is going to be contested. Miho herself only stayed calm, not stoic.

Everyone can only stare at her, waiting for her answer. Miho sighs first.

"I have my reasons."

"We know," Jajka replied with a nod. "Now, we don't know if we can trust you or not since you hide a secret, and you are…"

After Jajka paused, Miho continued with a raised brow. "Insane?"

Andou seems to disagree on that. "Psychopathic."

"Sociopathic," Miho immediately corrects, much to their disbelieve.

"Are we going to argue over that?" Chiyo asked with a sincere sigh.

"You tell me, Mrs. Shimada," Miho replied but being sarcastic. "Do you want me to lose the plot now?"

"Miho, you should calm down," Rinnai suggested to her.

Anchovy is getting agitated about her lover's attitude. "You're scaring me, Miho-chan."

A single look at her lover, Miho's face soften. Miho noticed the expression Shiho had, and it was concerning. And also Alice's, who has been silent in this conversation and only stares at her with her Boko teddy under her chin. Miho frowns as she looked down at the table. Before closing her eyes in a moment of distress.

"I'm sorry."

Miho has been apologizing so much for her actions. But since she is a soldier, Anchovy can only feel sincere for her. Vicek who's been silent right now, feel sincere for her too after what she has been through.

Miho then looked back at her friends and asked them. "Which one do you want to ask first?"

Of course, Darjeeling asked this question. "Why did you shoot Ami-sama?"

Instead of Miho to answer that, Yukari answered it. "It's because Ami-sama insults her about her dislike of joining back to tankery."

Everyone turned their heads at her immediately. "Oh, you knew. What kind of insults Ami said to her?" Mika curiously asked.

"Insulting about Miho is scared to get in the tank before she shot her," Yukari then shrugged. "Everyone in Ooarai saw that."

Everyone's reaction is leaning their heads back in surprise. "And no one from Ooarai told us about that aside from yourself?" Katyusha asked.

"Yeah, basically," Yukari replied with a nod. "Everyone in Ooarai agreed to not talk about this to everyone."

"I see," then Marie asks the second question to Miho. "When did you gun-point Anzu-san?"

"Before the Exhibition Match," Miho replied flatly.

"Why?" Marie asked her.

Miho shook her head and shrugged. "It was entirely Anzu's fault."

Everyone dislikes her answer, especially Rinnai and Anchovy. "Hey, don't blame someone because of what you did!" Rinnai scolded to her.

"Actually, Miho's right, you know," Yukari added in, in which she received their confusing stares.

"W-wait, what are you talking about?" Anchovy asked, what Anzu did to make Miho gun-point her?

"It was really my fault that I got myself gun-pointed by her," Anzu responded as she sheepishly smiled to everyone. "You may don't know this, but we had a friend from Ooarai kidnapped by mobsters before the Exhibition Match."

Everyone is pretty surprised by that, except for Anchovy, Maho, Kay, Shiho and Chiyo, who just remembered that. "Wait, who was kidnapped?" Emi asked, she never heard of this so as the other girls.

"It was Ogin, was it?" Anchovy asked, with everyone surprised by her answer.

"Yep, that's her," Anzu replied with a nod. "Her team asked her help to find Ogin and investigate her kidnapping. Of course, I didn't mention that her kidnapping was involved with Ooarai's extortion."

They looked away from her, for a moment, before immediately look back at her again with a deadpanned look. "Wait, Ooarai was extorted?" Nishi's eyes show her perplex to her.

"By the mobsters called Rogue Foxes, yeah," Anzu shook her head to herself for a moment. "They blackmailed me into giving them the money or else they hurt our school. I was late in paying them once, and I had… to sold Ogin out to get more time to give them the money they want."

They looked pretty angry and shocked to hear that. "You sold your friend out?!" Emi asked aloud furiously.

"She didn't have a choice," Vicek defended Anzu. "Either she had to sell her friend out or they harm her or worse."

"I had to keep that as a secret because the mobsters were keeping an eye on me tight," Anzu replied sheepishly. "Until… Miho found out about what I was hiding at that time."

"And how did you find out what Anzu was hiding?" Mika asked her curiously.

"I managed to capture one of the mobsters thanks to Captain Ami's help," Miho answered as she rubs her fists to each other. "Then, we interrogate her."

"And by 'we,' you mean you and Ami-sama?" Marie asked with a raised brow.

"Not only them," Kay responded immediately. "Maho and I were with her as well."

"Wait, you were?" Andou asked as they cringed at them.

"Yes, we were there," Maho replied with a nod. "But it was mostly Miho's work on interrogating the suspect."

"Mostly?" Darjeeling asked as she narrowed her eyes at Kay, before looking at Miho. "How did you interrogate him?"

When it comes to the word 'interrogation,' Anchovy and Rinnai are uncomfortable about it. "I rather not say, it's not pretty," Miho guiltily replied.

The tone Miho had was enough for them to feel the chill down their spines. Anchovy could sense what she meant by that. Just by looking at her lover's eyes, Anchovy knew that Miho might have killed the suspect she interrogated before. But she does it for a good reason.

"After the suspect said that Anzu knew about what she did to Ogin, I lost it and went straight to Ooarai school with Maho and Kay," Miho continued as she ignores the stares she received from everyone. "It was thanks to Momo that she could keep Anzu in the office until I arrived."

"And that's when you began gun-pointing at her," Emi concluded, pointing at Miho.

Anzu chuckles lowly to herself. "After she punched my face, of course."

Anzu's response was pretty unamusing for everyone, before looking back at Miho. "That's because you were angry?" Emi asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, because she lied to me about Ooarai's financial problem," Miho replied with a nod. "So after Anzu told me where those mobsters hold Ogin, we quickly went there to find her. Only to found out that the 141 got there first."

"Wait, I heard about that in the news long ago," Éclair stated as she remembered the news. "There was some sort of bombardment at the abandoned wood factory in the forest, right?"

"Yes, there was by the 141," Maho replied with a nod. "But it was already nothing but smoldering smoke when we got there."

"But the 141 was pretty kind to leave a note about the hostages they saved, including Ogin," Miho added, then sighs to herself. "I guess I could thank them for making my job easier."

Everyone seems to be satisfied with Miho's half-lie confession to them on that one, to which then they move on to the last question. "Now, when did you shot a round in the Exhibition Match?"

"When we were building a strategic plan before the match," Miho replied, putting her arms on top of each other on the table. "Kuromorimine and Ooarai commanders turned conflict again whether agreeing or disagreeing the plan. When they screamed to each other so loud as Kay and her commanders tried to calm them down, I shot a round into the air to shut everyone up."

They stayed silent for a moment until Katyusha wondered. "And what of that time you chased Maho-san with a chainsaw?"

In a moment, Katyusha received everyone's glare, including Miho's and Maho's, with Miho's annoyed reply. "Maho insulted me after that shot, low mumble."

Knowing how unstable her mental condition at that time, they could sincere about that.

Miho sighs blink once before them. "Look, I understand that you all are angry with me right now because I kept a secret from you. But I didn't do it for my selfish reasons so I can do what I want with it and I never meant to scare you by it."

Everyone didn't say a word about that. Darjeeling has only been silent because she remembered her presence in Darjeeling's tea party. Miho had a point; she never wanted to make them scared of her. The last time she did that, she felt guilty about that and saw herself as a monster.

Miho took a deep sigh. "I apologize for it. I never told you any secret because I wasn't sure if I could trust you or not to hear it."

Everyone looks at each other for the moment afterward. Miho also had a point about that, Anchovy ever mentioned to them about it. Yukari quickly reminded of Miho's story about being betrayed by a friend of her. Vicek grimly remembered of Sheperd. And Anchovy remembered the story about Yuri didn't tell her that he was an ex-Ultranationalist that costed Soap's life.

Miho only bowed her head down in a mix of frown and distress, before looking up to them as she stood up. "Excuse me, I need some time alone."

"Don't stray too far," Vicek asked her before Miho gives a final look to her friend and gave a nod and then leave them to the other part of the park.

Everyone reluctantly watches her leave the premises. Everyone may feel uncomfortable with her presence, but watching her leave like that felt so insecure for them. Shiho, as a mother and Maho as a sister, felt so concerned about Miho, despite her confusing temporal personality. Rinnai, Emi and Anchovy felt the anxiety to see her leave. Chiyo and Alice frowned without bothering to look at that direction, decided to hear only her footsteps as she leaves. As for the rest of them, as her friends, they are very unwilling to let her leave like that.

Anchovy shook her head to herself before she stood up. "I'll check on her."

"Me too," Emi added as she stands up as well.

"So do I," Darjeeling stands up from her seat as well.

"I want to come along too," Yukari stands up from her seat too as they looked at Anchovy.

"Alright, come on then."

The four girls then left for Miho after acknowledging to everyone with a nod. A short walk 30 seconds later, they found standing in front of them. Miho is viewing the landscape of the park, watching as the sunset is almost consumed by the oncoming night. Watching people come and go on the pathways of the park in the distance. Watching the peace everyone had in the park and enjoying the silent breeze passing her.

Before the four girls are close enough to Miho, Miho asked aloud without breaking her gaze. "I told you I need some time alone."

"I know, Miho," Anchovy replied as they stopped behind her. "Can we just talk about this, Miho?"

They could hear Miho sighed, but Miho turned around with her arms crossed and looked at them. "Fine."

But then Miho gazes at Yukari, who shivered a bit at her. "I'm sorry for telling your secret, Miho."

Miho seems to consider her apology before she shook at her. "No, I'm sorry."

Everyone is surprised by her response, and it confuses Emi. "But-"

"I know, Emi," Miho cuts her off. "You had the right to know. It's just… I don't want to be too rash about it because I'm afraid of what everyone thinks of me negatively than who I am supposed to be."

"Miho, I'm sure everyone doesn't think about you like that, darling," Darjeeling replied with a smile but in concern.

"Everyone doesn't think of me like that?" Miho asked in her stressed tone. "They would say otherwise after I hanged the bastard."

"But we would never say anything bad about yourself," Yukari replied, widen her arms up to her shoulder height. "You're our good friend."

"And sisters-in-bond," Miho added, which surprised them. "Was that what I said before to you?"

"Yes, as sisters-in-bond," Yukari replied with a nod.

Emi fell silent about what Miho had said. "Miho, what about me?"

Miho looks at her and contemplates for a moment. "I can't tell you to choose if you're also a sister-in-bond or just best friend."

"Can't you just choose both?" Darjeeling asked curiously.

Miho flattened her lips and looked her eyes down. "It won't hurt, I suppose."

Miho then stays quiet and waits for one of them to say something. It was an uttering 15 seconds of silence as they awkwardly looked at each other to see who's going to talk first. Seeing how anyone doesn't know what they want to talk about, Anchovy sighs with her eyes closed. Anchovy then looks straight at Miho.

"Is there something you want to talk about?"

Miho quickly shook her head. "Erm, nothing. Nothing. It's just…"

"Just what?" Emi asked her.

But Miho seems to hesitate for a moment, then Darjeeling tries to convince her. "You don't have to worry about what you say. We are your friends, Miho."

"And I'm your lover, Miho," Anchovy replied, with a cute frown face. "We need to know what's wrong. You don't have to be afraid."

The three girls could awkwardly look at Anchovy after she mentioned she's her lover. Miho only stood there, thinking as she tilted her head and looked down as Anchovy awaits her answer.

Miho shrugged for a moment before looks up to her. "I was just thinking about the incident back in Ooarai, the bridge where I fell."

Miho then rests her arms to her sides. "It seems ironic, actually. I should've died back there, but I survived and washed up in London without reason. How much I changed after the incident and lived in London before coming back here in one piece. How I was just a simple girl turned into a girl full of determination."

They smiled despite what Miho meant by ironic. "I guess you miss London that much," Darjeeling wondered with her both hands on her front waist.

"Very," Miho rubs her chest with her left hand. "It makes me want to live there forever."

Now they wondered about one thing, and it was Emi to say that. "If you miss London so much, why did you come back?"

Her question caught Miho off-guard, she could stare blankly at her. Then she looked down, clueless for the answer. Miho then looks back at them with a frown.

"Honestly… I don't know."

Everyone deadpanned at her words. "What do you mean you don't know?" Yukari asked confusingly.

Miho was clueless to answer that as she sighs. "I don't know. I have many reasons, but I don't know which reason I should choose."

They widen their eyes for that. "What kind of reasons, Miho-chan?" Anchovy asked.

"Many," Miho then massages her wrist, her eyes still on the girls. "Maybe it's because I belong here, my true home. Maybe because I wanted to see my family again. Maybe because I'm trying to avoid bad memories in London, especially the robbery I told you about back there. Maybe I'm trying to start a new life here as a different person. Maybe I'm trying to find a new way for me to seek. Maybe I'm just lost."

Miho paused as she lets her arms drop to her sides. "Maybe I'm trying to find a purpose for my life."

 _"Maybe I'm just trying to get my mind off from Makarov."_

Honestly, those are a lot of reasons to say. "That's plenty, but all of them are good reasons," Darjeeling said with a smile.

"Was that a compliment?" Miho asked her.

"Yes, it was," Darjeeling replied with a nod.

"Thank you," Miho replied warmly with a smile before turning around and watch the view behind her.

As Miho watches the view of the sunset engulfed by the dark night, her friends and lover also joined in to watch. Side by side, they look toward the view Miho's looking at. None of them said a word as they watch. Only enjoy the mother nature ahead of them.

"So…" Yukari started. "What happens next?"

"We'll see," Miho answered, none of them break the gaze from the view. "Let's observe and follow the flow. Then we'll see how things turn out."

"Sounds wise," Emi commented in agreement.

"And let's hope the rest of our friends won't think otherwise about yourself," Darjeeling added. "Because you've been through a lot."

"I hope so," Miho replied with a nod.

For the next minutes, they spend their time watching the darkness of night envelops in the sky. They felt something peaceful about it, something calming about it. Something… refreshing for Miho. Their eyes gaze the dark skies, and Anchovy hugs Miho's shoulder to watch it as those who were back at the picnic tables came over and watched the skies far from the girls.

Wondering if there's something awaits for them.


	63. Chapter 60 - Down the Rabbit Hole

"This is your 7th bottle, Miho." The bartender said as he handed Miho another Grey Goose vodka.

She happily accepted the bottle, bringing it to a total of 7. After the mission to the stronghold, she constantly drank vodka, with the Single Action Army pistol, which had a single bullet with her at all times. She is pretty much alone in the bar, sitting at the counter as the bartender doing his work in front of her. He is pretty pitiful to see Miho in such a state as this.

"Please try to cut down on the drinking, Miho!" The bartender said aloud as he continued to wipe the used glasses that were left by the other members. He sighed as he finished with the last one.

"You knaw, I can drink ash mush ash I want ta." Miho slurred as she started to chug down the next bottle.

She keeps chugging the bottle down until…

*BAK*

The vodka went empty, and Miho immediately fell asleep from her drunkenness.

The bartender sighed again, knowing she won't listen to him. He then shook his head to Miho. He keeps wondering to himself how a soldier like herself could do something like that.

" _Teens,"_ He thought as he started to wipe the table.

* * *

12 hours later:

[Live]

Sandman grabbed the door handle, which activated a sensor. The detonators immediately triggered on the door and exploded, throw the two backward from the blasted door with Sandman on top of Frost. Frost immediately went for Sandman's pistol on his right leg holster and quickly shot the two soldiers who came out of the room attempting to kill the squad. After killing them, he pushed Sandman forward, and as soon as they stood up, the Mi-24 Hind began to take off, with Alena Vorshevsky being pulled back into the heli as it was taking off.

"Help me!" Alena shouted as the helicopter started to fly away. Grinch attempted to kill the soldier, holding her.

Right when Grinch is about to pull the trigger on his MK14, Sandman grabs his rifle down quickly and makes him miss four shots despite the scream they heard from Alena.

"We can't risk it," Sandman said as he waved at them with a shook.

He then turned his communicator on as he stepped forward onto the opening, his eyes never leave the direction of the leaving.

"Overlord, negative precious cargo. We lost her." Sandman said as he saw the helicopter immediately vanish beyond the fog of war.

[Live end]

"So, now that Team Delta failed to rescue her, how are we going to deal with this mess?" Miho asked Price and Yuri.

"I guess we have to get involved. MacMillan is calling." Price said as he answered the ringing phone.

* * *

 **Footage of Alena being taken away in the Mi-24 Hind**

 **Facial Recognition Confirmed**

Sandman: Price – we lost the girl. Looks like the helo took her to a diamond mine in Siberia.

Price: We're gonna have one shot to grab the President before he gives up the launch codes, and Makarov turns Europe into glass. Once we get boots on the ground, it's going to get lively down there.

 **Tracking Mi-24 Hind's route. Standby…**

…

…

…

 **Route found**

 **Location: Unnamed Diamond Mine, Siberia**

 **Hind analyzed**

 **Confirmed matching helicopter carrying the hostage**

Miho: Looks like dirty work, not that I'm not used to it.

Price: Obviously, Miho. All of us are used to this kind of job.

Sandman: Hopefully you can keep up, old man.

 **Profile of President Vorshevsky and Alena Vorshevsky**

Price: I know you Yanks like to take all the credit. So Yuri, Miho, and I will keep the neighbors in check while we roll hard to secure the hostages.

 **Diamond Mine site is analyzed**

 **Showing schematics of the entire complex.**

 **Insertion Point located: Diamond Mine Elevator**

 **Rescue team located in the moving elevator.**

Sandman: Okay. Weapons tight, guys. No one likes a dead hostage.

Truck: What's the score, boss?

Sandman: Everyone's hostile.

Grinch: Ain't that the truth.

* * *

"Down The Rabbit Hole"

October 14th - 11:08:14

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Delta Force/Task Force 141 – Disavowed

Eastern Siberia, Russia

By the time they entered the insertion point, four hostiles are already dead 2 minutes later. The team is already inside the elevator, with Price flipped over a hostile to the ground before shot him in the head. Miho only blinked. She just had amnesia of what they did before entering the elevator. But she paid no mind about right when a Delta member, Mccoy, hits the switch of the elevator.

"Ready?" Sandman asked as the elevator started to move downwards.

"I was ready yesterday, lads," Miho replied as she made checked to make sure her assault rifle was loaded.

For today, she had brought an HK416 to the battle instead of an M4A1 with P226 as her pistol which uses .357 SIG rounds. Miho wore the same jacket as everyone in the room except that she didn't wear any headgear, excluding her NVG. Miho cocked her rifle a few times to make sure there's no jamming in the feed system.

Satisfied, she lowered her gun. The elevator was going down slowly, making Grinch sigh.

"This thing go any faster?" Grinch asked with a sigh as he checked his watch.

"Easy, Grinch," Sandman replied as he looked around to make sure everyone was present. Satisfied, he got ready himself.

"Top off your rifles," Sandman said as everyone make sure that their guns are ready to fire.

"If we fail this, I'm blaming you," Price said as he got in position.

"We have no time for that," Sandman replied grudgingly as the elevator kept moving down.

"I hope you're not planning for a civil war," Miho said to them, something that made Grinch chuckled.

"Don't worry, that ain't happening."

"Where's Frost, by the way?" Miho wondered. "Shouldn't he be here?"

"He had to stay in Berlin," Truck replied as he makes sure the comms are on. "The CSAR needs his help to see if anyone from the German Division along with US combatants survived the ambush."

Grinch can't help but sighs to that. "Can't believe the Russians dropped the building on us."

"You're not the first person who had that," Yuri told him with a raised eyebrow, which made Grinch chuckles again.

Suddenly, the elevator stopped. Everyone immediately crouched and trained their weapons at the door.

"Get ready," Sandman said as the doors slowly started to open. Two Russian soldiers were standing in front of the elevator in the distance, with Miho's group all ready to attack.

"Now!" Price shouted as everyone started to fire.

*BRRRRRRRRRT-BRRRT-BRRRT-BRRRRT-BRRTT*

Those two hostiles quickly mowed down from the attack. Of course, the team supposes to make their attack loud. Not a moment later, a wave of Ultranationalist soldiers stormed into the room.

"Contact! Twelve o'clock!" Grinch shouted as several more soldiers entered the room.

"That escalated quickly," Miho commented as they returned fire from inside the elevator.

But only one member who noticed an Ultranationalist was seen carrying an RPG. McCoy was the first to be shocked to see that.

"Look out!" Mccoy shouted as the soldier got ready to shoot. Truck saw the same soldier, and he was surprised by the hostile's presence

"RPG!" Truck shouted aloud.

*PWUUUSH-BUAARRR*

The rocket hit the upper right of the elevator body. The blast was so deadly that the blast wave hit Mccoy hard and dropped to the floor. Miho can't tell if he's dead or not when the elevator immediately misaligned from the explosion, and everyone inside nearly stumbled.

"Ooohh, Shit!" Grinch shouted.

*BBRRRWUUUUUUUZZZZZ*

Right when the elevator began to freefall.

"Hold on!" Truck shouted as the elevator kept falling.

*SSIIIIINGGG-BRUUAK*

Miho could tell that this will be the last time she had the worst ride son the elevator ever. Everyone who didn't stumble; instead, they fell to their knees. They were a bit dizzy from that ride but managed to recover quickly.

"Status?" Sandman asked, wanting to make sure everyone can move forward.

"I'm good. We're clear!" Grinch replied.

"I'm fine," Miho then noticed the downed member next to the elevator door. "How's Mccoy?"

Sandman immediately checked on Mccoy's pulse on his neck, but it seems Sandman is a bit surprised at how he is doing.

"Looks like he just winded," Sandman replied with a shrug.

"No way, that was a helluva ride to go down," Truck knew that people who try to stay alive by lying down on the floor wouldn't survive.

"Looks like he's lucky," Miho commented, glad to know that Mccoy's alive and yet survived death.

That's when they noticed the elevator doors are opening. It slowly shows the darkroom ahead and also ultranationalist that are shooting at them from behind the crates. They ducked down as they waited for the Elevator fence to open.

"Heads up!" Sandman alerted everyone.

"Чёрт! Contact!" Yuri shouted as he responds to contact.

The team immediately fired back at the soldiers as they equipped their NVGs. Miho did a favor of throwing a flashbang through the small opened fence and stunned them. Seeing an opportunity, Sandman immediately shows the two hostiles in the head before crawling out of the elevator, which then followed by Price and Yuri as more hostiles showed up. Miho was the last to leave as everyone was out of the elevator when she noticed Mccoy is starting to conscious.

"Ah, hell," Mccoy shook his head for a moment until he looked up to Miho with a surprised look. "What the hell just happened?"

"We nearly hit by an RPG, our elevator crashed, you got winded, and we're under attack by hostiles," Miho then pulls him up to his feet. "Come on; we got a job to do."

"Damn, thanks for waking me up," Mccoy said as Miho gave him his M4A1.

"No sweat, let's go," Miho then crawls out of the elevator as Mccoy did the same.

Miho and Mccoy took cover behind the crates as the rest taking cover either on the other covers or down in the open. "Mccoy, I hope you had a good sleep!" Grinch joked under the gunfire.

"Shut up, Grinch!" Mccoy grudgingly responded, then in annoyance, sends a grenade launcher to a group of four hostiles and blown them to hell. "I need a raise after this!"

"Won't be so hopeful on that, American," Yuri replied with a smirk.

The team immediately advanced when they dispatched all the hostiles. As the team kept moving forward, Miho saw men of 4 on platforms ahead shooting at the team. The night vision goggles helped them spot the Ultranationalist soldiers, making sure that they would be taken down. Miho, Truck, and Price shot the bastards above before heading through two separate paths.

"Grinch, Truck, Mccoy, sweep left!" Sandman ordered the three, who then headed through the platform above.

"The rest of you, on me!" Price ordered Miho nodded as they followed Price through a tunnel below the platform.

"What a warm welcome we are facing, isn't it, Yuri?" Miho sarcastically asked as they entered the tunnel, killing the men in front of them.

"You tell me," Yuri replied as they exited the tunnel.

"You need tea for that kind of welcome?" Sandman asked them.

"We're not in UK, mate," Miho replied as they advanced. "But I don't mind to have one."

Seeing a light source, everyone disabled their night-vision goggles. The first thing they noticed upon entering the next room was the hostile up on the platform ahead.

"Targets! Twelve o'clock high!" Truck shouted, with Miho immediately seeing where he was informing the group.

"I see 'em!" Grinch shouted as the group entered a large atrium.

"Contact roping down the catwalks!" Mccoy shouted as the team quickly ran to cover.

"Got two of them," Price confirmed as the bastards fall off the ropes.

Ultranationalists have stormed the room behind machinery and crates. It wasn't helpful that three more Ultranationalists appeared on the upper platforms, two of them carrying RPGs and firing on them. One missed Miho and Yuri as it flew overhead.

"More RPGs? Why're they shooting them indoors?" Miho was pissed. With them being in a mine, those explosions would kill everyone if those rockets hit a weak area in the rocks.

"It's the wrong time to ask that!" Yuri replied as he ducked down to avoid incoming RPGs.

"Sort 'em out!" Price shouted as he killed men on the left. With the soldiers becoming less and less, Price saw an opening.

"Frag out!" Mccoy warned as he threw a grenade far behind enemy line, killing three of them near small stairs.

"Enemy infantry in the open!" Sandman warned as he took cover behind a mining machine.

"Roger, I see them," Truck responded with a suppressive fire of his M249.

"Who's going to shoot the bastards on our twelve high!?" Miho asked aloud through radio. "Those rockets going to pin us down!"

"I'll handle them," Grinch replied and aimed his MK14 to the said three targets on their twelve.

*BAM-BAM-BAM*

"Alright, targets down!" Grinch said in relieve. "No more RPGs."

Miho returned fire at the hostiles when her eyes caught a glimpse of her left, which are small stairs to the control room. "Price, Yuri, cover me. I'm going through the left flank."

"Roger, covering fire," Price immediately replied as he crouched and shot from behind cover.

Miho quickly to run to the left as Price raised his gun to avoid his aim to Miho. She goes up a couple of staircases and into the control room. She then proceeded to flank the hostiles from there. She managed to shot a few of them behind cover and gives the team breathing space.

"Keep moving!" Miho said on the radio. "I'll cover from here."

"Push forward!" Sandman ordered as the group started to go out of cover and move, entering the tunnel. More of the soldiers appeared nearby.

"Copy, advancing," Yuri affirmatively replied as the team push the enemy line back

"Yuri, is it me, or did all of Makarov's men relocate themselves to this area?" Miho asked as she shoots at them.

"I think the latter." Was his reply as they reached the end of the room.

Miho vaulted through the window from the second floor and landed back to the ground floor. She noticed there are two tunnels ahead of her, left and right. She opted to go left and met up with Grinch, Yuri, and Mccoy. Miho ran forward and immediately took cover behind a rock as they received constant fire from ahead.

Miho then throws a flashbang into the tunnel. "Banger out!"

*BANG*

"Good call," Mccoy commented; thanks to the flashbang, they easily mowed the enemy infantry ahead because they stunned and stood out in the open.

"Keep pushing," Yuri ordered as they begin to run and gun at the enemy ahead.

As they managed to kill a few more than five hostiles, the remnants of enemy combatants quickly retreat through a large metal door and locked the team out. They regrouped at the large metal door as Sandman, Price, and Truck catch up from the right tunnel.

"All clear." Truck informed everyone, everyone readied themselves near the metal door.

"Truck, you're up," Sandman ordered him, Truck knew what to do.

"On it."

Truck pulled out his sawblade and saw off the locking mechanism on the top of the door. Thankfully, he doesn't have to cut the bottom one as well. Truck then threw his sawblade away and stood beside the door. Price and Miho got in front of the door and kicked it open. Miho and Price met with a surprised enemy soldier and quickly shot at him; unfortunately, he got away just in time. She and Price went up a flight of stairs and cleared the room quickly, Price killed the last two hostiles on the right that were hiding behind a table.

In that room, there are also wide windows showing the whole contents of the docking bay tunnel. Grinch, Truck, Sandman, and Price took cover from there while Miho, Yuri, and Mccoy dodged the incoming bullets and entered a small room on the left side of the windows. There's also one wide window in that room facing the docking bay and proceed to flank from there.

"Enemy on that snow truck!" Price shouted.

"Target acquired!" Mccoy confirmed as he killed the hostile on the back of the snow truck. "He's down."

"Looks like Makarov really wants to keep the two hostages, doesn't he?" Miho asked as she helped clear the way. I followed up with small explosions from the destroyed snowmobiles and fuel barrels.

"Yeah. Now it reminds me of Africa." Yuri said as he peeked out for a moment before ducking down.

"Don't you dare, Yuri…" Miho warned annoyingly; she then tosses a frag through the window blindly.

"Granata!"

*BUAR*

"Two targets down!" Sandman confirmed as they fire from the other windows.

"The men are hiding behind the vehicles!" Yuri shouted as he vaulted through the window and took cover in front of the snow truck.

"I know!" Miho shouted as she followed him and shot at them.

Before she managed to reach the cover of the snow truck; however, Miho notices a hostile is going to shoot at her.

With an RPG.

"Ah, shite. RPG!"

*PWUUSSH-BUAR*

Miho narrowly dodges from the RPG blast, and she jumps to her right just in time. Despite that, Yuri got her up and covered by the snow truck. But Miho immediately noticed a pain on her right arm, which she found out that her arm was injured from the RPG's shrapnel.

"Are you ok, Miho?" Price asked in concern as he killed the bastard who shoots the RPG.

Miho started to apply band-aids on her bleeding right arm. It took her for about 10 seconds before she finished it.

"I'm fine. Let's keep moving." Miho replied as she got up and packed her medkit, Yuri and Mccoy advance to her left flank in the open and Miho snuck through the right pass the truck. The rest of Delta and Price entered the bay as the hostiles began to thin out as expected.

"RPG, RPG, why is it always RPG?" Miho mumbled to herself as they advanced.

"We're gonna need another way out of here!" Truck stated to everyone.

"Stairwell left side! Let's go!" Sandman stated back, and they proceed to go up to the stairwell.

Mccoy and Yuri were the first to go up before Price and Miho. She could see that Yuri and Mccoy just shot and killed the last two ultranationalists that were about to go down the stairwell. Once everyone reaches the top, they turned right through a doorway before going left through the doorway with number 3 next to it. Ahead of them is a crateful of ammo supplies thanks to their luck, and there's another doorway on their left, which is the only exit from the interior complex. Everyone regrouped there as they temporarily stock on ammo.

Miho was about to head to that closed doorway but stumbles down when she walks up a small stair.

Sandman went to her and helped her up. "Miho, if you can't go on, we can handle it. You can go back if you want."

"No. I can continue." She replied as she stretched her injured right arm, showing that she's still combatting effective. "I'm not leaving until the President and his daughter are safe."

They could hear Truck sighed and shook his head. "Sometimes, I wonder how the hell a teenage girl like you got signed up to join 141."

"It's a long tale to tell," Price replied to him as he, Mccoy, Yuri, Miho, and Sandman regrouped in front of the closed doorway.

"Overlord, this is Sandman. We're at the bottom of the mine. We're going to need air support." Sandman requested, he knew that they're going to face heavy resistance outside due to their small numbers of combatants.

"Affirmative, Sandman. We'll chop a predator to you." was the reply as everyone got into position.

"Really glad to hear that," Mccoy commented happily.

Miho's curiosity gets the better of her and proceeds to contact overlord. "Overlord, this is Miho Nishizumi. Will we get any additional support aside from the Predator?"

"Affirmative, Miho. Little Birds will be on-site for additional air support, and other Delta units are sent to assist you in the battle."

"Roger that, Overlord. Miho out."

Miho sighs in relieve but then noticed the group with her gazing at her. "What?"

"Did you think we'll be doing this rescue by ourselves?" Sandman asked with a raised brow.

"We're not really alone in this, y'know?" Mccoy added questioningly.

Miho only shrugs to them. "I just want to make sure that we didn't get screwed all over like when we were in Prague."

Sandman and Mccoy then looked back at the other 141 members and noticed they are frowning. Sandman frowned as well to them.

"I'm sorry about what happened to Soap," although Sandman's tone was flat, he is very sincere of it.

Eventually, the 141 members nodded at him with a silent thank. "Should we get moving?" Yuri asked them.

"We should," Sandman replied, he then steadies himself at the door. "Ready?"

Price chuckled as he steadies himself next to Sandman.

"Try and keep up."

They both then kicked the door open and went through the exit. They were greeted by the Ultranationalists who were shooting rockets at the Little Birds, which were making attack runs at the soldiers on the ground. They also saw a Hind which was trying to take the Little Bird down chasing the helicopter.

Picking up an RPG, Miho shot at an SUV that arrived in the courtyard in front of them, eventually blowing them to scraps, including the hostiles inside. She tossed away the RPG and went back for HK416. However, many more men kept arriving nearby. They shoot from there for the moment as Miho focused on killing hostiles on the left flank.

"Hop the rail! Move it!" Sandman shouted as the team followed Price and slid down the slope, ending up on the ground.

Once they cleared out the area, they headed through the gate. They saw both Little Birds touch down in front of them, with reinforcement of Delta soldiers arriving in the area.

"Viper 4, troops are on the deck."

"Viper 6, the team is on the ground. Going into cover pattern."

"Good to see you, mates!" Miho said joyfully. "Let's push them back!"

"Yes, ma'am!" one of the Delta operatives responded before taking cover behind a small wall ahead, followed by Miho and Mccoy.

"Go to the complex there! We will have more cover!" Price shouted as the group followed him. They got into position right outside the area.

"UAV is on station with a full load of AGMs. Ready for targets." Overlord informed Miho, who got her portable laptop out and connected to the drone.

The drone showed her where the soldiers were currently, as she knew where to target it. Firing a missile where there were most men together, the missile hit, killing several men.

"Nice work. Multiple KIAs." The team kept moving forward, getting rid of more men.

"Viper 4, taking out targets at the construction site. Inbound is hot."

"AGMs are online." With that info, Miho targeted more men, who were twice more than a while ago. Miho targeted those who are on top of the construction building where Viper 4 bird is shooting at.

*WOOOOOOSH-BUAAARR*

"Five plus kills confirmed. Good work." Overlord said as he kept monitoring the situation.

"Nice job, Miho!" Price shouted as she put the laptop away and followed the team, entering the complex.

"Whoa, who stole my kills?" Viper 4 asked in surprise.

"Sorry, mate," Miho apologized on the radio. "I just bombed them."

"Warn me next time," Viper 4 replied before continue to engage the remaining hostiles of the building's rooftop.

"Cut through the construction yard! There's more cover!" Sandman shouted as they entered the area, which was previously occupied by the Ultranationalists.

"Are you sure it is safe? I'm sure that it was full of those Ultranationalists just a while ago!" Yuri complained as they entered the area.

"It should be clear now!" Price replied as they got into cover behind several buildings and construction material.

"AGMS are online," Overlord informed Miho again.

She wasn't in a safe spot; however, she moves up with the team to the construction yard. Moreover, Miho split up from the team and headed into the building while the rest went to the left to get to the yard.

"Viper Six, we're moving into the construction yard! Watch your fire!" Sandman informed the squad as they kept moving.

Copy that, 0-1. We're movin' to the next area." Viper 6-1 replied as they left the area.

Miho made sure the building is secure first. She spotted a couple of hostiles moving behind a layer of blue cloth in front of her. She shot through the layer and killed both the bastards before reloading her HK416. Now that the place is safe, Miho got out of the tac-laptop. She spotted a lot of enemy Ultranationalists are converging into the construction yard for about a dozen and the team are pinned down behind the fence.

"Predator drone ready for next targets." She then launches the AGM towards the construction yard. Right in front of the team.

*BBUUUUUAUAARRRRRMM*

"WOAH, SHIT!" she heard. Truck shouted, it seems that took them off-guard.

"10 plus hostiles neutralized. Good shot," Overlord stated on the radio.

"Hey!" Miho turned her head at the team, specifically Grinch, from inside the building. "Have you lost your mind!?"

"Well, I saved your time, didn't I?" Miho responded flatly.

"Why the hell did you drop the bomb right in front of us?" Mccoy asked aloud from the fence.

"Since when do you have problems with dropping bombs on terrorists?!"

Price gave a smug look and a tilted head. "She has a point."

"I hope we're done here! This place is slowly reminding me of Africa!" Yuri complained as everyone jumped down into the yard.

"At least it's cold here," Miho added optimistically.

They manage to press forward until they reached a stacked cargo freight on their left. Miho reloads her HK416 once more before taking cover behind a small concrete wall next to the cargo. Price killed a couple of bastards that just came out from inside the cargos; it turns out the cargos were modified into a control room. Before they began to press on, however, they heard a blast in the sky.

"Overlord, a SAM just took out our UAV!" Sandman informed Overlord.

"Oh, for Queen's sake." – Miho

"Argh, иди нaхуи." – Yuri

"Oh, my Jesus." – Truck

Everyone immediately looks at Truck despite the gunfire they received. "The hell you're looking at me like that?"

"Oh my, what?" Miho asked him confusingly.

"For real, Truck?!" Grinch responded annoyingly. "Don't get religious here!"

"Hey, I'm not!" Truck responded aloud as he ducked his head a little. "Now I'm not allowed to say something religious like that!?"

"Shut the bloody hell up, you two!" Price retorted in annoyance. "We got more pressing matters than that!"

"We need another way into the mine!" Sandman shouted as the group hid behind cover, being shot at from several men.

"We're not getting in there without some heavy firepower!" Price said as he reloaded his gun and began to shoot at more men.

"No shite, Sherlock! I'm not going to die here!" Miho shouted as she shot at several men aggressively, being pissed off that they were in a tough position. Not only that, a couple of hostiles SUV arrived on site and are armed with miniguns. They are pretty much pinned down from all that firepower. Her injury was making it hard, but she ignored the pain.

"Calm down, Miho! Your arm!" Price said, worried as she killed several more people.

Overlord acknowledged their problem. "Solid copy, Sandman. Odin Six, payload target coordinates are as follows: 7 9 4 4."

"Everyone, sit tight!" Sandman shouted as the group gets their heads down. Soon followed by dozens of artillery striking the huge blast door of the mine.

*BUARR-BUAAAR-DUUAARR-BLLAAAR-BUAAR BUAAAR-DUUAARR-BLLAAAR-BUAAR BUAAAR-DUUAARR-BLLAAAR-BUAAR-BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR*

"Now that's more like it!" Price agreed as he got out of cover as the others followed suit.

Now the way into the mine is opened wide with a lot of enemy's bombed corpses outside. And the SUV armed miniguns are destroyed.

"Inside! Now!" Sandman shouted as Miho and Yuri shot at the few remaining Ultranationalists that survived the strike.

The team makes the run for the blasted bunker. Hopping over a trench before reaching the bunker as they returned fire at the hostiles trying to defend it. Entering the bunker, Price led the group left and going further down into a hole that leads to a tunnel.

"Overlord, we're in! Approaching the target now." Miho and Yuri ran first, seeing several of the soldiers who were alive but were heavily injured and supporting each other. They were the ones affected by the explosions nearby.

"So, should we shoot them?" Miho asked.

"I guess?" Yuri said as they moved.

Some of the men on the ground got out their pistols and attempted to kill the two, but Miho and Yuri killed them. The two also killed the rest of them, all who dare to retreat. It's more like a no enemy survivor scenario. Once they reached the end of the tunnel, they met with another door.

"Miho, take care of the door." Price ordered.

She nodded before planting a breaching charge; she took cover for a moment.

*BLAAAR*

She quickly entered the room with her rifle trained forward, ready to kill everyone in the room. Just before she pulled the trigger.

"Wait!"

Miho quickly lowers her rifle after Truck's warning, when she saw the beaten Alena Vorshevsky tied to a chair.

"It's the daughter." Truck informed the team as Price cut the rope that tied her hands.

"Is she okay?" Miho asked in heavy concern.

"She's hurt, but she's alright," Price replied with condolences on the daughter's condition.

As he was cutting the ropes, Overlord contacted them.

"Metal 0-1, what is your status? Have you secured the President?"

"Negative, Overlord, but we have the girl," Sandman replied as Price lays her on the table beside them.

"We'll prep a team for extraction. Continue searching for the President."

"Looks like we have a long day ahead of us." Miho sighed as she checked her ammo reserves. Suddenly, Alena started to say something.

"She's trying to say something…" Truck said as he listens over to the weak-voiced Alena. He got closer to hear what she said and understood what she said.

"они взяли его глубже в рудник"

"She says they took her father deeper into the mine."

Miho could only sigh. They've gone this far and have to go even deeper. This day was already tiring for her. Damn bastards maybe one step ahead of them, by they will catch up. Miho got out a cigar and began to smoke for a moment.

"Then that's where we're going. Come on," Sandman said as he was about to move, but Yuri stopped him by a touch on his shoulder.

"We will move out in a minute." Price informed the group as they all checked their weapons and reloaded their guns. Some just sat down, tired from moving.

"After this job, I'm going to have a lot of whiskeys back home." Truck said as he stood up, ready to move out.

"Drink's on me if we finish this job in one piece." Price told the group as he looks over to everyone.

"IF we finish this job," Miho then looks to Mccoy, who's tending on the President's daughter. "Mccoy, you got her from here?"

"Don't worry, she'll be in good hands," Mccoy replied with a nod. "I'll handle her from here, you go ahead and save the president."

Everyone then looks back at each other again with their determined looks. "Everyone ready?" Yuri asked them.

Miho lets out a fog of smoke, before dumping her cigar away. "Yeah, let's go."

As the team was about to move at the door, Mccoy contacts HQ. "Overlord, we are at grid coordinate 5. I need a MEDEVAC for a critical casualty, she's hurt bad. Request MH-6 Bird to RV with us at LZ Bravo. We're six minutes out — that's zero-six mikes. Confirm station time, over?"

After Sandman and Price kick another door open ahead, everyone soon faced a large resistance of Ultranationalist soldiers who arrived in the area. Thankfully, they were pretty disorganized upon meeting the team, and they were soon mowed down. They continue to move until they saw a large hole that leads to the bottom of the mine with a catwalk in the middle. Aside from the incoming resistance, they saw the Ultranationalists are moving President Vorshevsky away from the team.

"On the catwalk!" Price informed them, Miho and Yuri saw the president and ran as close as they can despite the gunfire.

"There he is! I see him!" Miho heard Grinch said as they engaged the hostiles firing from the catwalk. It's unbearably annoying that they send another RPGs at them.

"Then we're not too late! Keep pushing!" Sadly, the Ultranationalists managed to get him onto an elevator and started to go down.

They cleared out the catwalk in a jiffy, as Miho was the person who killed the last five hostiles on the catwalk with ease. They immediately ran over to the catwalk and prepared the ropes.

"Hook up!" Sandman ordered.

Miho and the team hooked the ropes and climbed to the other side of the catwalk's railing. The team looks at each other before they jumped off the catwalk and hold onto their ropes. Miho holds the rope with her left hand while her right hand is free. Miho was pretty nervous about height but she managed to stay optimistic. They immediately saw the bastards moving the President when they almost reach the bottom.

"There they are!" Grinch informed with his pointed finger.

"He's right there! Right there!" Truck informed as well before they landed to the ground.

Miho got into the cover on the left flank, right when several hostiles with RPGs started to shoot at her along with her team. One barely hits Miho; if not for her to hid behind a rock just in time.

"These rockets are pissing me off!" Miho shouted as she suppressed the hostiles on the catwalks. Grinch and Yuri did the job to take care of them.

"We have more pressing matters, Miho!" Yuri shouted as he cleared the platform, where several men were shooting at the team.

As everyone cleared the area halfway, the blast doors began to close.

"They're closing the blast doors!" Truck shouted. Miho saw the large doors begin to close. Sadly, with the amount of resistance, they wouldn't be able to get there in time. The doors closed in the end.

"We'll find a way to deal with it after we managed to get out of this area!" Price shouted as he shot another soldier dead.

Miho tried to flank through the left while Yuri and Grinch take the right flank. Truck, Price, and Sandman stayed in the middle behind a line of boxes to draw hostiles' fire. When Miho, Yuri and Grinch cleared their way through that flank, they nearly walked out into the open by the time an Ultranationalist began to shoot a machinegun at them. Miho saw where he was and it's above the blast doors.

"Yuri, Grinch, distract him!" Miho ordered as she gestured her hands to the bastard.

"Covering fire," Grinch and Yuri immediately suppressed the machine gunner, which in turn begin shooting in their direction.

"You got him, Miho?" Truck asked aloud.

"Almost!"

*DAR-DAR*

"Got him!"

"Machine gun's down, let's move!" Sandman ordered as the team begins to move out into the open and firing from there.

Miho didn't take long to notice another hostile on the level above the blast doors. "Put them down!"

"Got them in my sights!" Price announced, just right when an RPG flew past him. "Nice try."

"BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR-BAR"

"Clear!" Grinch shouted as the last of the men are neutralized.

"Regroup!" Miho ordered as they immediately converge toward the locked blast doors.

"We gotta get through that door!" Sandman stated as Price walks over to the door.

Price could only give a bang on it. Price knew that it was impossible to break it open. The blast doors are explosive proof.

"It's reinforced steel. We can't get through this!"

"Any bright ideas?" Grinch asked as Miho snickered. There was no way to break it open with the equipment they had currently except for satchel charges.

Price immediately had an idea. "I've got one. Up top. Follow me."

Price only pointed his finger to above him before turning around and walk up the stairs next to the doors. Everyone followed Price onto the floor above the blast doors. Miho could snicker at the idea Price had. Price stopped in an open area in the middle, pointing to some random parts in the middle of the floor.

"Yuri, Miho! Get charges here, here and here!"

Miho and Yuri got out their explosives and started to plant them in the middle of the floor. The rest of the team plant the charges in the form of half-circle. They stand in the half-circle of the floor. Miho detaches her mag to check her bullets before inserting them back again.

"Is everyone ready?" Price asked them.

"Ready," Miho replied with a nod, her rifle aimed at the floor. "On your go."

"3, 2, 1."

*BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR*

The moment the charges blew a hole on the floor, everything in her surroundings began to slow down. The floor collapses, followed by the team with their rifles ready. Five hostiles are taken off-guard with one already knocked out from the blast underneath. Miho began to fire in mid-air to neutralize the three hostiles. Only one hostile left, who is using the President as a human shield.

Once Miho landed on one knee and her rifle aimed next to the president's head, the last hostile is going to pull the trigger.

*DAR*

Miho beats him quick, and the last gunman suffered a headshot. He could nearly pull the trigger before he was killed and soon dropped to the floor. Then the time immediately goes back to normal, with the President stumbled back in anxiety. Thankfully, the President is so relieved of his saviors. Miho quickly points her rifle upward as she, Sandman, Price, and Yuri walk over to him.

"Overlord, jackpot. The President is secure." Sandman informed Overlord as Price helped to untie the Russian President's hands.

"Solid Copy. Gather your team and proceed to the RV."

The Russian president sighs a lot as he is relieved from taken hostage. Though, he still shows his worry after he was untied.

"My daughter…"

"She's alright. She's alive." Price reassured him as he helped the president stand.

"Your daughter is already being sent to the safe zone as we speak," Miho informed him as he patted his shoulder. "Now we need to get you out of here."

"Thank you," President Vorshevsky responded in heavy relieve, despite the distress he has until now. "Thank you so much."

"Don't thank us yet," Yuri sheepishly replied, knowing they're both are Russians. "We need to get you out from here."

Suddenly, the group heard a faint sound from outside.

*bum-bum*

"What the hell?!" Miho heard Truck shouted out of the hole as everyone confused about what they just heard.

*BLUUUAARR*

Everyone stumbled down but quickly recovered from the explosion. Didn't leave any bruise but enough to remind them to clean their clothes the moment they returned from the mission.

"Move! Move!" Price shouted as everyone began to move out from the hole and began escorting the President.

"They're trying to bury us alive!" Miho stated, she didn't think it would get worse than this. "We need that extraction, now!"

Sandman reached for his earpiece and contacted HQ. "Overlord, this place is gonna collapse any minute! The birds need to come to us!"

"Copy that. Hammer 1 is now en-route. ETA thirty seconds. Stand by."

Miho wasn't reassured, they don't have that many seconds to wait. They regrouped with Truck and Grinch at the fence from whence they came. They immediately rejoined to know that they are under fire from enemy Ultranationalist trying to swarm their small numbers.

"Hold this position! Evac will be here in thirty seconds!" Sandman shouted as he reloaded his gun.

"Miho! Get on the machine gun!" Price shouted.

"You don't need to tell me that, old man!" She shouted back as she started to shoot at the men who were taking cover while trying to kill all of them.

"More bad guys inbound!" Truck informed them as several Ultranationalists entered the area, coming out of the smoke.

There was a large smoke behind hostiles, where the men are coming. While the team can't see the most of the hostiles in that smoke, the hostiles are flooding the open area below the level. Miho even manages to avoid a couple of hostiles going up the stairs to ambush the group. Miho was also getting shot at, but thankfully none of them hit her. She shoots burst by burst to make sure the machinegun didn't overheat and occasionally checks around her to make sure the President is still with them.

"Watch the left flank!" Grinch shouted as soldiers were coming out of the left, forcing the team to focus there.

"Scheisse!" Miho shoots the left flank just in time to kill the ambushing hostiles, along with other hostiles flanking from opposite catwalks along with the middle.

Grinch managed to slip a joke under fire. "Since when you became German?"

"Shut up, Grinch!" everyone, including the President (wait, what?), retorted at him, much to his fright.

"Hammer 1, you gonna bail us out of this or what?" Sandman complained as the group was close to being overrun.

"Almost there. Just hold on," Hammer 1 replied, however, that didn't calm Miho that much.

"Hurry up, bollocks! We're being overrun here!" She shouted as Ultranationalist soldiers were coming from all sides at this point.

Miho swears it feels like it's been a minute to hold their position. She swerves the MG everywhere to make sure the advancing Ultranationalists are either killed or suppressed indefinitely. It seems endless for them to hold the enemy back. Miho was starting to wish if she would've just stayed in tankery than this.

But then, they a loud sound on the other end of the mine. Miho looked up and saw an armed Little Bird arrived on the scene. Miho begins to feel comfortable for its arrival.

"Looks like our ride's here!" Grinch shouted as the Little Bird is still floating and provide air support on the other end of the mine.

"Meta 0-1, this is Vulture 6, let's get the hell out of here."

"Ya' took your time, ya' bastards!" Miho shouted on the communicator as she shot the last soldier in the open before Miho quickly get off the MG.

"Sounds good, 6-1!" Sandman replied as they motioned the President to move with them before moving down the stairs. "Alright, let's move! Go!"

They only kept running as fast as they can despite the gunfire from oncoming hostiles from all sides and ignoring the explosions around them. The sign of the collapse is near and they have no time to stay much longer. When they make their way to Vulture 6-1 and Hammer 1-6, they didn't expect this.

"RPG! Move! Move!" Hammer 1-6 shouted as he avoided; however, Vulture 6-1 was so unlucky.

*BUAR*

The said RPG hit the Little Bird by its tail and began spinning uncontrollably.

"I'm hit! I'm hit! Going down!" Vulture 6's efforts are in vain.

Only right when the team is nearly reached the extraction, Vulture 6 immediately crashed into the ground in front of them. *BUAARR* Followed by a lot of explosives that blinded, deafen, and knocked out Miho so hard. Miho doesn't know if she's got hit by any shrapnel because she was unconscious for the moment, but God knows what she had suffered from that blast. She still blacked out from the blast except for the deafening noise of singing steel.

" _Miho!"_

Price's almost unheard voice was the only thing that wakes her immediately. And she found herself lying on the floor, wounded and facing at the Black Hawk on-site. She has a hard time to breathe, and her tired eyes struggled from fainting again. Thankfully, she was glad to see the rest of the team survived the blast and currently returning fire at the hostiles to protect the Black Hawk.

"Get the President on board! We got to get the hell outta here!" Hammer 1-6 radioed in concern as he landed the Blackhawk.

Miho blinks for about 2 seconds before looking again. She now saw Yuri is helping the President to board the Black Hawk with Grinch and Truck covering them. Once the President is in, Yuri stayed outside the chopper to provide cover for the retreating team.

"President's secure!" Grinch shouted as he kept covering fire. Seeing Miho on the ground, Truck ran to Miho, who was about to faint.

"Get Miho!" Yuri screamed as Truck was first to notice her hurtful condition and ran over to her.

"Hang on! I got ya!" He said as he picks Miho by the back of her shoulders and slowly started dragging her to the chopper. Miho pulls out her P226 as she tried to provide support fire to any avail, and tries to suppress the pain she had by only holding her voice. "Miho – wounded!"

"Type of injury?" Yuri asked him.

"Shrapnels!" Truck responded to him. "Got her left leg and near her waist. Small pieces."

"Damn it!" Grinch knew she wouldn't walk with that. "Get her to the chopper!"

They retreated as fast as they could. Miho could see Price and Sandman in front of her, trying to cover their retreat as best as they can. Miho could notice the blood she left from her wound while she's dragged, but didn't get distracted to it. It was so stressful and… claustrophobic to try to survive and retreat from numerous Ultranationalist coming from all sides. It was… how Miho say it?

It's the survival of the fittest.

"Price! You got to go! Make sure the president gets out!" Sandman shouted as everyone was slowly moving backward, shooting at the oncoming soldiers as everyone gives cover fire.

"Don't even think about it, mate! We're in this together!" Price is so persistent with his friend.

Sandman responded to him. "Price, grab your guy and-

"RPG!" Grinch suddenly shouted as a rocket flew above them. Miho managed to shoot that RPG hostile with a pistol despite her bloody aim and distance.

"Nice job, Miho!" Truck commented lowly as they all were continuing to move backward.

"Truck! Cover the right side!" Sandman ordered with a gesture to his right and managed to ignore the RPG blast in front of him.

Price faced at him in determination and hope. "You better be right behind me!"

He turns around and exchanges part with Truck to drag Miho to safety. Miho holstered her pistol before Price gave her his M4A1. Price begins to drag Miho away from the battle after Truck covered the right side. Miho could see back again at the battle in front of her.

It was pure chaos. Everything around her slows down a bit. And every kind of sound, such as shouting, gunfire, explosions, and even footsteps are heard at a deafening level. Miho can't even properly aim in her wounded state which she has no choice but to shoot from the hip. As Miho covered the right between Truck and Sandman, she barely saw Grinch rolled backward to avoid the oncoming RPG before shooting back again.

Then she saw Sandman called Truck loud before giving him his last mag for his M4A1 and ignore the smoke produced in front of them. Once the smoke dissipates, Miho saw Truck tackled by a nearby Ultranationalist but able to counter by flipping him over and shoot him straight with his rifle. Miho begins to fire wildly to all front sides and avoided hitting the three standing Delta in front of her. Miho could see Grinch is out of ammo for his MK14 and threw his rifle away to use his dual Berettas. The smoke produced again in front of the soldiers as Sandman and Truck covered the right side.

Out of nowhere, an enemy emerged from the smoke and tried to attack Sandman up close. Before Miho managed to shoot him, Sandman got a chance to slapped him with his rifle's stock before pulling out his knife and side-stabbed him in the chest. He then pulled his knife out and threw it at the other enemy in the face who was trying to get in melee range with him. That's when Miho's resolve weakens.

Sandman is immediately shot in the right shoulder, and he lost grip on his rifle. Wounded, tired and he stumbled onto one knee after losing his only rifle and with Grinch and Truck on his sides, getting pinned down and low on ammo. But then Miho and Price reached the helicopter with Yuri and Vorshevsky are helping them especially the wounded Miho to get on board.

Price and Miho stood and sat at the Black Hawk's side door.

The last three Deltas are still outside. And they can't leave them there.

"Sandman! It's time to go! C'mon!" Price shouted as he motioned to them to come to the heli.

"Just go! Get out of here!" Sandman replied. However, Price wasn't going to take that for an answer.

But then the chopper is immediately receiving an attack from RPGs. And they barely hit the chopper.

"RPG!" Truck shouted as the helicopter rocked from the blast. The pilot was just in time to take off the ground.

"Hang on!" Hammer 1-6 said as the helicopter struggled to stay airborne. Hammer 1-6 managed to get the helicopter stable despite being shot at by hostiles.

Price and Miho looked down on the last three Deltas on the ground. Intentionally left behind and abandoned from the extraction. Miho can't help but look down at Sandman's face for the last time.

"Just go! Go!" Sandman waves at them to leave immediately before turning at the numerous enemies with a handgun with his left.

It's Metal 0's last stand. She couldn't comprehend to leave them here.

"We can't stay here! We gotta leave!" the pilot's answer brought the nightmares to Miho, as the Black Hawk began ascending in a circle.

"No! Get us back down there!" Price demanded as the helicopter continued to climb. Explosions were seen all around them as the mine's collapse.

"Are you going to leave the three there to die?" Miho shouted, despite the exhaustion and the wounds she had.

"It's too hot! We go back; we all die!" Hammer 6-1 reasoned. They have no choice.

"Sandman, do you read me?!" Price asked as they escaped the collapsing mine in time. But he received no answer.

*BUAR-BUARM-BUAR-DUAR-BLARR-BLAR-BLAR-BUUUUUAAARRR*

Explosions are still heard throughout the mine, especially the one they just escaped.

"Sandman, come in!" Price tried again as they looked down at the collapsed mine. No response.

"Sandman, do you copy! Sandman, are you still there?"

There's… still… no… response…

"No!" Miho screamed at the collapsed mine. "No!"

She's tearing up; she's starting to feel it. That agony, that pain, that loss, that… failure of hers. She can't believe it… she left them alone fighting against the horde of enemies there for their survival.

"No…" Miho's crying was enough to silence everyone on board the chopper. The President himself along with the pilot, didn't dare to say a word. "No…You… you didn't have to stay there… Why?"

All the men inside could only glance at her before avoid their gaze to her due to her mental breakdown. Except for Vorshevsky, however, because he begins to feel how much she has lost due to this damned war and the terrorists. The atmosphere is silent, save for the rotor blades of the Black Hawk that keeps spinning. They only sat in silence for the rest of the trip with Yuri trying to tend her wounds in silence.

It was an uneventful trip. But they made it out alive.

(News report)

"Thousands of people have gathered today to greet President Vorshevsky in his return to Moscow… reports have confirmed that peace talks between Russia and the US are about to begin… In other news, the Ultranationalist Leader, Vladimir Makarov, is still at large."

* * *

"Aaaahhh!" Miho threw the TV remote on the wall, destroying it. She is currently recovering from surgery in the N.N Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital due to the injuries she sustained during the mission to rescue the Russian President and his daughter. Miho controls her breath to calm herself down but to no avail. After losing too much to get this far, save for the President, she still can't get to Makarov yet.

The doors opened, and Price entered, carrying some beef stroganoff and Schi soup. Also on the tray was a cup of Earl Grey.

"So, how are you doing…?" Price asked slowly and saw the broken remote on the ground. Apparently Miho wasn't too happy about it.

"What do you think?" Miho responded coldly as she was resting. She had her laptop out and began reviewing the missions and all intel on him.

Price stares at her for a moment before he sighed and shook his head.

"Your obsession with him won't do you anything good, Miho. You don't have to let it go, but you shouldn't have such a bad obsession that you would devote your life to killing that bastard." Miho sighed as she heard this.

"I'm guessing that none of the three survived…" Miho said as she closed the laptop. Miho can't stop crying with this until now. At least, she's still sobbing for now.

"Yeah. You saw how the Diamond mine was destroyed as we were taking off. I know it hurts, and you're not the only one." Price said as she put the laptop on the ground and put the tray on the table. "You'll be attending the ceremony, which you will receive the Hero of the Russian Federation award next week."

Miho didn't expect that, but it was the greatest achievement in her career. Miho wasn't so sure if she's still tired of the ceremony, knowing how much ordeal she had. How many ordeals that could break a girl's mind and mental health.

"I wish we could have gotten everyone out." She whispered enough for Price to hear. Price sets the tray down. Price could see she's still in sorrow to have confirmed that the three Deltas are deceased.

"Sandman wouldn't want you to be sad, Miho. None of the three would." Price comforts her. Miho nodded as she grabbed the fork and boringly stabbing the meat.

"I'm guessing that the doctor also asked you to tell me something." Miho looks up to him.

Price only grabbed a chair and sat down. He then sighed with hope in the girl's health.

"Yes. The doctor requested that you stop drinking alcohol while you're healing, along with smoking."

"I think I can handle that," Miho replied as she began to take a bite of the beef.

"Just…" Price then looks away with a sigh, before looking back at her. "Just promise me you'll be fine."

Miho only gave him her longing look. "I don't know if I can promise that. But… I'll try it."

* * *

"The Ceremony"

December 15 - 12:30:46

1st Lt. Miho Nishizumi

Task Force 141 – Reinstated

Moscow, Kremlin

Miho was wearing an olive-green uniform that Russian officers wore, holding her pocket watch. She was a bit nervous. She is used to being in public for months in battles, not in some ceremonial award. Beside her was Price and Yuri, who also wore the same uniform. And their presence calms her nerves down.

"I guess the three of us are getting awarded for that rescue," Yuri said as he pulled out a flask and took a sip.

"Yes. Considering that Sandman, Truck, and Grinch was also there, they are getting post-humorous ones instead." Price replied.

Pulling out her pocket watch, she saw the time. It was almost time for them to appear on stage.

"We better go now," Miho said as she approached the double doors, followed by her comrades. Once outside, she saw the President, Boris Vorshevsky, was about to start the ceremony. In front of him, was several important public figures and the media, taking pictures and putting the speech on living.

"Thank you for coming today. Today, I will bestow upon these brave men and women who risked their lives to save my daughter and myself from the clutches of the terrorist Makarov and stop the war altogether, the title, 'Hero of the Russian Federation. Due to how the other three of the soldiers are not here, it doesn't matter, as they are to receive the awards nonetheless." In cue, Miho, Price, and Yuri approached the president and stopped right in front of him.

"John Price, Miho Nishizumi, Yuri. You three have risked your lives to rescue my daughter and me, and I am grateful." He said as he pinned the 'Hero of the Russian Federation' medal on the three. With that, the crowd clapped. They stopped a few seconds later.

"Due to the situation that three of the brave men are not here today, I bestow the title to Grinch, Sandman, and Truck the 'Hero of the Russian Federation.'" The crowd clapped again.

Miho felt guilty of this. She was guilty to know that she's one of the heroes who survived the war and the mines. But the Deltas didn't.

They should've been the heroes instead of her. She didn't need this title.

But she received it nonetheless.

* * *

 _Everything was in the dark. But a grim nightmare also exists._

" _Why did you leave us, Miho?!" Sandman angrily asked as he grabbed Miho by the throat. Beside her was Grinch and Truck, who both had black eyes._

" _I wanted to go back and rescue you! It was the pilot who took off when the rocket hit!" She shouted desperately. Around the four were multiple dead bodies, which numbered in the thousands. Some were dressed up as Ultranationalists, some wearing the uniforms, who were loyal to Shepherd, those who she faced in Africa, and some dressed up as the rebels who were fighting the Ultranationalists before the conflict was over._

" _You could have tried to come back!" Grinch shouted as he got his rifle and hit her hard in the ribs, breaking one._

 _*CRACK*_

" _Ahh!" Miho shouted as she fell on the ground._

 _Sandman lets go of her, with Miho having a hard time to breathe._

" _I'm sorry!" She shouted as she tears up. She's in her Ooarai uniform and unarmed._

 _She shouldn't have been a soldier but becomes a soldier, nevertheless. She was helpless against the three men who died making sure everyone can get out of the mines. This was all her fault._

" _You're not!" Truck shouted as he shot her in the shoulder. Miho screamed in agony as she fell backward, lying on top of the dead bodies._

" _Please forgive me!" She begged as she slowly got up. As soon as she did, however, she was in front of Makarov, who was sitting in a chair. There was another chair parallel to him._

" _Take a seat, Ms. Nishizumi," Makarov said as he pointed his pistol, a Soviet Makarov towards the wooden chair next to him._

 _Miho is tired as she stares at him and the empty chair. Miho still cries but muffled her sobbing. She's defenseless against this menace and had no choice but to sit in that chair. She rests her back against the chair with anger, sadness and silence_

" _You failed the three of them, and failed to stop me. You might have stopped my plans, but I am still here."_

 _Multiple chains immediately emerged and wrapped around Miho's wrists, binding it to the armrests. Multiple chains also chained her hips, preventing her from moving from her seat. She quickly struggled from the chains but to no avail. It was so tight that it could turn her wrists to red._

" _I'm surprised that you actually managed to defeat all of my men. However, I have seen far more death than you. After all, I'm responsible for a lot of it. It's nothing new for me."_

 _Miho narrows her eyes to him in confusion. "I don't follow." Makarov sighed._

" _Shepherd said he saw 30 thousand men die in a blink of an eye. Yuri told you how he saw ME give the order for the nuke to detonate, which killed those men, women, and children. Anyone who tried to go against me lost their lives as a result." He replied, grinning as Miho's rage began to build up._

 _Makarov saw the enjoyment in Miho's rage. "Looks like we are on the same page now, Ms. Nishizumi. So, are you going to continue with your hunt, knowing that more people will die as this goes on, or are you going to settle down and stop?" He asked. Miho was only thinking of killing Makarov in the most painful ways._

" _The only thing that I am thinking of is how to kill you in the most painful way possible," Miho replied as she began to struggle._

" _Your obsession will be the end of you. However, you're welcome to try and take my life, child." He replied as he pointed his gun next to him at a young girl that tried to move, and he shot her._

 _*DOR*_

 _The child dropped dead as a result. She saw the child and Miho grimly remembered her as a victim of the London Massacre. Miho shook her head violently as she struggles through the chains._

 _There was another child in the room, but the room is so dark that she couldn't see the person. Makarov points his gun at the child and shot the child. Makarov then drags the dead child… no, a dead teen at her. The dead teen was a girl in an Ooarai school uniform and had short orange hair. When Makarov shows her the dead teen's face, she was so shocked by who's the teen that got killed by a shot in the chest._

" _Do you see who this is?"_

 _It looked exactly like her, the day she fell into the portal._

" _This will be your end."_

" _No…"_

 _Makarov threw her reflective dead girl on top of the mound of corpses. Makarov's evil grin never leaves her face._

" _The truth is, Miho, that you're here because you wanted to be something you're not, a hero. You needed someone to blame, so you cast it on me, a person you have never met in real life."_

" _You killed all of those people in London last year!" She protested; it was his doing._

" _I won't deny it. After all, I am the one who gave the order… But there was a reason for that. It isn't that simple as black and white. If you knew the full story…" He said as he started to check that his gun had the safety off._

" _You're a monster. That's the only answer you got." Miho said as she started to struggle through the chains._

" _This all goes way back before you even got involved in this mess. You can continue to hunt me down, even if your friends and loved ones will die as a result." Miho gritted her teeth as she managed to get one of her wrists loose from the chains. Makarov smiled as he pointed the barrel towards her forehead._

" _Goodbye, Miho Nishizumi," Makarov said as he pulled the trigger._

 _*DOR*_

 _Miho closed her eyes as the bullet flew towards her. She prepares for death._

* * *

"Ahh!" Miho shouted as she woke up from the nightmare. She reached for the small table beside her, grabbing a pill that helped her sleep. Also, grabbing the cup of water, she swallowed the sleeping pill and went back to sleep.

* * *

Doctor's office, London Bridge Hospital. Two days later. 10:00 AM

"Miho Nishizumi is unfit for fighting, and you know it!" a doctor was shouting at MacMillan, who was there to renew Miho's health documents for her continued service in Task Force 141. With the Task Force being reinstated, the entire group needed to receive a re-evaluation, and pretty much everyone passed. Only that the person that failed the testing was Miho.

"She is perfectly fine. Her mental health is not a concern." MacMillan reassured the doctor, who was fuming.

"Jesus Christ!" the doctor said to himself. He wanted to put Miho in a mental asylum due to her being unstable, making her unfit for military service. He needed to do his job, dammit!

"And how do you know that?" The doctor was wondering why on earth, the director of the SAS was there personally. Behind him were two men wearing black suits, one of them holding a brown suitcase.

"Look. I advise you to change your mind and agree with me that she can continue with her 'job.'" MacMillan told the doctor, who stared at him.

"Why should I agree to write up false documents and lie about her condition?" the doctor asked. MacMillan sighed as he ordered the man with the suitcase to put the case on the table. He nodded as the man opened it in front of the doctor.

"This is a million pounds. If you correct it, it's yours."

The time the doctor looked at the money in the case, the doctor can't do anything but to accept the offer. He knew this is a one-time offer. His family needs it, especially after that chemical attack in London.

"Look. I am only trying to do what is best for my patients. I will write up a 'corrected' medical record and corrected evaluation if you let me do some counseling with Miho for a month." The doctor told MacMillan, who groaned.

"We don't have a month. A week tops. She will be leaving soon."

The doctor fell silent for a moment; the frustration he had is visible. "Fine! I'll do what I can."

By now, MacMillan is pretty satisfied. Now he doesn't have to worry about Miho being locked up in the asylum anymore.

Oh, the things he does for the girl.

* * *

Present Day. Nishizumi Residence.

Miho currently has breakfast with her family and the maids. They were talking about what is new across Japan. But Miho didn't want to get involved in any conversation. In which she ended up blankly staring forward. It took a moment for her mother to realize that.

"Miho, you okay?"

Miho didn't budge; she didn't even touch her food.

Shiho then waves her hand in front of her face. "Miho?"

Maho then tries to snap her out by snapping her fingers. Miho blinked and came back to reality.

"Huh, yes?" Miho immediately asked to them. "Did I miss something?"

"No, you didn't, but…" Kikuyo paused for a moment. "You've been staring at nothing for 5 minutes."

"Did I?" Miho asked flatly, she then sighed. "Forgive me, I was… lost in my memories."

"I see," Shiho replied with a nod. "I hope you didn't think of a bad memory."

"I hope so…"

The family then continue to eat their breakfast for the rest of their morning.


	64. Chapter 61 - A Welcomed Day

03:00 AM. Unknown Location.

A man stood in the darkness. He stood proudly upon the open mountain overlooking the city before his eyes. His figure is firm, unfazed, and unshaken. His gaze never leaves the city as the night shrouded his display. Disobeying the cold breezy wind that strikes against him.

The city stood before him is such an amazement. Bright lights are cowering the night of that peaceful city. No sound of terror could be heard from afar — a sight of a utopian peace that exists in the city. Maybe a kind of city he's interested in.

Maybe a target.

He then heard a shuffling coming from behind him. Someone's footsteps are heard in the grass. But thou he doesn't need to turn his head around because it was his loyal fighter to his cause. Walking at him with his weapon at his side and stopped for a couple of inches away from the man. The man casually turns his head left a bit to talk to him.

"Is everything ready?"

"Yes, sir. Our base of operations is ready, and our men are waiting for orders."

"Have you found any interesting targets?"

"Only a few of them, sir. We'll keep looking for more."

The man only nodded. "Good, keep me updated."

"Yes, sir."

The fighter then hastily leaves. The man then proceeds to look back at the city, his hands clasped behind him in a leisure firm. Relaxed, strict, and willful. The man grins at the city.

"It's time to make the war I have lost."

"And then I will be looking for you. Captain Nishizumi."

* * *

Ooarai School Academy. Break time.

Aside from the fact that Murakami herself along with her group, are delinquent students of Johannesburg which are located deeper in the school ship, they're still a part of Ooarai. And, of course, she is permitted to walk around school grounds under Sodoko supervision if any of them behave inappropriately. Murakami is currently walking with her group to the canteen, hoping that they'll meet up with the student councils especially Momo. The only reason why they want to meet up with the student councils was that they wanted a good chat with them.

And also to find some entertainment for Murakami.

Rum and Cutlass split off from the group because they have a promise to meet up with Saori and Azusa Sawa. Something about helping them with tank management. Murakami, Flint and Ogin received their meals from the cafeteria counter, despite the servers' uneasiness on Murakami's presence. They then looked around the cafeteria and found that the student councils are already waiting for them at a table for six people. They greeted them and sat down along with their tray of foods.

Murakami could see that their friends are cheery as ever. She produces a grin to see Anzu's optimistic and laziest attitude like a spoiled child, which is her usual personality. She is glad to see Momo in her nicest mood, their good old friend that covered their backs from getting kicked out. And lastly, Yuzu Koyama, who a gentle smile at them with wide eyes.

It was a shame that Miho wouldn't make a trip to Ooarai for the moment. From what she has seen from the previous Exhibition Match, Miho's presence bolstered spirits in every student of Ooarai. Murakami wanted to talk to her. But after the event two days ago, Murakami felt uncomfortable to decide that she should talk with Miho.

"Ogin-san, good to see you joining us!" Anzu happily said with both thumbs up. "You're taking a break from Johannesburg?"

"Yes, for a while," Ogin then picks her chopsticks and picks her fried meat. "You don't know how 'interesting' would it be to live down there."

"Of course, she meant the opposite of 'interesting,'" Flint added, still sticking her microphone near the mouth for the rest of the conversation.

"You don't have to remind us about that," Momo replied with a smile, then sheepishly looked away. "Trying to find such good accommodations in Johannesburg is hard."

"Do you think so, Momo-chan?" Murakami asked with a grin. "Because we actually live in a small hotel down there."

Yuzu blinks before narrow her eyes at them. "Wait, there's a hotel in that – forgive me – foul place?"

Ogin shrugged along with her chopsticks. "You'll be surprised."

"The hotel is not really bad either," Flint added, agreed with Ogin. "Let's say, and it's like a three-star hotel but with a bit cheaper price."

"Well, that sounds better than having an apartment, doesn't it?" Anzu agreeably asked.

"Couldn't agree more," Yuzu agreed with a nod. "The rent for our apartment is a bit pricey lately."

"And I could bet that our accommodations are comfier than living in an apartment," Flint asked with a smug.

"That's comfy for you," Momo replied as she points at her. "We don't know if it's comfy for us."

"Maybe you should take a trip to Johannesburg one day," Ogin replied as she inhales her toy pipe.

"I would like to, but I'm not sure if it's safe to go there," Momo shows her doubt to them. "Not because that place is filthy or whatsoever. It's just not safe for me. I didn't mean to offend."

"Don't worry, Momo-chan," Murakami assured her as she points her thumb to behind her. "We got your back when you're down there."

Momo can only chuckle sheepishly as her eyes look away while scratching her head. "Erm, to be honest. I feel safer when Miho is around."

Everyone in her table immediately stops eating, albeit showing their surprise of her response.

"Wow," Flint replied with her eyebrows raised. "That came up real quick."

"That is rather odd to hear from you, Momo-chan," Yuzu curiously commented as she looks at her. "What makes you say that?"

"Miho is pretty quick to solve any problems, especially when it comes to conflict and fighting," Momo replied as her hand lifted on the table. "She may not as strong as Murakami-chan but… she is pretty decisive like any tank commander, but she's beyond that. Maybe that's why I felt much safer with her."

"Aside from the fact that she ever busted you down with a stick and nearly choked you to death?" Yuzu asked gently.

Of course, Momo didn't like that question. "Shut it, Yuzu-chan!"

"But honestly, Miho's brutal," Murakami commented, of course, that gave them a morbid look.

"Aren't you brutal yourself, Murakami-chan?" Anzu asked with a tilted head. She's pretty much surprised, given that Murakami is a part of 141.

"Look, I'm maybe the only strongest girl around here, well aside from Nekota and her team," Murakami explained to them. "But I'm not on the same level as Miho. I mean, I don't have any intention to put people in hospital."

"Didn't you do that to Flint before?" Yuzu asked curiously. "When you were playing volleyball with Duck Team."

The three sailors fell silent, and they only gave their blank stares at her before Murakami raised her both hands to them.

"That was different," Murakami then quickly remembered. "Wait – I didn't hit the ball! It just bounced off me and-"

"And the ball hit Flint, who was standing right next to you," Yuzu then chuckles to herself with her eyes closed. "Forgive me; I can't help but laugh at that time."

While Yuzu is actually a gentle girl in Ooarai, her friends are pretty much terrified of her. Not because of her appearance, it's because the way she mentioned any kind of event turned to be terrifying.

 _"Her speech is pretty terrifying."_

Murakami clears her throat for the moment. "Let's talk something else aside from that."

"Oh, did you heard the broadcast this morning?" Momo asked them.

Yuzu was the one who heard that. "Are you talking about the bomb at Iwaki City, Ibaraki Prefecture?"

The rest who didn't hear the news is caught off-guard. The only person who was alarmed and shock instead of just surprised are only Murakami, Ogin and Anzu.

"What?!" Ogin asked as she was disbelieved of the news. "What did the news say?"

"There was a bomb exploded in the Iwatabuni office complex, an economic management department," Momo answered, concern was shown in her face. "It happened this morning during rush hour. Seven people died and 33 people were wounded. And surprisingly, the police identified the bomb residue as a military-grade explosive ordinance."

While Flint was upset by the news, she didn't notice how Murakami and the other friends reacted to that. Murakami looked so alarmed of the news, left her mouth open and gaze sharply at Momo. Ogin was pretty horrified as seen from her pale face and widened eyes. And Anzu is very depressed by the news. The part where the military-grade explosive ordinance is mentioned, the three girls are starting to hope it wasn't 141's explosives.

"Did they find out who bombed the office?" Ogin suddenly asked; she was a little anxious.

"Not yet, but…" Yuzu paused for a moment with her index finger in the air. "Since the attack happened in the economic complex, they suffered heavy funding loss for more than 12.000.000 yens. And since the bomber used military-grade explosives, the JSDF and USFJ have to get themselves into the investigation because this is a sign of threat to our country. Investigation about 141's involvement is still ongoing."

Everyone begins to feel agitation, Murakami couldn't help but shiver at the thought.

"It's already 15 years. I hope this attack doesn't escalate into a war."

"Don't be silly, Murakami-chan," Anzu assured her with all the optimism she has. "That won't happen."

"Maybe try to refrain from jumping into conclusion, Murakami-chan," Momo suggested to her.

"I'm sorry, Momo-chan," Murakami apologized with an open palm. "It made me felt unease to think about what happened in the news."

"Don't think too much about it," Anzu waved at her happily. "Be thankful that we're still alright."

"Cheers for that," Ogin agreed as she raised her drink along with Anzu.

Right after raising their drink, however, Flint immediately turns to Murakami. "Murakami."

"Hai?" said the girl responded as everyone listens.

"Do you mind if we both talk privately?"

The question took everyone off-guard, especially Murakami herself. "N-no, why?"

"I just want to ask on a few things," Flint then turns to Ogin. "We'll be back in a few moments, captain."

"Secret between girls, eh?" Ogin responded as she gestured at them. Permitting them to leave the premises. "Sure, go ahead."

"Okay, Murakami, follow me."

After they got off their seats, Murakami follows Flint out of the cafeteria. Eventually, Flint leads her to the nearest restroom. There a couple of Ooarai students inside so both of them waited for the students to leave. They eventually leave after washing their hands. Murakami then leans against the wall and a sink next to her and Flint stands in front of her.

"Flint, if this is about making an album of your song with my help," Murakami stated with annoyance. "I'm not in that."

Flint stares at her in perplexed before shaking her head. "I'm not here to talk about that."

Murakami, for the first time, surprised at her response. "Then what do you want to ask?"

Flint pauses for a moment as she pocketed her mic away, that's pretty rare to see from her. "Do you have any secret, Murakami?"

"Huh?" Murakami is rather surprised by her question. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's because I found something odd when I was in your room," Flint responded as her eyes looked over to Murakami's. "You see, I saw this one particular bag in your room, and it was a big one. And I saw something was coming out of the bag."

Murakami could recall that the time Flint went to her place was a day ago before the sudden cancelation of the tankery match. Due to Miho's committed kill.

"So I took a closer look into the bag while you were busy in the kitchen," Flint responded as her finger is on her chin. "And just found that you have a rifle inside."

Murakami immediately became alarmed. She remembered she just left the bag out because she was tidying up her room. Murakami finds a way to avoid compromise.

"Oh, that, heh, heh," Murakami sheepishly scratched her head. "It's just a toy gun."

"A toy gun?" Flint asked in disbelieve. "Doesn't look like it when I saw bullets in those magazines."

Shit.

Murakami isn't sure how to respond to that. Flint proceeds to ask. "Why did you never tell us that you have a gun?"

Murakami then slowly open her palms at her. "It's not like what you think."

"Are you planning to shoot up a school?" Flint suddenly asked, much to Murakami's shock.

"Wha- never!" Murakami retorted with a shook. "What kind of sick person do you think I am?"

"Then from where did you get a gun?" flint asked her suspiciously.

"I bought it."

"You bought it?!" Flint asked back in surprise. "That gun could cost more than 50000 yens; there's no way you could afford that."

"I was saving money."

"Are you sure about that, Murakami?" Flint asked as she crossed her arms. "You're the type who is careful about money, but you're not the kind of person who saves money."

There's the difference in both concepts so she has a point.

"Flint, you can't tell this to everyone," the last thing that Murakami would worry about is for herself to have an 'angry' talk with Miho.

"Everyone has the right to know," Flint paused, considering her choice of words. "I mean, at least you should've told everyone in our team about your possession of firearms. You do have a firearm permit, don't you?"

"I-"

"Nevermind," Flint waved at her to not think of her question. "Is there a reason why did you have firearms?"

"Just in case I have to use it to defend myself and our friends," Murakami responded; she is starting to get impatient but worried at the same time.

"What?" Flint deadpanned at her. "You could defend people just by brawling. Having a rifle to use a self-defense weapon is way too far."

"Oh, now you're telling me that I have pistol instead of a rifle?" Murakami annoyingly asked. "Because that is not 'way too far'?"

"Is there something wrong here?" a voice suddenly asked out of nowhere, prompts them to startle and looked at who just entered the restroom.

Much to Murakami's relief, it was Ogin.

"Oh uh, nothing's wrong," Murakami awkwardly replied with her arms crossed, while Flint stares in silence. "Why?"

"I was just looking for you and heard you both arguing from outside," Ogin stated to them as her hands are on her hips. "Something's up?"

"Oh nothing," Murakami waved at her. "We both were arguing about the album Flint-chan was planning to make-"

Flint quickly cuts her off. "Boss, she has a rifle in her room."

Ogin and Murakami both fell silent. Ogin was pretty shocked at the moment, she unconsciously drops her toy pipe from her mouth and her eyes were shadowed. Murakami looks irritated; she proceeds to rub her forehead while her other arm is still crossing her above her stomach. Murakami then sighs before looking back at her captain with a tired expression.

Ogin only stares back at Murakami with her morbid look. "You told her?"

"Īe," Murakami replied with a shook. "She… I found a rifle in my room. I forgot to store them away."

Flint widens her eyes after seeing how Ogin reacts differently to Murakami. "Wait, boss. You knew about this?"

Ogin and Murakami only gave a silent stare at her before realizing what they meant. "W-what? You never tell us about this?"

Ogin sighs as she crossed her arms. "It's complicated, Flint."

"We don't want to get compromised," Murakami added to Flint's confusion.

"Compromised? what are you talking about?!" Flint asked in retort. "Our team has to know about this. You're our leader. Why you never tell us about this?"

"Flint, look," Ogin told her calmly. "I want to ask you this."

Flint narrowed her eyes at her. "What is it?"

Ogin took a deep breath. Miho might be angry about this, but Ogin needs to make a decision right now.

"Would you believe both of us… if we tell you that we are 141?"

The result was this:

Flint's skin became pale as snow. Her eyes widen in shock with her lips locked tight. She immediately turned into stone upon hearing it. She blinks many times as her right hand, unconsciously raised her hand to her chest.

"Wait… you can't be serious…"

"I wish I could lie about that," Ogin regretfully replied. "But given that you found out about Murakami's gun… you can't tell everyone you know about this. Not yet."

"We don't want to go high profile about this, Flint," Murakami added with a shook. "If this goes out, I doubt everyone will react nicely to us."

Flint is speechless. Even when she wants to say something, her words didn't come out.

Ogin sighs. "Look, I know what you want to say, but you have to keep this between us, alright?"

Knowing Ogin and Murakami are her best friends, Flint could breathe out with a disappointed look but shows her concern. "Alright, I won't tell anyone."

Ogin and Murakami could breathe in relief for that. "Thank you, Flint-chan. Thank you," Murakami happily replied to her.

"Just remember I'm not telling everyone about this because you're my best friends," Flint reminded them as she took her microphone.

"We'll keep that in mind," Ogin then motions to Murakami by pointing her head. "Murakami, we need to go."

"Something urgent?" Murakami asked her.

"Remember the bomb that Momo told us about?" Ogin asked her. "We've been called in by Ghost."

"Wait, who's Ghost?" Flint asked curiously.

Murakami looks back at her. "Yurei."

The realization hits her fast than she should. "Wait, that 'Ghost'?"

"Hai, that Ghost," Ogin nodded at her before looking back at Murakami. "We gotta go now."

Murakami then looks back at Flint. "Flint-"

"I know," Flint replied with a nod. "You go ahead. I'll try to make up something when somebody asks where you have gone."

"Arigato, Flint," Murakami then looks back at Ogin and then nodded at her.

Both Ogin and Murakami immediately leave the restroom. Leaving Flint alone by herself in the restroom. Having the thought that Murakami and Ogin are both 141 makes her uncomfortable and worried. Flint felt a small tense before she crossed her arms and rubbed her arms. The tense she felt mostly was because they are called in because of the bomb that exploded this morning.

Flint wondered how the hell they both got roped into being the 141.

* * *

Bellwall Academy. 11:00 AM

"I never thought you want to visit our school."

"I'm curious about what your school looks like. So I think this visit won't hurt."

"I'm surprised you brought Darjeeling, Mika, and Anchovy here."

"She asked us to come along, Emi-san. Besides, we want to know how much changes your school had after your arrival."

"I could say it's better since I handled the tankery around."

"What of the Student Councils?"

"That's pretty much another story."

Emi is currently escorting her old friend, Miho, along with Darjeeling, Mika and Anchovy to the Bellwall School grounds. Emi's friends are guests of the Bellwall Academy. Emi already informed Chifuyu Doi and Neko Yamamori so that they aren't to be bothered by anyone, knowing how delinquents react to newcomers and guests coming to the school while they're glad to know that there is another thing that makes them uncomfortable, which is Miho Nishizumi herself.

Recalling what happened that time two days ago, back in the mall. The kill Miho committed had caused such controversy for the Nishizumi family and the Sensha-Do department itself. Of course, the mistake she meant wasn't the controversial part but the part where she didn't bring any weapon in case of self-defense. Miho won't make the same mistake again despite Anchovy's assurance that no danger will happen around this school. Not after what happened to Anchovy.

But, she agreed to Anchovy that Miho needs to calm down, and one day she doesn't have to bring any weapon around when not needed.

So for today, Miho, who is in her grey-brownish long-sleeve shirt and black jeans, brought two kinds of weapons. And get to know the fact that she wore a rather black tactical belt into the school, one that doesn't stand out. One, she has a tactical retractable baton in her holster on the right side of her belt. Two, she has a Browning Hi-Power Pistol holstered next to the baton holster with additional 3 Pistol magazines on the left side of her belt. The pistol and its ammo are stored inside a couple of small square bags that would fit the size of the pistol and the magazines to make herself non-threatening for personnel on the school grounds. Access to the pistol is easy only by opening the mag-lock on the bag along with the access to its magazines.

Access to the baton, however, is very easy only by pulling it out.

And yes, Miho mentioned to them that she'd bring self-defense weapons today.

Despite this, they reached inside the school grounds with no problem and tour around the Industrial Department of the school. And note the fact that the delinquents who are present on-site slowly back away from Emi's guests. Not because of their boss's order to not bother them, but rather out of fear to Miho's presence. Bellwall Academy saw what happened, and the news of Miho's actions spread like wildfire in this school.

Of course, she didn't mean to show any harm to them unless provoked.

The school grounds in that department are well refurbished, which is oddly enough for the Industrial Department, which is filled with lots of delinquents. Emi mentioned that this department was looked like a war-zone until Emi commenced a 'cleaning' action to the environment. Or it was rather 'an offensive renovation' as Miho put it, which was agreed by Anchovy. It's a fair environment despite a constant little fighting between the two factions, which ended in silence when they saw Miho with her group walked by.

After a little touring, they decided to head out to the office of the school through the Normal Department. Miho chuckled at the name of the department. She states that it sounds like they're trying to divide who is normal and who should be put in the asylum.

Anchovy ignored Miho's statement, but the rest can't help but gaze at her dark humor.

For Emi, she starts to think that letting her visit this school is not a good idea.

Overall, the students in the Normal Department are as nice as any students from any school. Miho had a soothing feeling to know that the whole building is colored in white, apart from the floor and other colorful furniture. Nevertheless, they reached the office that is located on the third floor of the school. Emi knocked on the door first before all of them entered the office.

They saw that Chifuyu, Neko, Hitomi, Kawashiba sisters, and three other girls that Miho didn't recognize are sitting in a circle of sofas with a round table in the middle. Emi and the guests greeted them with a formal bow as those at the sofas did the same. Then the guests and Emi sat down in one of the available empty sofas. The drinks are already prepared on the table, soft drinks and juices.

` As for the girls unknown to Miho. First, Takami is a tall girl with short brown hair and brown eyes. She wears the Bellwall Girl's Academy skirt, but completely replaces the upper half of the uniform with a grey shirt and a zebra-striped hoodie.

Second, Kita is a medium-sized girl with medium length reddish-orange hair tied up in a side tail and red eyes. She uses a red-leaf shaped hairpin to hold her hair in place. She wears the Bellwall Girl's Academy skirt and blazer but wears a pink hoodie under the beige blazer instead of the shirt.

Finally, Nagisa Shiratori is a short girl with short blonde hair; she has a pair of light brown eyes. She mostly wears Bellwall's uniform, which consists of a short-sleeved white T-shirt and lights brown pleated skirt with red bar; she wears a black vest over her uniform, a style she used to wear with her sister since childhood. She's a former student of West Kureijo Girls' Academy.

"Miho, I believe you haven't met some of my friends here," Emi began as she introduced to the specific three girls. "These are Nagisa Shiratori, Kita, and Takami. Girls, this is Miho Nishizumi."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, ladies," Miho replied as she shook hands with the girls.

"The pleasure is ours as well." – Takami

"Eh… It-it's good to meet you, Miho-san." – Nagisa

"Nice to meet you, Miho-san!" – Kita

"Such charming lads you have here, Emi," Miho commented with a smile. "And maybe even you are charming."

Emi blushed a little to hear such a compliment. "Wha-?"

"Miho-chan!" Anchovy pouted with little irritation to Miho.

"Calm down, I was just complimenting her," Miho responded calmly before looking back at the Bellwall girls. "I hope our visit didn't bother any of your activities."

"Don't worry, we're pretty happy that you decided to visit us," Chifuyu replied with a nod. "However, I hope our students out there didn't bother you."

"I'm… pretty sure that's not the case," Darjeeling stated in her doubt, hence because they noticed how the students reacted to Miho.

Hitomi sighed in defeat. "You got us. Everyone in this school is afraid of… Miho-san."

Miho expression turned cold almost immediately. "Is it because I hanged the bastard off the ceiling?"

Her sentence fills the entire room with dread. Anchovy was caught off-guard of her lover's response with the rest of them leans back from Miho in surprise and fear. Nagisa was noticeably shivering in fear. However, Miho took a deep breath as she realized her current expression. Before letting out her breath to calm down.

"Forgive me for my harsh words," Miho apologized. "I just became… impulsive."

Their tense eventually settles down after Miho apologized. "I guess we can't blame you about it after what happened to Anchovy-san," Neko stated in understood.

"It was an unfortunate event for Miho-san and Anchovy-san," Mika added as she clasps her hands. "But, we are thankful that everyone is still okay."

"I agree," Miho added with a nod. "I can't be more thankful than that."

Kita nodded as well to her, before eyeing on Miho's belt. "What's inside that?"

"What do you mean?" Anchovy asked her.

"The pouches on Miho's belt," Kita responded. "What's inside that?"

Miho wasn't sure it's a good idea to tell her, so she decided to stay quiet.

But Emi encouraged herself to answer her friend's question. "Her gun."

The Bellwall students were not informed of this, so they are shocked to hear that. "A-a gun!? Real gun!?" the Kawashiba sisters asked in horrified.

Miho can't help but sigh at that. "Yes, I have a gun in my pouch. For self-defense."

Everyone is silent as the girls awkwardly stared at her. "Look, I just don't want to repeat the same mistake I made back then. After what happened to Anchovy."

Neko crossed her arms before tilting her head. "We believe you."

The silence in the room is starting to get uncomfortable, Miho slowly stands up from the sofa. "I think I should leave."

"No, no, no!" Emi responded wildly as the entire room nearly prompted their hands at her to stay. "Don't leave, just sit-sit down."

Miho dumbfounded of everyone's response, before complying to sit back down. "Alright, if you say so."

"Okay… Miho," Nagisa encouraged herself to ask. "What do you think about our school so far?"

"Fairly nice to be honest," Miho replied as she drinks a soft drink. "As for the Industrial Department, I'm pretty happy to see that delinquents of both factions are more… controlled. Despite some little fighting, I saw. And the environment of that department is pretty appropriate."

"Glad to hear that," Takami gladly replied with a smile. "It's thanks to Emi-chan's effort on improving our school after dealing with rebuilding back our Sensha-do."

"It must have taken a lot of time to make that effort," Darjeeling assumed as she took an orange juice.

"We pretty much refer that problem to the delinquents," Kanako Kawashiba replied. "Instead of budget."

"At least we didn't lose a lot of money for that effort," Tsurugiko Kawashiba added with a smile.

"Well, that's because you're rich, obviously," Kita replied with a shrug and her legs crossed.

"Oh, are you jealous?" Kanako enviously asked. "Because we have a lot of money than yours."

Darjeeling hummed to that, which Miho noticed it. "Starting to hear Robin Hood idioms, Darjeeling?"

"Good to hear we have the same thought," Darjeeling replied in agreement, continued by Mika. "Sounds interesting."

"Oh, please," Anchovy narrowed her eyes at them. "I hope you don't have any plan for that."

"It's just thoughts, Anchovy-san," Darjeeling replied to her. "Nothing much."

"Where's Chihiro, by the way?" Miho asked curiously. "I was hoping she's here as well."

"She has a job as a model athlete," Hitomi replied with her head tilted. "So, she'll be busy today."

That took Miho off-guard. "Model athlete? Didn't see that coming. She's living a good life, doesn't she?"

"Yes, she does," Emi agreed with a nod. "Which makes me wonder about what kind of job you do for a living."

"She does volunteer jobs, Emi-san," Darjeeling replied. "As in 'Lady Of All Trade.'"

"A jumping-job kind?" Takami asked curiously. "Isn't that tiring?"

"Not if you know how to handle it," Miho replied as points at her.

"And I heard you hadn't studied in any school," Takami stated in wonder. "Why though?"

"I didn't have enough funds to get myself study in a school," Miho then tilts her head with a flat smile. "Or rather, I didn't want it. Rather learn from experience than just studying theories."

"An interesting insight," Emi replied with a nod and her finger on her chin. "But it's your loss. Since you don't get a certificate from the school."

"I think Miho handled that pretty well," Darjeeling replied with a shrug. "It won't be much of a concern for her."

"By the way, I heard you came from Germany, right?" Anchovy asked curiously.

"Yes, the west block of Germany."

During this year after WW2, Germany is divided into two regions. The West and East Germany, which are occupied by allies and Soviets. Miho understood how hard it is for the Germans during that time.

"It must be hard to live there," Mika commented in a tone of grief.

"It is, Mika-san," Emi replied with a sigh. "I can't even meet up with some of my relatives living in East Germany due to Soviet occupation."

"And their policy about trespassers," Miho added as she crossed her arms.

"That's correct," Emi sadly nodded again. "Those who tried to cross the border wall they either made it or get shot by the East Grenztruppen. Few of my relatives didn't make it."

Everyone frowned to that — especially Miho, who sees this kind of policy as a barbaric act.

"We're sorry to hear that," Anchovy apologized in grief.

"It's fine," Emi sniffed a little to reply. "I'm pretty much thankful that I lived in West Germany before moving to Japan."

Miho stares at her for a moment in wonder. "What about your mother, Emi?"

"She still lives in West Germany," Emi answered with a smile. "I asked her to move out with me, but she didn't want to. She said that I should try to make my own life without her."

"I see," Miho replied with a nod. "Maybe one day she'll move out here after the reunification of Germany."

It was something Miho shouldn't say, but a spoiler won't hurt.

"Huh, German reunification?" Kita asked her as Emi deadpanned at Miho. "It's going to take a long time for that, you know?"

"In 20 to 30 years or so, yes," Miho replied with a nod, though everyone glared at her for the estimation of the time.

"And how do you know that?" the Kawashiba sisters asked with their smug smile.

Miho smiled back at them. "Intuition."

"I like it," Darjeeling agreed.

"Are you sure it's no shorter than 20 years?" Mika softly asked as she wasn't believed to Miho.

"I'm sure," Miho replied as she leans her back against the sofa. "I'm not a prodigy, mind you."

"Of course, Miho-san," Neko replied with a bow. "We won't mind waiting for that."

Emi smiled with a huff before she frowned at Miho. Miho raised an eyebrow to her as they both stare each other. They were staring at each other for a while, as the others discussed another topic. Miho took a sip of her soft drink first before looking back at Emi.

Emi then asked her. "Do you ever felt…"

Miho leans her head back as everyone listens. "I ever felt-what?"

"Well," Emi paused for a moment. "You have done a lot of things for yourself, for the people around you, and your family."

"Yes, I've done a lot," Miho nodded affirmatively. "What were you wondering about?"

Emi ponders on her thoughts before asking her. "Do you ever felt guilty of yourself?"

Everyone is pretty perplexed about her question. Miho, who is catholic by religion, is pretty much surprised by the question. "Are you referring to the sins that one could make?"

Emi looked surprised by her counter-question. "I never heard you called that as sins. Given that your religion is Shinto."

Mika cuts in to answer her. "Her religion is Catholic, Emi-san."

Emi, who is a Christian, widens her eyes to her as the Bellwalls have taken off-guard. "Wait, she's a Catholic?"

"Woah, didn't see that coming," Hitomi commented, both of her fists raised in front of her.

Neko tilts her head suspiciously. "Since when did you become Catholic?"

Miho cracked her fingers with a deep breath. "Since I was living in London. But…"

Kanako then points her head at her. "But…?"

"I'm not really that religious."

She earned a smirk from Emi. "Looks like you're not the only one."

Miho smiled back at her. "What were you asking again?"

"Do you ever felt guilty of yourself?" Emi asked again, now with her left eye narrowed at her.

They could tell, Miho is already staring into a blank space. Anchovy, who had known who Miho truly is, shows her discomfort to her lover. Darjeeling and Mika gave their curious stares to Miho without turning their heads. The Bellwalls, it was odd for them to listen to what Miho has to say to that question.

Miho didn't say a word for a moment. She could think of one word.

"Mostly."

It was a solid confession.

"Mostly?"

"Yes, mostly."

"What do you mean by that?"

Miho tilts her head once. "Have to do something wrong for the right thing. A lot."

Anchovy frowned to her answer. "But not all of them you do was wrong."

"That's true," Miho agreed with her head turned to her. "But still, most of them are the wrong things I do for the right thing."

Miho then looks forward to Emi. "Sins are still sins, and we will have to pay them one day."

Emi admired her sense of remorse, something odd to hear from the former-shy Miho.

"What about that time…" Emi paused, knew that Miho wouldn't like it. "That time you killed the robber?"

…

…

…

Miho gave a cold face.

Emi stayed silent as everyone in the room can't help but stare at Miho in concern. Darjeeling, who sat next to Miho, holds her shoulder. Anchovy, who's beside her, puts a hand on her left thigh. Nagisa looks pretty frightened, seeing from how she is agitatedly correcting her uniform and rubbing her sweaty forehead.

"To be honest," Kita interrupted the silence. "It's an… achievement to be called as the Hangwoman. After what you did…"

Miho changed her expression, with a look of remorse. "How can I call that as an achievement?"

"Because you are the only girl around here who could kill someone that far," Neko answered, her right-hand rest on her hips. "And you killed a bad guy nonetheless."

"I ruined the match. Your match," Miho shook her head. "Just because of a single bloody bullet and a dead body that was hanging off the ceiling."

"But you saved everyone," Emi replied to her. "You saved me, Anchovy and our friends."

"I did, but I put you in harm's way when I attacked him," Miho responded coldly. "I have to thank God that it was me who got shot other than Anchovy. And I'm thankful that I heard a stray bullet hit the counter. A few more inches and it could kill someone."

Emi looked perplexed of what Miho said. _"Wait, she heard the stray bullet? Shouldn't she be temporarily deaf when she attacked the robber?"_

Emi quickly regained her composure and asked her. "But it's not your fault that you have to kill him."

"Really?" Miho asked her sarcastically. "Do you think he deserved to be hanged like that?"

Before Emi manages to reply, Miho continues. "Just an amateur robber, trying to get some easy money from a shop. Thinking he could just threaten and hurt people all he likes. But he didn't know what a single person could do to someone else. And I hanged him off at the end, seeing it as a… philosophy to represent what the will of a single person could do. Should he be dead? Yes, he should be dead. At least that's what I think."

Miho looks up to Emi's eyes. "But do you think he deserved to die like that?"

Everyone didn't respond to her question. They only proceed to stare at her.

"Do you think that it was an act justifiable death?"

Everyone stayed silent, but Emi answered her with a shook.

Miho leans back again, took a deep breath for a moment. "It's the result of my emotion that has been left unchecked for so long, that I didn't realize I had gone too far. Especially when I'm with the person I dear the most is hurt."

The Bellwalls, including Emi herself, has learned one of Miho's personality. Miho has temperament issues, but she is conscious of it. Along with the fact that she still has moral values on some specific points. Darjeeling, Anchovy and Mika pretty much agreed to what Miho said, which bitterly remind them of Darjeeling's tea party months ago.

"We'll keep that in mind to not make you upset," Takami seemed discomfort of Miho's words.

"Takami, I didn't mean to scare you about what I said," Miho responded with her arms crossed and a shrug. "But that's the truth."

"We know," Nagisa sheepishly replied. "But that still sounds bad."

"You don't have to worry about it," Mika assured them. "We see that as a problem no more."

"If you are sure about that," Chifuyu lands her chin on her open palm. "Sounds fine for us."

"I know," Anchovy agreed with a nod. "And thanks to Miho-chan, you might already have a couple of days of training."

"Of course, we did!" the Kawashiba sisters happily replied. "Gorilla woman did a good job training us!"

"Stop calling me that, Baka-shiwaba!" Emi impulsively retorted in annoyance. "Why the hell you keep calling me that?!"

Miho bowed her head a little with her eyes staring at her. "Maybe because of the way you treat them?"

"Yeah, I mean… No offense, Kawashibas," Anchovy opens her palm to them. "You look like you don't like treating spoiled girls."

"HEY!" the Kawashiba sisters retorted embarrassingly.

Miho only gave a poker face. "Remember, I'm still here."

"Oh, right," the Kawashiba sisters quickly changed their expression, before continued by Emi. "Yes, we're pretty much glad to have a couple of days of training to increase our luck battling against Blue Division High School."

"And the match is due tomorrow afternoon," Hitomi happily replied. "In Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture."

"Is that so?" Anchovy asked with a raised brow.

"Hai," Kita replied with a quick nod. "I hope there will be no more unfortunate events that would cause another cancelation of the match."

Miho raised her soft drink in the air. "Cheers."

Everyone then proceeds to raise their drinks. "Cheers."

They then drink and put their drinks back on the table. They really enjoyed this conversation so far, aside from the ill-part of the conversation. Miho really wants to spend more time here with Emi, to stay in everlasting bond with her old best friend. The Bellwalls are pretty pleased with Miho's presence, which subsides their fears of her being the Hangwoman for the moment.

Miho was about to continue this fine conversation.

(The Farmer's Frolic)

If it wasn't for the damn phone to ring a piece of Irish music.

Everyone jumped at the sudden music from her phone. Miho only sat there unfazed with a poker face. Miho then slowly pulls out her phone from the gun bag on her side. She then checks the phone, and alas, it was Vicek who is calling her. Miho wondered why he is calling her now.

"Who's that?" Takami asked.

"A friend of mine," Miho replied. "It's Vicek."

"That Vicek?" Darjeeling asked her.

"Yes, that Vicek," Miho quickly stood up. "Excuse me."

Miho then answers the phone while stood a bit far from the girls. "Olá?"

"Olá, capitão," Vicek greeted back. "Espero não estar interrompendo algo."

"Na verdade, eu estava no meio da conversa com meus amigos," Miho replied as she looks back to her friends, who are confused about what she's saying. "Você precisa de algo?"

"Você já ouviu falar sobre o atentado na cidade de Iwaki?," Vicek responded, which made Miho raised both of her eyebrows. "Complexo de escritórios de Iwatabuni?"

"Sim, por quê?" Miho nodded back. "Você descobriu quem bombardeou o complexo?"

"Acho que sim," Vicek replied, then a slight hum. "Mas precisamos de você aqui na base à noite."

"Eh?" that left Miho stunned for a moment, to which then she changed the language to Czech. "Je tu něco naléhavého?"

"Ano, nemůžu o tom mluvit po telefonu," Vicek replied, Miho knew it wasn't necessary to talk face to face because they're on a safe channel. "Potřebuji, abyste sem přišel večer."

"Vicek, co se to sakra děje?" Miho asked him; her concern was enough to let the girls knew something's wrong.

"Teď ti to nemůžu říct," Vicek quickly responds. "Ale musíte se večer vrátit na velitelství. Ah, nezapomeňte vzít Anchovy s sebou. Musí o tom vědět."

"Vicek-"

"Promiňte, kapitáne. Nejprve musím spustit nějaké pochůzky," Vicek quickly cuts her. "Uvidíme se!"

And like that, he immediately closed the call.

Miho could look back at her phone in disbelieve. Why was Vicek was in such a hurry? Why was he bothered to keep things mysterious? Miho turns her head to the girls, specifically straight to Anchovy. Miho could tell they are wondering about what's going on.

Miho quickly walked pass the girls as she says to her lover. "Anchovy, with me for a moment."

Anchovy was rather surprised by her request. Anchovy only awkwardly stood up with an apology to the girls before catching up with Miho. Anchovy followed her out of the room and into the hallway a bit far from that office. Once they are sure the hallways are empty, they stop there and look at each other immediately.

"Is there something going on?" Anchovy asked her, hoping that there's nothing that makes her afraid.

"He said it's urgent," Miho checks her surroundings again to make sure there was no one in the halls. "Have you heard about the bomb in Iwatabuni Office Complex?"

Anchovy heard the news since she occasionally turns on the TV in the morning. "Wait, he called you because of that?"

"Yes," Miho nodded. "It sounds like he got a lead. But he couldn't tell me through the phone."

"He wants to talk to you face to face?" Anchovy asked as her head leans forward.

"Yeah, he wants me to return to base in the evening," Miho replied as she pats her gun bag.

"I thought you know everything of what's happening today," Anchovy joked with a smile.

"No, not everything milady," Miho shook with a smile. "I mostly asked my men to know any news comes up for the past few days."

"Really?" Anchovy snickered with her arms, crossed.

"Yeah," Miho then shrugs. "But to have one of my men asked me to talk face to face… that's rare."

"I guess you should get going about that," Anchovy encouraged her.

"That's not all," Miho added with a shook, then points her open palm to her. "You need to come with me as well."

Anchovy widens her eyes. She is rather shocked by this.

"W-what!?" Anchovy didn't believe this. "Why should I tag along?"

"I have no idea," Miho shook her head again. "But from what I heard on how he said it, we might be dealing with a high-risk threat."

Anchovy doesn't have to ask about that; she knew what Miho meant by that. "Should I tell my mother as well?"

"Yes," Miho nodded but then pulled out her phone. "You know, let me do the calling. You should return to the office. Talk them down; I don't want the girls to get suspicious of us."

"I'll make sure, Miho-chan," Anchovy nodded with a concerned smile. "I'll tell them you'll be back shortly."

"Thanks, Emerald," Miho replied, which earned her lover's blushing smile.

"Miho-chan, you such a teaser!" Anchovy embarrassingly replied.

"Wha- I didn't-" Miho confused about her reply.

"Yeah, I guess I should leave you to it," Anchovy pushed her shoulder lightly with her fist, before heading back for the office.

Miho only gave a warm smile as she watched her lover heading back to the office. Anchovy is adorable for sure. But then Miho quickly snaps herself and gets back to her phone. She looks at her contacts to find Anchovy's mother's numbers before tapping onto it. She then immediately puts her phone on her ear. Miho really didn't like this at all.

And this is the first time she had to bring someone's mother into this mess.

Unbelievable.

* * *

On the way to Task Force 141 Headquarters, Kumamoto Prefecture. 7 hours later.

"How long until we get there?"

"Any minute now, Emerald."

"How big is this base?"

"Enough to outfit a small army."

"You must have great dedication to build that here."

"Too much, I guess."

"Do you know yet what we're dealing with?"

"Not yet, Mrs. Chiyomi. But I hope they got answers when we get there."

"Cap, we're reaching HQ soon."

"Copy that."

They are about 5 minutes away from reaching the base. Miho could tell, everyone in the Black Hawk is getting the willies of what is going on. When it comes to dealing with an unknown threat, everyone should know about this except those who don't know of 141. And in this case, families are also getting involved in this mess.

Yes, it so concerns until Miho had to call in a Black Hawk to pick Miho, Anchovy and her mother up.

Rinnai looks rather worried since Miho called her. The thing about dealing with a high-risk threat sounded scary for her and was glad that Miho told her. She doesn't know if it's a good idea to tag along to go to 141 bases, but it should worth the time. Besides, she wanted to protect her daughter from harm.

After the short trip, they reached the base. They could see the whole view of the base from the sky as the chopper began descending. From the looks of it, the base is on high alert.

All 141 operatives in the base looked like they are in a hurry. The soldiers are all running around the base, bringing weapons and equipment around. A few drivers, tankers, and pilots are prepping and inspecting the vehicles they have. And they noticed that there are people in the hangars are scattered around, getting all the intel they just received.

The Black Hawk lands near the command center with ease. By the time Miho and the passengers got out, they were soon greeted with Miho's mother and sister.

"Mother, what are you doing here?" Miho asked her.

"Ghost called me in," Shiho replied as the group quickly entered the command center. "He said that we would be facing a deadly threat that could harm this country and our family."

"And did he say anything about what kind of threat we're dealing with?" Miho asked her quickly.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that until we reach the briefing room," Shiho quickly responded.

Miho sighed. "Not you too."

"We can talk about this at the briefing room," Maho replied to her. "It's not far now."

"And I can't believe you brought Chiyomi-sama with you," Shiho said as she looked at Rinnai.

"I have the right to know about what's going on," Rinnai excused to her. "You can't involve my daughter into this all you like."

"You have a point," Maho agreed to Miho.

Not even a moment's notice, they reached the doors to the briefing room. Once they enter, the first thing Miho and Anchovy noticed was the only lit lamp in the center of the room. Enough to illuminate the whole table and the people who are present though Miho is more surprised at who is present.

Aside from Kay, Murakami, Ogin, and Anzu are present, which obviously because of their ties with 141. And aside from the presence of Ghost, Chemo, Vicek, Royce, Chrome, and other notable 141 members. She is pretty shocked to see that the commander girls of Kuromorimine are here as well, including Erika and Akaboshi. They weren't supposed to be here.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Miho gave out her greatest disbelieve to their presence.

"We're here to help, Miho!" Akaboshi replied eagerly. "You're going to need us!"

"Do you know what we're dealing with right now?" Miho asked them again with both open hands raised in front of her.

"Give them a break, Cap," Chemo interrupted her. "They're eager to help."

"Besides," a voice added, which they found out it was Mrs. Shimada's. "You're going to need all the help you can get."

Miho looks over a bit to see who's next to her. There are Ami, Yuko, Akashi, and surprisingly Sergeant Morley, whom she met back when they were protecting the ambassador.

"Hang on; you're the boss around here?" Morley asked in surprise. "Miho Nishizumi herself or… it was Banshee?"

"Yes, I am," Miho replied with a nod. "It's very surprising to meet you, Morley."

"Oh, I'm damned surprise, sis," Morley agreed with a thumbs up. "When Captain Chouno was starting to talk about you. I thought I just lost my shit!"

"No, you didn't, mate," Miho then sighs and changes the topic. "Alright, can someone mind tell me what the bloody hell is going on?"

Everyone in the room only stared back at her. Much to her disappointment, they didn't say a word, especially the girls. Rinnai and Anchovy awkwardly stood by her as they wait for an answer. But no one even tried to say a word to her.

"Come on, lads," Miho encouraged them. "I want to know what's going on."

"I thought you knew what was going on, old girl."

Everyone jumped at that voice. But it was an effing surprise for Miho. This voice… she recognized it. She looked over around the room and saw a figure emerged from the shadow. And she was glad to see him. In fact, there were three of them.

Three of her old friends are standing right in front of her.

"Price… Yuri… Nikolai…?"

The girls immediately widen their eyes in shock. The girls who got there first may know about the threat, but they didn't know about Miho's friends' arrival. Maho, Shiho, Anchovy, and Erika are pretty shocked that Miho's old friends are here. The others, Kay and the Ooarai girls are surprised that Miho recognized them. For Miho's men, Ami and the JGSDF officials, and Morley are pretty happy to see such a reunion as this.

Miho stifled a laugh to him. "It's good to see you, lads. Especially you, old man."

Price chuckled at her with his arms crossed. "You wouldn't know how hard it is for us to get here."

"Yeah, but…" Miho paused for a moment. "Why are you here?"

It was Yuri's turn to tell her, and he only stares at her. "You know for sure why we are here."

Miho looks confused at him, with her lover and the girls wondered about what Yuri meant. But when Miho realized what he meant, her expression changed. Her confusion slowly changed into a dreadful and wrathful look. It was something that made Anchovy, Shiho, Chiyo, and Maho restless. While the girls who are 141 are afraid of her temperament, Murakami as the muscular girl even afraid of a girl like Miho.

Miho's gaze turned into a cold glare. Only two words crossed her mind.

"He's here?"

The men's faces turn cold to hear that. But the girls, especially Rinnai, Shiho and Chiyo and except the JGSDF women, are confused about what she meant.

"Huh?" Anzu asked with a raised brow, then continued by Kay. "Who's he?"

Nikolai looked over to them with a glare. "Makarov."

The only people here who have heard that name are only Anchovy, Maho, Shiho, and Anzu. They widen their eyes to that.

"Wait," Shiho cuts in, her hand raised at Nikolai. "Who's Makarov?"

The three men and Miho straightened their back and stood firm in their place.

"A dangerous killer." – Price

"An International Threat." – Nikolai

"A terrorist." – Yuri

Everyone then glances at Miho. Who says her part.

"Our enemy."

The men's faces shadowed with anger. While the women's and the girls' faces are filled with fear and insecurity. Miho then stares forward at Price.

"He's coming for me. And for all of us."


	65. Extra 4 - Going Around the Universe

SAS HQ, Hereford, UK. Many hours ago.

Price has never been so upset to know that he didn't find Makarov. He made a promise to Miho long ago; if he finds him Price will kill him. He, along with his comrades, did many raids onto Makarov's cell. He was hoping that he found the bastard. But they found something else.

They discovered information stating that Makarov has built a portal, straight to Miho's universe. Price feared the worst for it.

Not only they found out Makarov managed to build a portal for his army. They could not discover where the Ultranationalist's portal is located.

This information has been informed to the UN, especially the US, UK and Russia. This is a very concerning threat because they will be dealing with an International and Dimensional-Level Threat — codename Gamma-Red.

If Makarov has gone to the other universe, he will spread chaos there before coming back here. Possibly with a much large-scale army. So Price proposed a solution to Macmillan.

They need to use that portal. The one they locked away inside Hereford. They need to get to the other side of the portal to reach Miho

Price, Nikolai, and Yuri stood in front of the inactive portal machine. Waiting as Wallcroft, Frost and a few engineers are calculating the coordinates of the said universe. Other soldiers are present in the hangar, most notably the SAS troopers, some Delta Force Operators, and frankly much to Macmillan's surprise; there are a few members of FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) Spetsnaz Units that are sent by President Vorshevsky himself. The reason why he sent them here was obvious.

To avoid the same mistake about Makarov.

As the soldiers are packing up to go to the other side of the portal, Macmillan came into the hangar. Price, Nikolai, and Yuri turned around and greeted Price's old mentor. Price grins to see his mentor is in his black SAS uniform. Knowing that Price, Yuri and Nikolai are still wearing their TF 141 jackets.

"Is everything ready to go?" Macmillan asked them.

"Almost," Nikolai replied, then points his thumb to the control panel where Wallcroft and Frost are at. "They're still finding the right coordinates and calculations to get to Miho's universe."

"It has been a while that we don't use the portal," Yuri added.

"I'm sure everything will be just fine," Macmillan then pulls out three earpieces from his pocket. "Here, take these."

"You know we can't contact you once we're on the other side, right?" Price asked as the three men took the earpieces and wore them.

"These earpieces are different," Macmillan responded. "These will allow you to contact us once you are on the other side of the portal."

"Since when did you make this?" Nikolai asked with his rather high tone.

"After Miho returned to her universe," Macmillan replied, then shrugged. "I was already prepared for an event such as this."

"I see you become wiser," Price sarcastically replied.

"Aren't you?" Macmillan countered, earning chuckles from the men.

"Did you ever run a test with these?" Yuri asked with doubt. "It looks like you're about to make your own one-stop-shop."

"I won't be looking forward to opening that shop, thank you," Macmillan replied with a chuckle. "But we did test these."

"Wait, so you're saying you already send someone to another dimension while you're testing these?" Price cannot hold the urge to disbelieve of what Macmillan just did.

"Yes, but of course, it wasn't Miho's universe," Macmillan replied with a shook. "These earpieces are working, but they had to get out from that dimension earlier."

The men gaze at him in confusion. "Why?" Price asked.

"I don't even know either," Macmillan shrugs with his head tilts. "Although we didn't suffer any casualty, Marlow kept screaming about 'that planet is full of 173.' He didn't bother to explain to me what's 173, aside from creepy looking statues."

The men stare blankly at him. "What's 173?" Yuri asked.

It seems Nikolai realized what that fellow meant. "Oh, you mean SCP-173."

They then turned their gaze to him. "What?" the men simultaneously asked.

"SCP-173," Nikolai replied. "You know? Anomalous Statues that can break people's necks. There's a file about it on the internet, in the SCP Foundation website."

They stare at him for a moment before looking back at Macmillan who's rubbing his forehead now. "I don't even want to know about that."

Nikolai casually widens his arms with a flat smile. "If you say so, comrade."

"Hey, captain!" they turned their heads to Wallcroft, who's currently giving a thumbs up from the control panel. "We are good to go!"

"You got the coordinates for Miho's universe?" Macmillan asked aloud.

"Good question," Frost responded before he averts his eyes off the panel. "We lost the coordinates for Miho's universe."

The four men groaned in irritation. "How the bloody hell did you lose that coordinate, mate?" Macmillan retorted questioningly.

"The damn bloody office cleaner screwed his job!" Wallcroft annoyingly replied. "He tore it to shred. For now, we only have half of the coordinates survived. We have to tic-ta-toe and tune the coordinates on our own to get to Miho's universe."

"Blyat," Yuri swore, his hands on his hip." I didn't get paid enough for this nonsense."

"I'm pretty glad I don't have to bring a plane here," Nikolai added with a smug smile.

"So, you're telling me that we have to go back here again after we entered the wrong universe?" Price asked for a clear explanation.

"Not really," Wallcroft responded as he looked on the control panel. "When you entered the wrong dimension, we'll pop up another portal inside for you to go to the other dimension. Hopefully, the right one."

"And once we get the right coordinates of Miho's universe," Frost added in. "We can begin sending our troops through to help out Miho's forces against Makarov."

"That's nice," Price commented, as he, Yuri and Nikolai prepped their rifles that were hanging on their shoulders. "Let's just hope we didn't get shot first after we enter the wrong house."

Nikolai grins at him. "You make it sound like you're playing Grand Theft Auto."

Price stares at him. "Excuse me?"

"Nevermind."

Nikolai and Yuri immediately walked off; then, Price turns his head to his mentor. "I wish you good luck out there, son."

"Will do, Mac," Price replied with a nod.

"And don't forget to send my regards to the old girl."

Price snickers at that. "Sure, maybe also a cup of tea."

"That would be better."

*WWWHHIIIIIRRRRRRR-BWWUUUUUUSSSHHHHH*

Both men turned their heads and saw the portal is open, brightly. The mentor and the old man looked at each other again, before giving the nod to each other. Macmillan then walks over to the control penal as Price catches up with the two Russians near the portal. Price stops in between them as he looked at them.

"Ready, Price?" Yuri asked.

Price then glances at the bright portal in front of them, giving a slight nod.

"Let's go."

The men face at the portal, take a deep breath before jumping through the portal.

* * *

*WHIIIIIR-PPWWUUSH*

The three men nearly stumbled down the floor. They readjust themselves after that weird ride with the portal. And the first thing they notice was how snowy and how cold the area they just entered. The three men lifted their heads to their surroundings.

Only to notice there are a lot of soldiers in a white advanced battle suit staring at them, with their advanced looking rifles still pointing down to the ground.

They froze on the spot, which Nikolai awkwardly greets. "Uhh… hello."

*CHCLAK-WHIIIIIIRRRR*

And the advanced soldiers aim their rifles at them.

Price sighs in defeat. "Great job, Nikolai."

Nikolai shrugs at him. "I was just saying hello."

"Hey!" the men then turned their heads to one particular group, four women with their much colorful outfits. It was the girl in a white dress who called them out. "Who are you?!"

"Just soldiers," Yuri replied as their hands slowly raised to the sky.

"Soldiers?" the catgirl in black outfit replied. "Never seen soldiers like you before."

"And I never have seen guns like that before," the girl in red hood replied. "Can I take a look at it?"

"Ruby!" The girl with blonde hair in her rather sexy looking outfit called out. "Don't ask that to them! What if they are a threat?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Nikolai interrupts in. "You must be team RWBY, right?"

Oh, boy, how surprised they were to hear that. Even Yuri and Price gazed at him.

"EEH?!" – Ruby

"Excuse me?!" – Weiss

"Wait. What?" – Yang

"How did y-?" – Blake

"Yep," Nikolai widen his arms to his side, ignoring the fact that everyone is pointing their weapons at them. "This is the wrong universe."

"Oh, great," Price then reaches for his earpiece. "Wallcroft, do you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, boss," Wallcroft radioed back.

"Wrong universe," Price responded. "I say again, wrong universe. Give us a new portal."

"Ok, standby," Wallcroft radioed again.

"Wait, I demand you to explain how did you know us!" Weiss demanded angrily, pointing her rapier to them.

"Oh, forgive us, Princess," Yuri sarcastically replied. "We have some pressing matters to do, and we're traveling around the universe."

"Oh, and don't forget," Nikolai raised his index finger. "I'm a big fan of your team."

That weird statement earned him everyone's gaze, including Yuri's and Price's.

Ruby looks like she's about to be trigger happy. "R-really?!"

Price shook his head and looked at Nikolai. "Dammit, Nikolai."

"What?"

*WHIIIIIIRRR-BWWWUUUUUUSH*

Once the portal appeared, Price looked at his men. "Let's get out from here before we get more trouble."

"Sure," Nikolai looks back at the girls as Price and Yuri were already through the portal. "Do svidaniya, Team RWBY."

Nikolai then finally enters the portal. The portal immediately disappeared after that. The girls and the Atlas soldiers were left confused about what just happened. They only continue to stare at where the portal was. Blake blinks many times as she stares blankly.

"Okay, what just happened?"

* * *

*WHIIIIIRRR-PWUUUUSSSHHH*

They are happy that they didn't stumble. But when they looked around again, they are baffled to see that they are on green hills. And the sky is decorated with outlines of abstract flowers. They know they're in the wrong universe. But something caught them off-guard.

It was Yuri who noticed it first. "Funny, why it smells like saltwater?"

Once he asked that, they three slowly looked at each other. And their faces slowly show their horrors at the realization.

"Lads," Price paused for a moment. "Don't tell me we are breathing underwater."

The three stare at each other blankly. They can do nothing but to express their poker faces.

"Arg, Great…" Price looks away from his friends in disbelief before facepalming.

"I guess we just found out why the navy loves the sea," Nikolai replied with a shrug.

Price sighs, before reaching his earpiece. "Wallcroft, wrong universe."

"Bollocks, standby," Wallcroft responded.

"Hurry up, before we're getting seasick!" Nikolai stated aloud.

"Seasick? What are you talking about?" Macmillan responded in the earpiece.

"We are breathing underwater!" Yuri can't believe he has to say this.

The fact that how screwed up the universes are after Macmillan tested the earpieces, they believed it. "Oh, that's… alright, sending another portal in 10 seconds."

"What universe are we in right now, Nikolai?" Price asked him.

"Spongebob Squarepants."

Both men just stared at him in disbelieve. "A kid's show?"

Price only groans at the same time when the portal pops in front of them.

"Come on, lads," Price gestured to them. "Let's get the bloody hell out of here."

The three men proceed to enter the portal before it suddenly disappeared. Unbeknownst to them, there was one figure who watched them from afar. Patrick Star couldn't help, but to left his mouth wide open with a blank stare. He just thought of one thing.

"Oooh, I hope I can play with them!"

* * *

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRR-BWWUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSHSHH*

After they went through the portal, the first thing they did was to vomit. They kept vomiting saltwater out from their noses and mouths until they cough. They are pretty sure they were breathing 1 liter of saltwater back there. They then checked their surroundings again to see where they are after a constant of complaining.

They pretty much didn't expect to see a Nazi emblem inside an abandoned, literally bloody building.

The men only looked around their surroundings, Nikolai whistles in astonishment. "Huh, I wonder what history left untold from the Second World War."

"I'm not looking forward to finding out," Yuri replied with a sigh. "Somehow, this place is starting to give the creeps."

"I could say the same, Yuri," Price then looks away from his men. "Looks like we're in the wro-"

Price halts and heard his rifle cocked. Both Yuri and Nikolai looked at his direction.

Only to find out there's a hoard of zombies marching up to them.

"What the blin?!" Yuri cocked his rifle and aimed at the marching zombies. "Nazi Zombies?!"

"I thought I'd seen everything," Nikolai added as the men backup from the zombies.

"There's a whole lot of them!" Yuri stated aloud.

"They're just zombies!" Price responded. "Shoot 'em down!"

*BRRRRRRRATATTATATATATATTAT*

*DRARRARARARRTATATTRATA*

*DORDORDORDORDORDORDOR*

*BRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR*

The zombies were quickly mowed down. Surprisingly, it wasn't the men's doing. They lowered their rifles with mild confusion and a big relief. They then left their rifles hanging on their front.

"Hey!"

The three men turned their heads to the direction of the voice to see there are four soldiers in their WW2 attires coming over to them. An American, A Russian, An SS German, and finally a Japanese Captain. An Ultimis Group.

The American soldier asked them first. "Who the hell are you?"

"141 Soldiers," Price replied. "But from the future."

"Future?" the German doctor asked. "Interesting."

"What are your names?" the Japanese asked, hearing only soldiers didn't satisfy him much.

"It's Price."

"Yuri."

"Nikolai."

The WW2 Russian looked pretty surprised. "Wait, your name is Nikolai? My name's Nikolai as well."

"Oh, that's such a coincidence," Nikolai commented with a smile.

"Yeah, by the way, I'm Tank Dempsey." – Dempsey

"Takeo Masaki," – Takeo

"Edward Richtofen." – Richtofen

"Good to meet you, lads," Price replied with a nod. "Do you mind telling us where we are right now?"

"You're in the Cinema of the Dead," Takeo answered, which made the future soldiers raised their eyebrows. "Now tell us how the hell did you get here."

"We're traveling through dimensions," Yuri answered before Price managed to shut him up.

"Wait, you too?" Nikolai Belinski asked in surprise. "Huh, I must be drunk."

The men surprised of Belinski's response. "Wait, you're traveling around the universe as well?" Price asked with his head leans forward.

"More like time traveling, bro," Dempsey then points his thumb at the German doctor. "Gotta thanks to this sonofabitch."

"Hey, be 'nice,'" Richtofen reminds him.

"Oh, I'm nice, doc!" Dempsey sarcastically replied. "It's all thanks to the zombies that you made!"

Price, Yuri, and Nikolai gave an empty glare at the doctor. "I wonder how'd that happen," Yuri wondered.

"It's better we don't ask that," Price responded.

"Fair enough."

Takeo then replies to them. "Why do you travel around the universe?"

"Trying to meet a friend of ours," Nikolai replied. "And to stop an international terrorist from creating chaos across the universe."

"Wait, you shoot bad guys?" Dempsey asked with a smile. "Damn, I wonder if I could go back to those old days. Instead of shooting shit up to the zombies."

"We're sorry to hear that," Yuri replied with a nod.

"Nah, it's fine," Nikolai drunkenly waved his hand to them. "We already have our fun, comrades."

*WUUUUUUEEEERRRGRGRRGRGR*

Everyone then turned their heads to the main doorway in the cinema. A hoard of zombies is coming from there. The Ultimis Group cocked their weapons and face at the zombies.

"Looks like the fun is about to start," Richtofen stated the obvious.

"Then we should be heading out," Price said.

"No shit," Dempsey replied as he shot a few zombies down. "You boys get the eff out of here. We do our work here."

"Copy," Price then reached for his earpiece. "Wallcroft, it's still the wrong universe. Open up a portal here ASAP."

"What's with the rush?" Frost responded on the radio.

"You sent us to a universe where zombies are trying to eat us!" Nikolai stated aloud on the radio.

"WHAT!?" it's odd to hear Wallcroft, Frost and Macmillan said that at the same time. "Bloody wanker, give me a moment."

*WHIIIIIIRRRR-BWUUUUUSHH*

"Okay, there's the portal, let's go!" Price informed them before heading off to the portal.

"Have safe travel, comrades!" Nikolai Belinski shouted to them, who gave a thumbs up.

Once they entered the portal, it quickly disappeared. Leaving only the last four men standing to fight against the Nazi Zombies. Dempsey happily cocked his Trench Shotgun and aimed it at the Zombies.

"Alright, boys! Let's start this shitshow!"

* * *

*WHIIIIIIIIIRRRRRR-BWWUUUUSHH*

They teleported again to an area with the floor of concrete. The first thing they notice is that the day is already night. The second, they're in the middle of an abandoned carnival. Third, the atmosphere is pretty silent.

Lastly, they are in the middle of the zombies.

The men can't help but irritate at sight. "Zombies again, really?" Yuri complained.

All the zombies quickly stared back at them.

"Yes, zombies again," Price replied flatly, giving a poker face.

*BRRRRRRRATATTATATATATATTAT*

*DRARRARARARRTATATTRATA*

*DORDORDORDORDORDORDOR*

*BRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR*

And again, the zombies are mowed down by someone else instead of the men themselves.

They looked at who mowed the zombies down and saw four survivors coming up to them. One big black man (not being racist, mind you), one black woman, one white man in a yellow shirt and a cap, and one man in a white suit and blue shirt.

"Woah, you guys are soldiers?" the black man, Coach, asked in surprise. "I thought they have their asses out of the city."

"Chto?" Nikolai asked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"You left us when we were about to reach the evacuation point!" the man in the white suit, Nick, replied. "What else?!"

The men only stared at them for a moment, before Price responded to them. "I think you're talking to the wrong soldier."

"Wrong soldier?" the black woman, Rochelle, asked in surprise. "What the hell you're talking about, sir?"

"Hang on a minute," the man in the yellow shirt and a cap, Ellis, interrupts. "You're not CEDA?"

"Nope, we're 141," Yuri responded to them.

"141?" Coach asked. "What's that?"

"A special Task Force," Price flatly replied, before looking back to Nikolai. "Wrong universe, call it in."

"Wallcroft, it's Nikolai," Nikolai sighed that. "You just sent us to another universe with zombies in it, again. Get us out of here!"

"Again?" Wallcroft is sure damn surprised at that. "Give me a moment."

"Dude, did you just say you traveled to another universe?" Ellis asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, we did," Yuri replied with a nod.

"Oh, that sounds awesome!" Ellis happily replied in his rather Texan accent.

"Bro, seriously," Nick replied, he only waved his handgun to his side. "They're just bluffing about that!"

*WWHIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRR-BWWUUUUUUUUUSSSH*

The moment Nick said that the portal suddenly appeared behind the three soldiers. The survivors drop their jaw open as the soldiers only stood unfazed with a blank expression.

Yuri only shrugged and winced his mouth. "Were you saying?"

"Damn, you guys aren't bullshitting with us," Coach commented with his high tone, continued by Rochelle. "What do you guys doing with that portal?"

"Trying to meet with a friend of ours," Price replied as he cracked his hands. "And trying to stop a terrorist from spreading chaos throughout the universe."

"Why? He started World War 3?" Nick sarcastically asked.

"He did that back in our place," Nikolai optimistically replied, much to the survivors' surprise.

"Pardon us, but we have to move now," Price replied, as he was in a hurry.

"Sure, no problem," Ellis nodded as the men nodded back before the soldiers headed for the portal. "Good luck out there, y'all."

"Good luck to you too, comrades," Nikolai replied happily with a wave before they enter the portal. In which the portal disappeared in a blink of an eye.

"Well, it's good to see some good soldiers for a while," Coach as he rests his shotgun on his shoulder.

"It makes me wonder why don't we tag along with them through that portal," Nick sarcastically commented, which made Rochelle sighs.

"I don't think it's a good idea," Rochelle answered.

"Besides, we would make more trouble than we should," Ellis agreed. "While I would love to travel to another universe, interfering with the soldiers' business is not a good idea. Because they're dealing with a terrorist that can travel around the universe as well."

Nick laughed, sometimes Ellis makes things sense. "Alright, alright, you're right, Ellis. Now, how about we move on?"

"Sure, I don't like sticking around here pretty long."

The four survivors continue to make their way through the infested carnival. Their memory of meeting those unique soldiers will forever be in their minds.

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

They teleported out the portal again, this time they made a sigh with their eyes closed. When they decide to open their eyes, they met with a baffling sight. They are inside a Japanese like a small house; all walls are white with a kanji emblem hanging on their right. A few cabinets, teacups, and tea equipment are available inside. With a square table in the middle of the room.

That's not all. In front of them are six teenage girls present in the room. Three of the girls still standing and the other last three are still sitting. The men immediately realized these girls are Junior High School girls, seeing from how small they are and how old they are.

The men quickly looked down on their rifles and immediately got their fingers off the trigger.

"Uh…" Nikolai paused for a moment before looking over to Price. "How do you say 'excuse me' in Japanese?"

Price sighs before looking at the girls who are all staring back at him in confusion and curiosity. "I have no bloody idea."

"Umm… who are you?" the white-haired girl, Chitose, who is a student council, asked.

"Just soldiers," Yuri replied awkwardly as the men quickly looked at each other. "Don't mind us."

"What are soldiers doing here?" the Magenta-reddish-haired girl, Akaza, asked curiously.

"Looking for a friend of ours," Price replied, then raised his index finger. "By the way, does tankery match exist here?"

The girls only stare blankly at them, looking like a bunch of idiots. Price changes the subject. "Nevermind, is this the 21st century?"

"Ah…" the black girl, Yui, replies awkwardly. "Yes, it is."

"Yep, wrong universe," Nikolai quickly radioed in. "Wallcroft, what the blyat?! It's the wrong universe!"

"Nikolai, can you hold your swearing?" Yuri calmly reminds him.

"Why?"

"Do you realize you swore in front of the girls?!" Yuri gestured at the girls as he looked at him.

The purple-haired girl, Ayano, confused by these statements. "Hu- what swearing?!"

"Hey, they're Japanese. We're Russians," Nikolai replied with his hands raised. "They are not going to know about that."

"Actually, Yuri has a point, Nikolai," Price responded with a nod.

"Ugh, fine," Nikolai then mumbles to himself. "Blin."

The blonde girl, Kyouko, gives a random question. "Does no one consider calling the police?"

The men gave an alarmed reaction to her, followed by the pink-haired girl, Chinatsu, who gave her agreement. "Yeah, why didn't we think about that?"

"Wallcroft…" Nikolai said it from low to high. "The portal. NOW!"

"What's the rush, mate?" Wallcroft asked. "Can't you see I'm trying to drink the tea with the director?"

"Because you teleported us inside a small house," Price added. "Which inhabited by 8 Junior High School girls who knew that Sensha-Do never existed."

Yuri soon adds in. "And sooner or later, they'll be thinking that we're pedophiles."

"EEEEEEEHHHHHHH!"

Wish Yuri didn't say that. He didn't realize he says that out loud. Price and Nikolai glare at him. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"Great," Price sighed in irritation. "They'll be calling the police at this rate."

"Who has a phone?!" Akaza asked, panicked.

"Hang on…" Wallcroft radioed in. "There we go."

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

Right when the portal appears, the girls quickly halt what they are doing. And instead, deadpanned at the men and the portal with wide eyes and wide mouth according to the size of anime logic (no pun intended). Not only that, their eyes change into blank white eyes as if they have seen enough things in their life. Price only turned around and bowed at them.

"Forgive us for the interruption," Price calmly replied. "We won't be bothering you."

Price then turns around at the portal. "Let's go, mates."

They then entered the portal before it quickly disappears.

The girls didn't leave their gaze off from where the portal was. They are confused, shocked, and disbelieve at the same time. Kyouko still has her confused face with a fake smile while the rest of the girls managed to close their mouths a little. And no one did move an inch like a statue.

Yui then leans at Akaza. "Akaza-chan?"

"Hai?" Akaza asked while staring blankly forward.

"Does Miraku-run, the Witch Girl, can make a portal like that?"

Akaza stays silent for a moment before replying. "I have no idea."

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

They land on the snowy ground, and Yuri stumbled down due to how slippery the snow is. They did a check to their surroundings and are surprised by the location they're in. They notice large ice cliffs on their left and right. And they also spot some muck left a bit far from the men, thankfully they couldn't smell it. And lastly, they noticed a large creature from a safe distance.

Ever seen a white gorilla but with four big arms? Yep, that's what they are looking at with also the fact that that it is twice the size of a man.

Price can't help but blink at that. "What the bloody hell kind of world is this?"

Nikolai can't help but wonder. "Is that an advanced King Kong?"

"More like a mutated gorilla, Nikolai," Yuri responded.

"Hey, you!"

The three men quickly turned around and found a man in his military-like attire pointing a Hyperion-marked rifle at them. "Who the hell are you?"

The man with the Hyperion rifle then looked over to the men's attire. "You don't look like any bounty hunters, vault hunters, or even Hyperion soldiers I've ever met before."

"We're soldiers, mate," Price replied. "Task Force 141."

He eventually lowers his Hyperion rifle in surprise. "TF 141? Never heard of that."

"Anyway," Price quickly changes the subject. "We're not on Earth, are we?"

"Did you just come here blind like a headless chicken?" the man joked with a grin. "Of course, it's not! Welcome to Planet Pandora!"

The three operators deadpanned at him, much to their discomfort. "Such a grim name for a planet."

"Oh, you said you were soldiers, right?" the man asked them. "I'm Sergeant Axton. Ex-soldier of Dahl Military forces."

"Ex-soldier?" Yuri asked, with his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah," Axton replied with a nod. "Got kicked out because of my personal glory and massive insubordination."

Price just chuckled to hear that. "I'm Price. This is Yuri and Nikolai."

"Glad for the introduction," Axton then rests his rifle on his shoulder. "So, what are you doing out here with Bullymongs all over the place?"

"Bullymongs?" Nikolai asked in confusion.

"Those big gorillas with four arms over there," Axton points at the said Bullymong in the distance. "We call those Bullymongs."

"I see," Price replied with a nod. "As to why we are here, it's because we're traveling around the universe."

"Oh," Axton surprised a bit. "So that the portal was all about?"

The operators deadpanned at him. "Wait, you saw that?" Yuri asked.

"Of course, I did!" Axton replied with a nod. "I nearly thought that Handsome Jack is sending some jackasses to me so they can bite my ass off. Good thing that didn't happen."

"Sounds like you're in much trouble," Nikolai commented with a smug smile.

"Hah, that's the usual stuff around here," Axton waved at them, before holding his rifle with both hands. "If you don't mind, I'll be hunting for those Bullymongs for now. Why don't you go do your thing about that portal."

"With pleasure," Price replied with a nod as Yuri called Wallcroft in. "It's very nice to meet you."

"Hahaha, the pleasure is mine as well, Price," Axton replied with a smile. "Hope we can meet again."

"That's a probability, I'm afraid."

"Heh, If you say so."

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

As Axton leaves the premises, the 141 operators began to enter the portal once more. Once the portal disappears, Axton looks back at where the portal was. He then chuckles to himself before he began making his way over to the Bullymongs. It was time to play his game.

He shoots the rifle in the air, which distracts all the Bullymongs within his radius. "Come and get me, you ugly bastards!"

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

The transition from cold weather to extremely hot weather is very not nice. But thankfully, the men are used to the hot weather. Price can't tell if they are really in the desert or back in Afghanistan again. When they looked around, they went stoned-face immediately.

They're looking at two particular muscular men. One of them has been beaten and had his head locked on the ground the other man's foot. The man who is in submission has a purple-blackish hair with a tongue like a snake, while the man who puts him in submission has a dense black hair that almost looked like a character from dragon ball.

Nikolai somehow recognized him. "Wait, is that Joseph Joestar?"

Price and Yuri gaze at him immediately. "You know him?" Price asked him.

"There's a show about Joseph Joestar back in our place. It's my favorite show."

The men facepalmed.

"Since when you start to like Japanese cartoons?" Yuri asked.

"Since Miho came over to London."

Yuri and Price stared at him for a moment, as both Jojo and Donovan are staring curiously at them. "What is wrong with you, man?" Yuri asked.

Price was about to say something, but Jojo beats him. "Your next line is, shut your trap, mate."

"Shut your trap, mate-" Price quickly halts, then looked at Jojo. "Wait, how the bloody hell do you know I was going to say that?"

"It's easy!" Jojo replied happily, ignoring the man he's currently holding with his foot. "I know what's your next line is!"

"OOOOooooohhh!" Nikolai excited as if he was high. "He's using that again!"

While Yuri fascinated by Jojo's skill, he's a bit irritated by Nikolai's reaction. "Grow up, Nikolai."

Price was about to say again, but Jojo beats him again. "You're going to say; Wrong universe. Get Wallcroft on the line."

Price was pretty much frightened of his answer; he quickly looked at him. "Cheeky bastard. That was my bloody line!"

Jojo manly laughed in pride. "I am very sorry. I just can't help with that, Captain Price."

Price widens his eyes at him; he then crosses his arms. "How the bloody hell you know me?"

"It's simple," Jojo shrugs with a smile. "It's my skill."

"Haha!" Nikolai then points at Jojo. "That's why I love this man!"

"Unbelievable," Yuri then proceeds to get Wallcroft on the line. "Wallcroft, not this universe. Get the portal on the line."

"Wallcroft's next line is," Jojo stated. "Damn wanker. Give me a moment. It's almost tea time."

Then Wallcroft responds on the radio. "Damn wanker. Give me a moment. It's almost tea time."

Yuri is surprised by the exact line Wallcroft would say; he then looks over to Jojo. "Seriously?"

"Okay, you guys can go now," Jojo replied as he waved at them. "I want to have a little talk with Mr. Donovan here."

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

Once the portal appeared, Price says to him. "Well, it's 'nice' to meet you, Mr. Joseph. Have a good day."

"Have a good day as well, Captain Price," Jojo responded with an open palm.

Once the men entered the portal, and it disappeared. Jojo then looks back down on Donovan, who still has his head planted on the ground by his foot.

"With that out of the way. Now, start talking, Donovan! You're going to tell me everything!"

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

They ended up on a snowy mountain, but they're pretty sure it is not Caucasus Mountain. And not only that, the day is very dark but the moonlight gives them visibility to their surroundings. Not even a split second, they heard a lot of weapons cocked behind them. They turned around and found that there's a squad consisting of two women, six men, and one child soldier. There's another woman, looks like a commander, she's wounded and kneeling on the ground.

However, they are pretty much annoyed about having people aiming their weapons at them.

Nikolai sighs as he carelessly waves his arms wide. "Tvoyu Mat. How many times do we have to be gun-pointed by someone else?!"

Price looks at him with a sigh. "You tell me about that."

"Who are you?!" the dual-wielding handgun woman, Valmet, who lost her right eye, asked.

"Just soldiers," Price replied with a shrug. "Don't mind us."

"Don't mind you?" Lehm laughed as he steadies his aim at them. "I don't think so. It looks like we miss some of them."

Yuri winced his eyebrows to him. "Wait, who's them?"

"You're one of Karen's forces, aren't you?" Lutz asked as he cocked his marksman rifle. "Don't play dumb."

The 141 operators narrowed their eyes confusion. "Who's Karen?" Price was clueless about that.

The reactions the men gave surprised the squad immediately. Karen stayed silent while injured because she doesn't know who are they. But the child soldier lowered his rifle down.

"Jonah, why are you lowering your gun?" The black man, Wiley, asked.

"They're not a threat."

The squad deadpanned at Jonah. "Are you certain of that?" the white-haired woman, Koko, asked.

"I'm sure."

The squad involuntarily lower their guns down, which gave the 141 operators a gist of relief.

But then Nikolai recognized the white-haired woman. "Wait, are you Koko Hekmatyar?"

Price and Yuri both stare at him in mild annoyance while Koko surprised by his question. "Didn't think I'll be that popular."

"Oh, you're popular," Nikolai was referring to the anime show. "But, of course, I don't really like you."

As Yuri began calling in the portal, Koko's squad is surprised by his statement. "Are you mocking Ms. Koko Hekmatyar?!" Valmet asked furiously.

"Mostly because of her tendencies to turn from Koko to Loco, no offense," Nikolai admitted, Price facepalmed as Yuri continue calling in the portal. "And no, I don't want to fight with you or shoot you because I know you're going kill me with a knife no matter what, Valmet."

Before Valmet managed to ask how he knew her name, Nikolai turned his attention to Jonah. "Ey Patsan! Jonah! I like you more than the boys with you!"

"EH!?" all the men in Koko's squad responded in shock. "The hell are you talking about?!" Lutz asked.

"Oh, and by the way, Koko Hekmatyar!" Nikolai's antics were enough to make Price to walk over to Yuri. "Good luck with your project on Jormungand! I'm sure Jonah won't like it!"

The squad stared at him in shock, especially Koko Hekmatyar herself. "Wha-how did you-?"

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

Koko's squad stood in shock to see the portal behind them, and even Karen leans her head back while injured. Nikolai only points his arm at the portal while Price and Yuri wait for him to get along.

"Ah, there it is," Nikolai said happily. "Sorry we have to go now. See you later, comrades."

The men then immediately enter the portal before it disappeared. The squad was in amazement of what they just heard. Karen had wondered about what Nikolai was talking about. Koko can't leave the surprise from her face to know Nikolai knew about that. Jonah, on the other hand, his face was a bit shadowed. They are ignoring the fact that they saw the operators jumped through the portal.

"Koko…"

Koko then looks at him. "Yes?"

"What he said about Jormungand…" Jonah paused for a moment. "Is it true that I won't like it?"

Koko can only stare at him as Karen curiously watch. How did Nikolai know about that?

 _"Oh, boy…"_

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

They teleported into a city, to be exact, New York City. Oddly, the city is currently not suffering an attack from the Third World War. But… the city is currently suffering an alien attack all around them. And they could see one particular person in a blue suit are neutralizing the aliens with his shield.

The three men recognized who he is. "Captain America?"

The men nearly get themselves shot from an alien from their left; if not for Captain America throws a shield at the alien. The shield then bounced back to its owner before he comes over to the three men. Captain America looked up and down to their attires before asking.

"I thought the National Guard was too late for the fight," Captain America, or Steve, commented.

"No, no, we're not the National Guard," Price shook his head along with his open palms. "We were just passing by."

Captain America deadpanned at him with his head tilted. "What do you mean you were passing by?"

"Well, you see," Yuri explained. "We are currently traveling around the universe. We got here because we are using the portal we have."

Steve Rogers just hummed. "Sounds fishy."

"We're trying to reach for our friend in another universe, if you were asking," Nikolai replied with a shrug. "Because we're trying to contain a dimensional-level terrorist threat."

Captain America winced at him. "You're saying that the terrorists have their own portal?"

"Yes, correct," Price replied as Yuri calls in the portal. "That's why we're traveling around the universe. Well, mostly because we lost half of the coordinates to get to the exact universe."

"By the way," Nikolai points behind Steve. "Behind you."

Steve swirled and threw his shield behind him, quickly neutralized an alien that was about to shoot at them before it bounced back to Steve. "Thanks for the warning."

"No problem, comrade," Nikolai replied happily with a thumbs up.

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

"Ah," Steve points at the portal behind the men. "That's your ticket?"

"Yes, it is," Price looks around for a moment before looking back at Steve. "We apologize for intruding your… fight with the aliens."

"No sweat," Steve replied with an open palm. "I wish you good luck to stop the terrorist."

"Oh, and Captain America," Nikolai paused for a moment. "You have our blessings."

"Thanks," Steve replied with a nod and a smile before the men leave through the portal and it quickly disappears.

It was nice for Captain America to meet those soldiers, makes him temporarily forget about Loki. But when he turns around, he just met with a battalion of the aliens aiming at him. He just sighed and shook his head in a tilt to show his annoyance.

"Great. Where is Dr. Banner when I need him?"

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

Not even in a moment's notice, they ended up in an alley of the city. Price, Nikolai and Yuri looked over to his surroundings and found themselves in between buildings and floors that look historical. And somehow, Price recognized the buildings and their surroundings as an area in Italy back in the 1400s. And the day was dark. By the time they turn around, they met with a couple of Borgia guards.

"Ehi, fermati proprio qui!" one of the guards aggressively responded.

"Nessuno esce di casa durante il coprifuoco!" the other guard aggressively added as they walked over to the men with their swords out. "Verrai con noi!"

Before the operators raised their weapons, however, both of the guards killed by air assassination of an assassin in a white hoody coat, it seems the man in white killed both of the guards with his hidden blades. The man stood up from the dead guards as the operators lower their rifles but have their fingers near the triggers.

"Who are you?" Price asked their savior.

"A concerned citizen," the assassin responded.

Nikolai somehow recognized his voice. "Wait, are you Ezio Auditore?"

The said assassin is taken off-guard of his question, even Price and Yuri stared at him. "You know him?"

"Da," Nikolai nodded. "There's an action game about him."

Now Ezio is confused about what he said. "Di cosa stai parlando? What do you mean there's a game about me?"

"I'm afraid you won't understand, signore," Nikolai replied in his fake Italian accent. "Let's just leave it that way."

"I see," Ezio replied in such a suspicious tone.

"Mind telling us where we are right now?" Price asked him.

"You are in Firenze, mio amico," Ezio replied flatly.

"Florence?" Yuri asked. "Wait, this year is not 1960, right?"

Ezio stares at him in confusion. "Yes, it's not 1960. It's 147-"

"Wrong universe, call it in," Nikolai cuts off, much to Ezio's confusion.

"Wrong universe?" Ezio asked. "Are you talking some fantasy or something?"

"Talking scientifically, to be exact," Price responded. "You're not technologically advanced enough to understand."

"Not technologically advanced?" Ezio starts to wonder if this had anything to do with the Templars.

"The Templars don't know about this if you're asking," Nikolai responded, which makes Ezio caught off-guard.

"How did you-"

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

Whatever he was about to ask was cut off by a sudden bright portal behind the operators. Which makes Ezio opened his mouth a little and deadpanned at the portal from under his hood. He was amazed by these operators. The men only stared him back.

"I'm afraid we don't have much time to answer your questions," Yuri replied to him. "We have someplace to go."

"So, do svidaniya, mio amico," Nikolai said before they proceed to enter the portal.

The portal then quickly disappears. Ezio is the only person standing there in between the two guards he killed. He's currently contemplating what just happened, and how did that Russian know about the Templars. Ezio only puts his index finger on his chin.

"That was… an interesting encounter. I should ask Signore Da Vinci about this."

* * *

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

The three men once again teleported into a very small house. They are in the main room that contains two tables, one fridge, a cabinet, and a TV above the table. The floor is nice, clean, and white, while the walls are colored in yellow. And…

Huh, why I recognized that room?

And why did I hear a loud buzzing sound outside of my room?

…

...

…

…

…

Wait a minute…

*Cklak-kreek*

…

…

…

You have got to be kidding me.

…

…

THEY ARE INSIDE MY BLOODY HOUSE!

"Buset! Kok kalian disini?!" I said in my Indonesian language to the men.

"Uuh… what?" Yuri asked me who is confused with my language.

"Eh, Chit," a friend of mine, let's call him Raz, came out of the bathroom. "Kenapa kamu teri-?"

Once my friend stares at the men in front of us, he can't cease his amazement. "Anjing, itu Captain Pricekah?!"

"Ya, itu Captain Price, Nikolai sama Yuri," I then turned to talk to them with such a fake smile. "The bloody hell you're doing in my house?"

The men were about to reply, but I cut them off. "Nevermind, it's the portal that was messed up. Go ahead and call Wallcroft."

The men looked at me in surprise. "How did you know about that?" Price asked me.

Raz just looked at me for a moment, before looking back at them. "It's simple. You broke the 4th wall."

The three operators only take their time to stare at us in confusion. But I noticed Nikolai had realized something.

"Wait, don't tell me you are the author of our story."

"Uuh…" Raz points his thumb at me. "He's the author, not me."

Price and Yuri just deadpanned at me. "Impossible."

"I know," I responded with a nod. "Welcome to the other side of the 4th wall. Now, if you don't mind, why don't you go to Miho's universe and finish your job, hmm?"

"Ah, of course," Price awkwardly replied with a nod. "Yuri?"

"Okay," Yuri then radioed Wallcroft. "Wallcroft, still not this one."

"I hope this time it's the right one," Wallcroft commented. "Standby."

*WWHIIIIIIIIRRRRR-BWWWUUUUUSSSSSH*

I won't be much surprised to see a portal behind them because I intended that to happen. You know, it's fun to see Raz's eyes poking out at the portal with his jaw dropped to the ground. Something that he would call such thing as 'sorcery' thanks to his knowledge of 'conservative witchcraft.' The operators look back at us again, awkwardly.

"We apologize for intruding your nice house," Price apologized. "We'll be leaving now."

"That's alright, Captain," I replied to them. "Have a good day."

The men nodded at me with their awkward smiles before stepping through the portal. Once the portal disappeared, I heard Raz groans in disappointment.

"Kenapa, Raz?" I asked him.

"Kenapa kita gak minta mereka inap disini?" Raz asked me in such complain.

"Hey, they've been busy with my story," I replied in disagreement. "Nanti saya yang buat cerita jadi rusak, mengerti?"

"Yah… bener juga sih," Raz replied as he scratched his head. "Aku mau makan dulu ya."

"Ok," I replied with a nod. "Saya akan ada di kamar."

Then I returned to my room and continue to write my story again.

Hang on.

How the hell my laptop typed this part without me?!

* * *

"So… that's how we got here just fine."

Everyone in the briefing room, especially those who are Japanese, are at a loss of words. They didn't think that there is more kind of universes they haven't met yet. But, from how Price told them, the universes they were in are sometimes bizarre, normal, and breaking the timeline of history. Miho and her lover, Anchovy, never been so silent for so long that they look like they want to get seasick to what they just heard. The men of 141 and the rest of the girls and mothers in the room, only stare blankly at Price, Yuri and Nikolai.

Miho clears up on how Price's story goes.

"So let me get this straight. You nearly provoked Team RWBY, breathed underwater, nearly get attacked by zombies twice, nearly scared a group of junior high school students because they thought you were pedophiles, you ended up on Planet Pandora, you met with the infamous Joseph Joestar, Nikolai messed up Koko's squads' minds, talked with Captain America in the middle of Battle of New York, talked with Ezio Auditore in 1470s, and finally, you met with the author of our story yourself before you could reach our world?"

"Umm…" Nikolai glances at Yuri, who adds. "There were a bit more. But yes, that's the summary for all of it."

"So…" Price awkwardly began. "What do you think?"

Miho raised her eyebrows as she sighed. She then raised four fingers to him. "Four words for you."

"What the fuck, mate?"

* * *

Originally this Extra was called "Around the Universe In Many Times." Gotta thanks to the word limit for the change of the chapter's name.

Universes in this Extra:

-RWBY

-Spongebob Squarepants

-COD Zombies

-Left 4 dead

-Yuru yuri

-Borderlands

-Jojo Part 2

-Jormungand

-Avengers

-Assassin's Creed 2

-Real Life; author himself


	66. Chapter 62 - Counter-Chaos

Note to all personnel reading this chapter:

Forgive me for the long, awaited new chapter.

The reason why it took me long to write this chapter are as follow:

1\. Overthinking of gaps in the chapter

2\. Loss of motivation

3\. Confusion of the storyline in the chapter

4\. Too much characters.

5\. School exam, which in nearly a week without a laptop

6\. Corona-virus quarantine

Of course, with all of that out of the way. You may enjoy your time reading this chapter.

Be advised, this chapter has applied with translations for those who don't understand Russian.

* * *

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141

.

 **Detecting small attacks and sabotages within the country.**

 **Makarov's current location: Unknown.**

 **Entering Red Alert.**

 **Repeat: Entering Red Alert.**

 **Makarov must be considered armed and dangerous.**

 **All personnel expects to be vigilant for any hostile incursion in Japan.**

 **.**

Miho: There's still nothing about him?

Vicek: Nothing substantial. Only we're still receiving reports of attacks through bombs. The military installation is also included. Blyat.

Ogin: Is he trying to get himself known to the world?

Yuri: More or less, he's going to be back in the grid soon. And soon it will be an international issue to the world.

Anzu: How dangerous is he?

Price: Enough to light a fuse to a new war.

Ami: I'm surprised he hasn't attacked your base.

Nikolai: Don't push your luck, comrade. He's just getting started.

Kay: Is there any way to draw him out?

Chemo: We are currently sending out UAVs to do a search and recon around Japan. The JSDF is also helping us out to search and patrol around Japan for enemy threats.

Royce: So, in short. We don't know any way to draw him out. We are going to need something big for him—a big target.

Chiyo: What kind of target are we talking about here?

Chrome: Enough to create controversy among nations. International or even national.

Akaboshi: Wait, what about the tankery match tomorrow afternoon?

Price: Hm? Explain.

Shiho: There will be a match in Wakayama City. Bellwall school vs. Blue Division High School. It will be a big show tomorrow.

Maho: A lot of people will be coming for that for sure. You… do know what tankery match looks like, right?

Price: Clear as an hourglass.

Rinnai: Wait… no way. What makes you think he will attack that match?

Miho: He brought chaos in his footsteps. If the same thing happens to the match…

Morley: Shit… we're talking about another war here.

Ami: But we can't cancel this match again. It's going to cause outrage to our citizens!

Yuri: If we cancel the match, a lot of lives will be saved.

Price: But she has a point. Makarov might use the citizens' outrage for advantage. But the problem is, if Makarov got wind of the cancellation, he would be planning for something worse. And if he's one step ahead of us, he could be looking for us right now.

Akashi: So what do you suggest?

Yuko: Captain Nishizumi?

Miho: Miho, just Miho. As for the plan… I really hate to say this, but we have to blend in.

Geshiko: But Miho… what about your identity? Along with the others with you?

Miho: We can take the risk. For now, we have to worry about civilians' safety.

Garhaaye: We have to come up with a plan for this one.

Miho: And we have to improvise if we have to. So ladies…

Nikolai: Are you willing to risk your lives for your people?

* * *

 **Counter-Chaos**

 **12:34:37**

 **Maho Nishizumi**

 **Task Force 141**

 **Wakayama City, Wakayama Prefecture**

" _We'll blend in, she said. We'll be fine, she said."_

The only thing Maho had thought while she's in the middle of the crowd.

Maho is walking with Miho and Kay, followed up by Price and Yuri behind them from afar. Maho is in her usual KMM uniform along with KMM black jacket. Underneath her black coat was the concealable Kevlar vest with SMG pouches, while her belt is converted to a tactical one that can hold bags of Pistol ammo and its holster for Fort-12 pistol, and yes, it's hidden. Kay is in her usual Sensha-Do uniform, except that today she's wearing jeans and has her VP9 Pistol hidden on the back, showing that she currently does not wear any Kevlar vest or even tactical belt. Miho is in her black assault jacket fitted for the SAS unit, which most people nearly see that as an odd thing and a pair of grey pants. M9 Beretta is holstered on her side of her belt underneath her jacket, along with a holstered combat knife.

Price and Yuri wore the same thing back when they were in Czech. Yep, Czech, not back in Africa. Except that both men lack military gear, but Price still has his military Boonie hat right now. And like what you guess, they have their respective pistols hidden under their jackets. They have earpieces, especially the girls, which makes them a bit conspicuous and odd to students of Sensha-Do. Their guns have suppressors, enough to dampen the real noises of each respective pistols.

The plan they had for this mission is damn complicated, so a lot of improvisations are needed. Now, they're heading for a particular restaurant in the Food Court area. Maho and the girls are going to meet up with Darjeeling and Pekoe there, with both men supervise from afar. Of course, they can't let their guard down just yet.

"All units, any updates?" Miho asked in the intercom.

"Rotten 2-1, Plaza clear." – TF 141

"Ghost, patrolling the east side. The coast is clear." – TF 141

"Morley here! Spectators' area secure" – USFJ

"Ami here, nothing new so far." – JGSDF

"Nikolai, I got nothing on the surveillance drone." – TF 141

"Ogin, at the café and souvenir shop. Still secure." – TF 141

"Frost, patrolling the Sensha-Do Department. No threat on sight." – Delta

"Kremlin 4-1, patrolling around the tank hangars. Ice clear." – FSB

"Wallcroft, we're standing by. No threats here, and still drinking our cup of tea." – SAS

"Sniper Team 3. Area still secure." – TF 141

"Chrome with the KMM girls. I forgot the 'sorry' bullets again." – TF 141

Maho sighed on Chrome's part. "Is it really that necessary, Chrome?"

"It's a tradition!" Chrome responded. "Now, I have to use my damn notes!"

"You killed people then left a sorry note in the middle of a war," Kremlin 4-1 stated. "Is that even polite, Canadian?"

"You would understand if you were in Canada," Wallcroft responded. "They are obliged to leave a 'sorry' in the size of a cornfield."

"Sounds scary," Anchovy stated in the radio, much to Maho's ease.

"How are you doing, Emerald?" Miho asked on the radio.

"I'm at an Anzio stand with my mother and friends," Anchovy replied happily. "Everything's fine for now. I hope it doesn't get any worse."

"You brought your shotgun, right?" Maho asked to confirm.

"Do you know how hard it is to hide it inside a food stand?"

It's a good question. Miho ever did that months ago in KMM school, and it was a bit hard. Maho shivered at the thought.

"I know, just keep an eye out, darling."

"You bet."

Miho just shrugged happily. "That calms me down for a moment."

"This is not the right time for a honeymoon, you know?" Price half-joked on the radio.

"It's a shame you didn't get one, old man," Miho countered annoyingly.

Kay and Maho burst their mouths to stifle their laughs. "That's rude, Miho," Maho told her.

"Nice counter," Kay agreed with a smile.

Price could be heard chuckling in the radio. "Nice joke, old girl."

It only took them for about four minutes to get to that particular restaurant. It's just a one-floor restaurant at the food court. By the time they enter, Maho was the first to notice Darjeeling and Pekoe, and surprisingly Mrs. Yuri Isuzu is sitting at a corner to her right next to the windows. They are sitting at the table for six people; only Maho recalled that she, along with Kay and Miho, should sit there while the two men find a seat for themselves.

The Glorianas and Mrs. Yuri greeted them as Maho and her team greeted back. They then take a seat, Maho and Kay sat across them while Miho sat next to Darjeeling. The first thing that Darjeeling noticed was the presence of Maho's and the team's earpieces, but thankfully she quickly dismisses it. But Maho could feel that Darjeeling is suspicious about it.

"Glad you came over," Darjeeling happily commented. "We thought you'd be late."

"That's alright," Miho replied with a nod. "I was having a little chat with Emerald."

Pekoe chuckled. "You mean Duce Anchovy?"

"Yeah," Kay added with a smile. "They're adorable."

"And Kay, I thought your school is not having a match today," Darjeeling informed as she eyed her clothes.

"Wrong uniform," Kay replied sourly. "I forgot to wash them."

"I hope it's not because you're lazy about it," Mrs. Yuri replied with a smile.

"It's not like that, Isuzu-sama," Kay replied as she waved a hand. "I had to a bit cleaning back in my place up to the point I forgot about my uniform."

"Finally?" Darjeeling asked her. "Do you remember the last time I was in your apartment?"

"Don't remind me about it," Kay replied with a smile. "Besides-"

*BOOOM*

The conversation went quiet after they heard an explosion from a distance. Maho, who was sitting next to the window, looked out. Much to her shock, is that there's a cloud of smoke flying in the air.

"What the…" the words left Maho's mouth.

Everyone in the restaurant gazed at the smoke in the air. "Is there a gas explosion?" Pekoe concernedly asked.

"Unlikely," Maho and everyone gazed back at Miho.

"What do you mean?" Darjeeling asked, but her question is ignored.

Maho only sees her sister reached her earpiece and radioed. "Какие-нибудь подразделения, что, черт возьми, это было?!"

(Any units, what the hell was that?)

Mrs. Yuri, Darjeeling, and Pekoe stare confusingly at her as their worries grew, with Maho and Kay looked back at the explosion.

"Любые подразделения в Сьерру 1. Что, черт возьми, только что взорвался?!"

(Any units to Sierra 1. What the hell just exploded?!"

"Кремль 4-1, у нас вражеское вторжение в танковый ангар! Еще раз говорю, у нас вражеское вторжение в танковые ангары!"

(Kremlin 4-1, we have enemy incursion in the tank hangars! I say again, we have an enemy incursion in the tank hangars!)

Maho widens her eyes in shock as she looked at Miho. "Scheisse."

* * *

Kremlin 4-1, Lieutenant Vosbodich

"We suffered civilian casualties! All students are injured, and we got seven 200th, requesting medical attention to Bellwall hangars!"

"Kremlin 4-1, it's Nikolai. Combat medical has been dispatched to the hangars; you need to clear the hangar now and ensure civilians' safety."

*BRRRRTRTRTRTTRT*  
*DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR-DOR*

*BRARATATATATATAAATAT*

Vosbodich and his team of 6 men were immediately in a battle with the Ultranationalist that raided the tank hangars. Thankfully, his team intercepted the attack just in time. Except for the explosives that were planted on a couple of tanks.

"Blyat, we engaged five armed hostiles!" Vosbodich replied as he peeks out and shoots. "Pyotr, Ranov, get the civilians out, now!"

As the team of six men suppresses and getting the surviving civilians out, more ultranationalists show up on the other side of the hangar.

"Ебать, пошли, пошли!"

(Fuck, Go, Go!)

"Защитите мирных жителей! Защитите мирных жителей!"

(Protect the civilians! Protect the civilians!)

"Я красный! Красный!"

(I'm red! I'm red!)

"Контакт в 13 часов!"

(Contact on 13 o'clock!)

"Прикрой меня, я кидаю гранату!"

(Cover me, I'm throwing a grenade!)

One of his men, Dima, throws a grenade at the terrorists. "Ложись!"

(Fire in the hole!)

"Граната!"

(Grenade!)

*BUARM*

The lieutenant and his team immediately continue to return fire as Pyotr got hit in the shoulder.

"Дерьмо, я получил yдар!" Pyotr exclaimed. "Я все еще могу бороться!"

(Shit, I'm hit! – I can still fight!)

"4-1, 4-1 to Kremlin 5-1," 5-1 radioed in, who is also FSB. "Covering you from the hangar doors. Work it!"

"Работает!" Ranov loudly responded as they suppressed the hostiles by the tanks.

(Working!)

"Kremlin 4-1 to all units," Vosbodich radioed as he ducked in his cover. "The FSB will be locking down the tank hangars as we engaged the enemy. We won't be available in other areas for now!"

* * *

Sierra 3, Maho Nishizumi

"Understood," Maho whispered in her radio. "Keep them distracted."

When the FSB is radioing units in the area, the Ultranationalists have conquered most of the exhibition area, including the restaurant they're inside. The bastards came in numbers, a lot of them are roping down from the hinds next to the restaurant. They came in force, bringing terror to those who were, unfortunately, standing in their way. Most of the civilians are taken hostage, but there are a few who got shot for trying to run away.

She could see Darjeeling and Pekoe are scared to death. The fact that the girls, including Maho herself, stood from their table and faced Ultranationalists with their hands up. There were about 5 Ultranationalists; three of them met at the girls while the other two glance at Yuri and Price, who are blending in with civilians and close to the bastards. Maho, Miho, and Kay were a bit close to the bastards.

So far, the only units which have been engaged with the terrorists are only the FSB. Delta, 141, JGSDF, USFJ, and SAS are blending in for now until Miho says so or compromised. From what she saw, some of them bastards are making a run for the hangar since she saw a number of them running past the restaurant. For now, the open field in front of the restaurant is empty except some soldiers in the very distance.

However, she noticed what Darjeeling and Pekoe are glancing at. They were glancing at Miho, who has her head hidden under the hood of her jacket. Maho didn't bother about it and turned her head back at the bastards.

One of the terrorists inside gave a threat. "Nobody move. Try to do anything stupid, and you'll be dead!"

Then she heard her sister chuckled. "Then what are you going to do with us?"

The bastard in front of her replied to her, with the rest of them watch the crowd. "What is it to you?"

"Taking us as hostages for a ransom," Miho replied flatly.

"Heh, idiot," the terrorist replied. "Do you think we're just here for that?"

Miho only shook her head casually. "Spread terror and start a war with the western block. Isn't that what you want to do, Ultranationalists?"

The civilians, including Darjeeling and Pekoe, were confused and looked at her. The terrorists, on the other hand, they were taken off-guard of her question and immediately turned their heads at her. The one Ultranationalist in front of Miho already had his finger on the trigger.

Miho then continues, but her hands are no longer in the air. "It was such a shame. You didn't really think that war back there went sideways, correct?"

The terrorist in front of Miho aimed at her, while the rest of them ready to be happy triggers. Darjeeling and Pekoe looked pretty horrified about how Miho is angering them. Maho looked over to Kay, Price, and Yuri and gave a quick slight nod to signal them to get ready.

"Who the blyat are you?!" the terrorist asked aloud at Miho.

Miho only stood there for a moment. She opens her hood instead of answering him. She then glares daggers at the terrorist. She said three words to him.

"Пошел иди нахуй."

(Go fuck yourself)

*SHIIING*-"HUUEK!"

*SHAAK-SHAAK-SHAAK-SHAAK *-"AAAAKH!"

Everyone is quickly frightened with the sight of Price and Yuri stab the two terrorists from behind. The three terrorists promptly turned around and aimed their AKs at the two men. Maho and Kay quickly pulled out their suppressed pistols from under their jacket and shot two terrorists who nearly pull the trigger in a burst. Miho takes care of the last terrorist by kicking the bastard's right elbow from behind and sent his AK flown away.

The bastard then turns around at Miho and quickly grabs her neck with his left hand. Miho responded fast as lightning by pulling out her knife and jabs it to his left elbow. His scream was cut short when she pulls out her knife, and her neck is free. She then turns around and holds the bastard's arm, before flipping him over hard to the ground. Miho then quickly stabs his neck through, to which he expires in a blink of an eye. She then pulls the knife out of him and promptly holsters it back.

Everyone, including Darjeeling and Pekoe, only stared in shock at what just happened. Maho only gives a blank stare to Miho's takedown.

Miho sighs, before stating this.

"For Queen and country."

Which was enough for Darjeeling and Pekoe to cringe at her in fear and… awkwardness. And the feeling of Miho went monarchy all over again.

However, everyone, including the two Glorianas, can't help but notice that Maho and Kay have their pistols out.

"W-whaa… how did you…?" Pekoe then trails off as her mind went blank.

"I-I thought you said only Miho has a gun!" Darjeeling complained in fear.

"It's not a good time to talk about that," Kay responded to her. "Clear?"

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Чистый."

"Price, check the kitchen," Miho ordered as Price went to the kitchen. "Yuri, got the bag?"

"Wha-hey!" Mrs. Yuri Isuzu responded angrily. "That's rude!"

"Not you, Mrs. Isuzu," Maho replied to her, then points at the man who is Yuri. "That's Yuri."

Her friends can't help but be dumbfounded to know the person they meant was the Russian Yuri. Mrs. Isuzu then looks at the man Maho mentioned. "Wait, Miho-san, isn't that the friend you ever talked about before?"

"Yes, that's Yuri," Miho replied with a nod as he brought his duffel bag to the girls.

Maho could see Mrs. Isuzu's eyes upon him, before complementing. "He's handsome."

All 141, Darjeeling and Pekoe then stare at her. "Seriously?" Yuri asked as he was dumbfounded.

Maho walked over to the duffel bag and wore off her jacket. Everyone inside is surprised that Maho has a Kevlar vest on her, but then they were shocked when Yuri opens the duffel bag. All the 141 picks up their choice of weapons and Kevlar vest right when Price finished checking the kitchen and assured it was clear. Kay and Miho wear on their Plate Carrier Vests, which could hold rifle magazines, but Price and Yuri only wear chest rigs.

Maho got her UMP 45 w/ Reflex sight as her primary weapon. Miho uses HK416 w/ ACOG while Kay is using her Famas w/ Holo Sight. Both Price and Yuri use G36, and only Yuri has an under-barrel grenade launcher while Price has a Holo Sight. Maho and Kay switched their earpieces with Comm headsets, only that Kay wears a 141 cap first. Miho wears a tactical visor.

Once done, they immediately headed for the windows. "Everyone, stay down," Maho ordered everyone as they looked out.

"All units, Sierra 1," Miho radioed. "Sector 1-Alpha is secure. Valkyrie 1, green light."

It's a tense situation, which Maho heard Darjeeling. "Who are you, people? Seriously, why do you have weapons like that?"

Maho looked at Miho, who glances at Darjeeling. "141."

If her widen eyes weren't enough, her eyes are about to go blank with her skin turns pale. "Oh, bloody hell."

* * *

Valkyrie 1, Anchovy.

Anchovy had heard Miho's status, and it was her turn.

Anchovy still has her hand raised along with her friends and her mother, who are right behind the food stand. Aside from the presence of a lot of civilians, there are two terrorists on guard watching to ensure that no one does something stupid. Anchovy was fortunate to hide the shotgun underneath the food stand in front of her. And her pistol hidden under her usual cape. And her expression shows her careful and fearless against these bastards.

"Don't you try to run, chuvak!" one of the terrorists warned. "You run, then we don't have to bother about keeping you alive."

She could see everyone around her; the civilians, Anzios, Pepperoni, and Carpaccio shook in fear. Coincidentally, Jajka and Mika are present at the food stand, and she can tell they are tired of having their hands up. Anchovy noticed that the two terrorists are looking away from her. That's when she takes the chance to slowly and carefully reaches her hand out to underneath the food stand.

"Duce, what are you doing?" Pepperoni whispered her in concern.

"Quiet," Anchovy whispered back hastily as her hand is reaching in the food stand's drawer.

"Anchovy," Mika called lowly. "You should stop."

"Just stay silent."

"Are you asking for a dead sentence?!" Jajka whispered, panicked. "Stop it!"

Carpaccio calls her lowly. "Anchovy-san-"

"Shush," Rinnai responded. "Quiet."

"Ey, who's a whisper-" the terrorists turn around and alarmed when they saw Anchovy reaching for something in the food stand's drawer. One of them raised his rifle at her. "Hey, hey, hey, what do think you're doing, little princess?"

"Uum…" Anchovy awkwardly replied with a false smile. "Reaching for my phone?"

"Heh, nice try, chuvak," the terrorist beside him replied as his finger is on the trigger. "Give us your phone."

Her friends glance at her in fear, which Anchovy could only sigh with her eyes closed. "Well, here goes nothing."

Her hand inside the drawer then pulls the trigger.

*BAR*-"AAAGH!"

The bastard who aims his gun at her is quickly thrown back from the buckshot.

"Chyort! Suk-!"

*BAR*

And the last one is thrown back from the shot and ended up crashing the food stand behind him. The two terrorists are dead from the buckshot. Everyone, including her friends, cannot help but to process of what just happened before their process of thinking is cut short by Anchovy. She pulls out her shotgun from the drawer and aims it at the dead terrorists. Intense? Yes, but she managed to freak out everyone in the vicinity.

"Merda!" Pepperoni responded aloud in shock. "How the hell did you get a shotgun!?"

Anchovy looks at her with her shotgun lowered. "Got it from Miho, of course."

*DOR*

The shot surprised them, and they saw an enemy popped out from their right. But he quickly fell down and had his face sliding through the ground. That's when they notice the poor sod had a shot in his head. Anchovy and her friends then turn their heads to Anchovy's right.

Rinnai Chiyomi, who disliked firearms, for the first time, killed a bad guy with a headshot. You have to see how pale the students are to see Anchovy's mother is still aiming her pistol at the dead sod. Anchovy felt terrible to kill them, but it's their life or nothing.

It's maybe loud, but there's no sound of terrorists coming up to them in the distance. Gunshots from the tank hangars are the one pretty obvious for everyone. Assured that the area is clear, Anchovy then pulls out the bag under the food stand and opens it up. Her friends stood frozen to see that it contains Kevlar vests, ammo belts, and ammo. Anchovy releases her cape and wears on the plate carrier while her mother wears on the CIRAS (Combat Integrated Releasable Armor) vest. Both Anchovy and her mother wear on their ammo belt.

After they're ready and ignoring her friends' shock, Anchovy radioed in. "Sierra 1, Valkyrie 1. Area in sector 2-Alpha is secure. Waiting for your go."

* * *

Wolf 1, Erika

"Wolf 1, you're green light."

"Copy. Greenlight."

Erika and her KMM team are in a tankery shop just North of Sierra's position. They are all on the second floor of the shop, along with their fellow KMM students and Ooarai students. Team Anglerfish, Duck, and Hippo are present in the shop on the second floor. Everyone has their hands up along with Erika's team. There were a few who got shot for trying to run away, it was grim, but thankfully those who got shot survived and wounded on the second floor.

Four terrorists occupy the second floor while the other two hold the ground floor. They armed with rifles but unbeknownst to them, KMM has their respective suppressed pistols ready hidden under their jackets. Erika eyed up to her teammates and gave a slight nod to them. The three terrorists are patrolling and kept their eyes on the civilians and 3 of her teammates on her right. The last terrorist in front of Erika looked away to her left, which gave her enough time to execute the attack.

Erika, Akaboshi, and Sangou reacted first by raising the side of their jackets and pull their pistols out. Erika headshots the terrorist in front of her as Sangou and Akaboshi executed the other two bastards overlooking to Erika's right. The executions didn't go unnoticed as the last terrorist in the room was frightened to see his boys were dead and looked at Erika and her two friends.

He aimed his AK at them. "Вы умер-!"

*SHAAK*-"Aaakh!"

Mauko tackled the bastard as she stabbed him on his left side of his stomach. Once Mauko pinned him on the floor and on top of him, she then continues to stab his side many times with all her might continuously. After she pierces his left chest, he immediately expires. Mauko then stands up and gets her knife back and holsters it. Erika was glad to see Mauko brought her knife to do something like that, it was excessive, though. There's some blood on Mauko's hands from all that stabbing.

Mauko only throws her hand in the air to wipe the blood off her hands. "Didn't think it go that well."

"You did just fine," Erika replied as she walks over to her and the civilians. "Ritaiko, Geshiko, watch the stairs."

"Got it," Geshiko responded before she and Ritaiko walk to the stairs and have their pistols trained there.

"Akaboshi," Erika called. "Where's the bag?"

"On it."

As Akaboshi finds the bag, Erika looked over to the crowd of civilians and students. Aside from the fact that the civilians and KMM students are relieved and frightened, the Ooarai students gave a very different reaction. Team Anglerfish, Duck, and Hippo all stood there in shock, frozen, and disbelieve. They even forgot to put their hands down after the bastards are dead.

Yukari was the first to talk. "…HOW?! How did you all get a gun?! I thought only Miho had that!"

"Keep it down, Yukarin," Erika asked her.

"How did you manage to kill them like that?" Erwin asked in disbelieve, now they remember to put her their hands down.

"Shut it!" Sangou ordered her lowly.

"Эй, ребята!" the terrorist from the lower floor shouted. "Что продолжается там?!"

(Hey, fellas! – The hell's going on up there?!)

"Scheisse!" Erika swore lowly. "They heard us."

"Эй, ад продолжается там?!"

(Hey, the hell's going on up there?!)

Geshiko and Ritaiko looked back at Erika, waiting for orders. "Geshiko, Ritaiko, on control."

"On it," Ritaiko responded.

The two said girls were about to go to the stairs, but when a hostile shows up on the stairs, they both quickly dispatch him in five shots. The bastard drops dead without a scream, but surely sound of his body tumbling down the stairs startle the last target below. Geshiko and Ritaiko headed down the stairs in pace and side by side. Erika watches Akaboshi coming over to her with the bag full of equipment as she heard suppressed shots from below.

Erika and her team begin to gear up as Ritaiko and Geshiko returned from the ground floor. Akaboshi and Sangou were the first to go down the ground floor because they have geared up with equipment and weapons. Once Erika, Mauko, Ritaiko, and Geshiko have geared up.

The last four girls gear up with their plate carriers and their respective SMGs and rifle. They then immediately take positions at the windows as Erika signaled everyone in the building to stay low. Erika peeks out the window as she sees a lot of Ultranationalists out there. Some of the bastards are making their way to the hangars. Other than that, their sector is transparent.

And then someone barged in from the stairs to the second floor. They aimed their weapons at him, but then quickly lowered their weapons since the man who showed up was Chrome.

"Scheisse, Chrome," Erika swore. "Where the hell were you?"

"I was a bit busy in the back of the building," Chrome replied with a thumb. "And I just left some sorry notes to the terrorists you killed downstairs."

Everyone, including the civilians, stares at him in confusion or maybe in fright.

Akaboshi shook her head to him with an empty stare. "What is wrong with you?"

"Huh?" Chrome looks at her, perplexed. "That's a tradition. Nothing is wrong on that."

Erika only looks back to her teammates with her empty eyes. "That's so Canadian."

"Erika," Mauko called. "Remind me not to get shot by him."

"How is he going to get you shot?" Ritaiko asked, which she thinks that's impossible.

Chrome answered. "Accidental Friendly Fire, of course."

To which everyone glares at him with their frightening, shadowed eyes. And they are speechless.

"What?"

Erika decided to turn her head back to the window, minding her business back at hand.

"Sierra 1 to Wolf 1, Sector 1-Bravo is clear. I say again, Sector 1-Bravo is clear."

* * *

Shinobi 1, Shiho Nishizumi.

"Shinobi 1, it's Sierra 1, you're green light."

"Shinobi 1, executing targets."

Shiho and her team are in the small building west of Sierra's position. It's a two-story exhibition building. Her outfit comprised of herself, Chiyo, Ami, Yuko, Murakami, Anzu, and lastly, Ogin. Anzu, Ogin, Chiyo, and Yuko were on the ground floor while Murakami, Ami, and herself are on the second floor. Shiho could tell it's grim right now after the Ultranationalists took over this building. There were civilian casualties because the bastards opened fire first before holding everyone hostage. Five casualties, three wounded, and two dead. She understood why her daughter despised them so much.

Known relatives of Shiho among the civilians are Karin Itsumi, Erika's mother, Emi, Hitomi, Kita, and finally, Yoshiko Akiyama. They tensed up but calm as their hands are in the air, except for Hitomi, who's been terribly shaken in fear. Shiho only gave a slight nod to Murakami and Ami when the three terrorists on that floor didn't look that way. Of course, one of the bastards shows his back to Shiho, in which she takes the opportunity. Do not even mind the civilians are around, Shiho quickly pulls out her knife from behind her back and promptly kick the bastard's right knee from behind. He could produce a yelp when he fell to a kneel before he is stabbed on the back of his neck.

Aside from the civilians' shock, the other terrorists got wind of it and saw Shiho executed him. They did aim at her; however, they didn't get the chance to pull the trigger. Ami did her normal execution with her knife by stabbing one of them in the back. But Murakami, on the other hand, actually goes ham on the last bastard. Shiho even surprised to see it coming.

Murakami actually lifts him before slamming him down to the ground, and his rifle is thrown away. Before she proceeded by stomping his face so hard that a crack was heard for everyone, Shiho figured Murakami was so pissed to witness the bastards killed a few civilians, and for the first time to watch her goes ham. After their execution, they heard some quick screams from below. She figured that Yuko, Anzu, and Ogin managed to dispatch the hostiles quickly than she should expect.

After making sure that the area is clear, Shiho looked at Murakami. "You brought the equipment?"

"On it."

*BRAK*

Then there is another terrorist barged in through the door of that floor, much to Shiho's surprise.

"What the blyat?!" he then aimed his rifle at Shiho. "Vot su-!"

*PANG*

That's when both Shiho and the terrorist froze to that sound. Before the terrorist dropped forward to the ground unconscious. Shiho looks up on who hit his head from behind. She opened her mouth without conscious of the person. Much to her annoyance, Bazarov is standing there, holding a pan in his hands.

"Privet, comrades!" Bazarov greeted with his pan behind his head. "Just in the nick of time, eh?"

Shiho, Ami, and Murakami groaned simultaneously in their response of annoyance. "Not you again."

"Hey, hey, hey," Bazarov responded flatly. "Is that how you greet a friend?"

"Shiho-same," Anzu called out as Ogin, Chiyo and Yuko followed up behind her. "The ground floor is-"

Anzu and her teammates then stop in their tracks once they see Bazarov is at the door along with the terrorist he knocked out with a pan. Everyone, including the civilians, gave their best blank stares at Bazarov and the knocked out terrorist. Before everyone looks back up at Bazarov.

"Guys," Yuko called as she blankly stares at him. "Why is he here?"

"Huh, what's with that question?!" Bazarov pouted at her.

As Shiho's teammates began kitting up, she radioed to Miho. "Erm, Sierra 1, Shinobi 1, Bazarov's here."

"Bloody hell," Miho radioed in. "How in Queen's name he got here?"

"Hey, I can hear you, you know?!" Bazarov radioed in a bit loud to the civilians. "Did you think you can have all the fun by yourself without inviting me?"

"And he has a radio," Shiho radioed again.

"I noticed," Miho radioed back in annoyance. "Just gear up and get ready. And make sure he didn't bring any experiments for this mission."

Shiho raised an eyebrow to that. "Experiments?"

"Haha haha, what experiments?" Bazarov faked a smile. "I won't do such a thing, seriously."

"Long story," Miho responded with a sigh. "Just get ready."

"Copy that."

As Shiho begins to gear up, Emi called her. "Shiho-sama."

Shiho then looks up to her. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?"

"Aaaayy, calm the blin down!" Bazarov countered with his open palm raised as he also got sick to hear her screaming. "We're here to stop the terrorists from killing people."

"Hah, terrorists?!" Karin Itsumi asked in shock. "Is that why they tried to kill us first?!"

"And why Shiho-sama and Chiyo-sama have weapons and gears like that?" Yoshikawa asked in concern.

"Simple answer or the long answer?" Chiyo asked them.

"Simple," Hitomi and Kita responded flatly.

Anzu then cocks her AKS74u before answering to them. "We're with the 141."

Shiho could notice the shock of her relatives and her friends had. Their eyes turned empty to hear that. Her relatives and friends who are civilians can't express anything and fell speechless for the moment. They eyed on the operators, JGSDF women, Chiyo, and Shiho, along with the equipment they had.

What's the first thing they say simultaneously?

"Impossible!"

"We know," Shiho responded with a nod after gearing up with her plate carrier and armed with G36. "Keep your heads down."

Shiho then took cover by the windows next to Ami and Chiyo, before she heard Emi asked her. "I thought you're working for the Sensha-Do Department."

"I'm not working for 141, I'm working with 141," Shiho replied to her. "Besides, I'll be dealing with Miho if I was to join 141."

Shiho's relatives were caught off-guard by that, Karin was the first to ask that. "Wait, what Miho has to do with the 141?"

"It's obviously because she's the leader of Task Force 141," Ogin replied to her.

Shiho has mostly noticed the shocked expression Emi had. "MIHO'S WHAT?!"

"Miho is the leader of Task Force 141," Shiho replied to her. "She has good reasons why she didn't tell you that."

Shiho sees Emi looked down with a tense face. "Verdammte scheisse, Miho."

"I heard that."

* * *

Sierra 3, Maho Nishizumi

"Sierra 1 to Shinobi 1, sector 2-Bravo is clear. We're ready for action."

"Miho, everyone's good to go."

"Good, now-"

"Shh, you hear that?"

Upon hearing that question from Price, everyone silences their mouths and have their ears sharp. They heard footsteps – no, a lot of steps from outside. And then they hear a combination of resentful screams, groans and pleads. Since Maho is very curious about what was going on, she slowly peeks out the window within her eye limit. She was frozen to see what was going on outside.

There's a crowd making their way from other parts of the plaza into the open, with Ultranationalist escorting them on tow. Maho didn't know why are they bringing people into the open next to the building they're in, but she knew it was awful. Maho looked at her younger sister, only to be surprised by her dark glare at the terrorists putting fear into the crowd. Somehow, Darjeeling, Kay, and Pekoe, who noticed her glare went fright to see it.

"Dammit," Yuri swore angrily and lowly. "It's Prague all over again."

"What happened in Prague?" Kay asked him.

"They massacred the civilians," Price responded quickly, much to Kay's shock.

"Shit," Kay swore as she looks back through the window. "Didn't think it would be that bad."

Maho then aimed her rifle from her window as the rest did the same. The civilians, Pekoe and Darjeeling, back off from the windows and duck their heads down. It was a shame that the building wasn't a second-story one; they would have an advantage over the bastards since the crowd obstructs their view. But neighboring building across them where Shinobi team is has that advantage. After the crowd made it to the open between Shinobi & Sierra, Ultranationalists screamed at them to kneel with hands on their back.

"Sierra team, we got the targets on our scope," Sniper team 3 radioed in. "We spotted 5+ hostiles around the crowd. Permission to engage?"

"Standby," Price radioed back, then to Shinobi. "Shinobi 1, you got eyes on the targets?"

"We see them," Shiho replied. "Need to check your fire."

"Nikolai, is that all of them?" Miho asked on the radio.

"Da," Nikolai responded. "The rest of them are busy deep into the area to the north. The FSB did a good job keeping them busy. Delta and USFJ are engaged as well in the west, JGSDF on the east."

"The westerns working with the FSB?" Murakami curiously asked on the radio.

"Not the first time."

"Sierra 1, it's Wallcroft. Our squad got the area covered and ready to strike the hostiles from the north. Waiting for your go."

Maho nodded to Miho to let her know everyone's ready.

"Sniper Team 3, This is Sierra 1. Send it when you're ready."

"Roger, sending it."

*BLAR*

Once one of the bastards is shot in the head, the crowd and rest of the terrorists went panic. Thankfully, the crowd of civilians was wise to keep their heads down. Not for the bastards, however, since they stood out in the open and didn't think about threatening the civilians. Shots were released from three sides, and they didn't have the time to pull the trigger.

*DAR-DAR-DAR*

*BRRT-BRRRT-BRRTT*

*BAMBAMBABMBAMBABM*

*BARBARBARBARBARBARBARBAR*

*BRRRRTRTTRTRRRTRTRTRTRRR*

*DAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKADAKKKADAKKADAKKA*

All 5+ hostiles immediately mowed down to the ground, and thankfully none of the civilians got shot from the attack. Maho smiled in to relieve that they saved the civilians in the nick of time. But also, she wondered about what she just heard. Since this mission was supposed to be a Close-Quarter Combat mixed with urban warfare.

Why did she hear a machine gun firing among them?

No, no, she knew some of the Ultranationalist they killed brought their PKP Pecheneg MGs. But why was there the sound of a machine gun among them?

"All clear?" Kay asked on the radio.

"Clear," Bazarov responded in the radio, which annoyed Maho.

"Clear!" Wallcroft responded, then she saw his boys come out from the north to the civilians. "Set up a perimeter!"

"Get the civilians out," Miho ordered as Maho and her team exit the building. "Wallcroft, would you kindly make sure there are no loose ends in this area?"

"With pleasure," Wallcroft replied, to which then Maho is a bit surprised to see the SAS soldiers dead-checking the deceased Ultranationalists.

"You're making sure that all of them dead?" Chiyo asked in concern.

"Unless you are happy to get shot by one of them who is pretending to be dead," Wallcroft politely replied. "I'll be happy to leave one of them alive."

"Sometimes, your sense of humor is worrying than my optimism," Anzu commented as her team comes out from the neighboring building. "Just like Miho."

"I'm more worried about Miho getting snapped than my sense of humour," Wallcroft replied as he looked at the said person. "No pun intended."

"I take that as a compliment, thank you," Miho politely replied in her odd British manner as the operators secure the perimeter and get the civilians out to the south. "Wallcroft, can you get the people in the buildings out? Along with Bazarov?"

Maho produced a blank stare as Wallcroft actually stares at Miho in agitation. "Nevermind, Bazarov, you're with us."

Bazarov looked pretty happy. "Haha, you won't regret it!"

Everyone sighed with their eyes close. "We're going to regret it."

"Hey, I'm still here!"

"We know, Bazarov," Maho responded with an annoyed sigh. "Just get a move on."

Maho then looks over to Murakami by chance but then dumbfounded at what weapon she's holding. "Wait, are you holding a machine gun?"

"Yeah," Murakami simply replied. "Why?"

Maho only gives a blank stare at her. Her sister and the other teammates knew why she stares like that. Using an MG M249 SAW around civilians' proximity is pretty dangerous.

"Mate," Miho called her. "Don't overthink it."

"All units, it's Akashi," he radioed in. "We're making our way to checkpoint Kilo-Lima. We're facing light resistance, over."

"Major Akashi, this is Wolf 1," Erika responded on the radio. "We're coming to you from the south. ETA 5 minutes."

"Copy that," Akashi replied.

"Sierra 1, this is Morley," he radioed in. "We have a problem."

"Send it," Miho responded in the radio as Maho noticed that the open area they're in is clear of civilians.

"My boys are pinned down here along with the Deltas," Morley replied on the radio. "We got hostiles firing machine guns at us from a third-story building to our east. We also got civilians in the crossfire. We need backup immediately!"

"Sierra 1, this is Kremlin 4-1, we cleared out the hangars," Kremlin 4-1 responded in the radio. "But met up with hostiles occupying the spectators' area and the control building. We also need a hand on this OPSEC, priyom."

"Copy that, standby," Miho replied as Maho walks over to her.

"Who's going to help USFJ and Delta?" Maho asked her.

"Shinobi, help the Americans," Miho lets Price do the orders. "Wallcroft, set up a safe zone alongside the southern area and get the police here. No one goes in and out, excluding our mission's objective."

"Got it, boss," Wallcroft responded with a nod, with Shinobi team immediately left for Delta and USFJ.

"Nikolai, get reinforcements on the line, now."

"Da, contacting nearby reinforcements."

"Rest of you, and Bazarov," Maho is pretty sure concerned after Price said his name. "On me."

"Moving," Yuri stated as Maho takes a last look on the evacuated civilians before moving out.

"Nikolai, Sierra 3," Maho said on the radio. "Do we have any air support?"

"We only have a black hawk and a little bird available," Nikolai replied flatly. "But they are currently being refueled and rearmed for now. We'll have them ready for a few minutes."

"That's the only support we got?" Yuri asked.

"For now," Nikolai responded.

"Better than nothing," Kay happily replied. "I wished that was an AC-130."

"That is way overkill," Maho responded, giving the implication of that lousy idea since civilians are around.

"I don't want any unnecessary collateral damage from AC-130 just because we're trying to save civilians from terrorists, alright?" Maho swears that her younger sister actually felt the fright in that idea. "Besides, that is high profile, and do you even know how the world reacts to us?"

"Guess you have a point," Kay responded with a disappointed tone.

"What's the fastest way to Kremlin Team?" Maho asked.

"We need to cut through the central plaza," Price replied as they walked through the empty stands on their left and right. "That's the fastest way to Kremlin Team."

"Sierra Team, I'm detecting enemy signatures ahead of you," Nikolai radioed in. "Be expect to face heavy resistance. Rotten 2 and Valkyrie are waiting for you at the central plaza."

"Copy that," Miho responded. "We're on our way."

After a minute of walking towards the central plaza, they could gunfire sounds are getting closer. After they walked through a few empty stands, they found Rotten two teams are taking cover behind the carts and turned tables along with Valkyrie Team. Maho and her team are pretty happy to see them there, but then immediately ducked to cover after Price warned of an incoming RPG. They barely dodge it as it flew next to Yuri before exploding behind him. Resistance is up ahead, 10+ additional hostiles in the open, and there are four hostiles with RPGs assisted with infantry units hiding behind the plants on the far back of the enemy line.

Maho took cover next to Anchovy, who asked. "Do they often send rockets like that in your war, Miho?"

*TCHWANG* "Pretty much," Miho replied as she casually ignored the bullet flew over her head. "They don't have to worry about money if you ask me."

"Oh," *TCHWANG* Rinnai replied with a blank stare as she ducked her head from a bullet hitting the edge of the table she's hiding behind. "And how are we going to advance if we're getting shot at right now?"

Maho looked over to Dioxide, the Mongolian member of Rotten 2, is handling a small armed robot. "I have just the thing, my dear."

"Is that a robot?" Kay asked after she returned fire, then Miho returned fire.

"An assault bot," Price responded, before looking at Maho. "Is it ready yet?"

"Hang on," Dioxide calmly replied despite the intense gunfire they have now. "Alright, bot armed with 7.62 calibers is ready to go."

"Maho, control the bot," Price ordered before shooting back. "Clear the way for us."

"I'm on it," Maho quickly grabs the console from Dioxide and begins the startup of the bot.

It took a few seconds before the bot is good to go. Maho then controls the bot to move out from the cover and begin its slow advance on the enemy. Bazarov got out of cover to assist the bot in eliminating the enemy. Maho only knew a little to control remote weapons, but she managed. Thankfully, the bot is hard for the enemy to deal with due to its small size so she can dispatch the targets with little ease.

"Flank them from the right. We'll take care of these flanks."

Maho controls the bot to the right flank as Rotten 2, Valkyrie, and her team move cover-to-cover around the left side. Bazarov made sure to suppress the bastards from next to Maho with his AK74. Maho got the bot to pass the enemy line and flank the bastards who are shooting RPGs from behind the plants. The RPG shooters are surprised but failed to evade the shooting bot. The RPG shooters were shot and killed with the last one on the far left received and did a backflip from the bullet's knockback. Maho then gets the Assault Bot to ambush the remaining three hostiles from behind. She managed to kill the last three after one of the Ultranationalist managed to put a scratch on the bot.

"Чистый!" Miho screamed.

"Clear!" Yuri screamed, who translated what Miho said.

Maho quickly got out from her cover and run over to Dioxide to give back the console. After a moment of everyone arming themselves up, they marched forward from the plaza to make their way to Kremlin 4. They met some civilians on the road and told them to go from where the teams came from to reach evac point.

"Wallcroft to Sierra 3," Maho radioed. "We have civilians inbound to evac point from the north. Escort them and get them out."

"Copy, our boys are standing by."

"Sierra 1, Sierra 1, Kremlin 4-1," Vosbodich radioed in. "Where are you? We're getting pinned down here and Ranov's wounded. Please hurry up."

"Roger that, we're on our way, ETA 2 minutes," Miho responded as they move closer to the next gunfire sounds.

"Ahh, suka," Nikolai was heard on the radio. "We have a problem."

"What is it, Nikolai?" Price asked.

"We are detecting enemy aircraft coming into the area."

"All units, this is Wallcroft. We spotted enemy aircraft crawling all over the area. How to copy?"

"Shinobi, we spotted enemy transport birds coming to our position. Frost, Morley, and their team are taking them down with enemy RPGs."

"Wolf 1, We have helicopters dropping down the enemy in our sector. We'll be busy at the moment."

"Sierra 1, it's Nikolai. Be advised; we are detecting enemy gunship moving to your position from your six."

Maho and the teams immediately halt in their tracks.

Kay reached her radio. "Did you just say there's an enemy gunship coming for us?"

"Yes, I did."

*WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRRRRRR*

They slowly turn their heads around to behind them. In their speechless state, they saw the Russian enemy gunship already stationed 30 meters in the air. Armed with machine guns and missiles, and it was loaded for bear. Usually, they have to dutch and make a run for it. But Bazarov seemed to be happy because he was chuckling at the hind.

"Bazarov, the hell are you laughing about?!" Kay asked aloud as everyone aimed their weapons at the hind. "We need to run!"

Bazarov only waved to the team. "Don't worry; I got this one!"

Bazarov only proceeds to change his mag when the hind is still not shooting yet before Bazarov empties the whole magazine onto the hind. At first, everyone excluding Miho, Anchovy, and Rinnai cursed to themselves of Bazarov's insanity. But then, they began to notice that the hind's body of metal began to melt, especially on the rotor if Maho sees it from its smoke. It ends with the hind slowly to spin uncontrollably, and it flies out of Maho's sight to the right. Before they even know it, they heard a loud crash, and then 5 seconds later.

*BUUUARRR*

The whole team has their empty eyes to that nonsense, with Maho is the only person who left her mouth open. They then looked back at Bazarov…

"HAHA! IT WORKED!"

Who is pretty much happy right now.

"Uh…" even Nikolai confused about what he saw. "What.. just happened?"

Maho heard Miho sighs on the radio. "He actually perfected the corrosive ammo."

Everyone in her team gave a dark glare to Bazarov. Only Miho, Yuri, and Price stare blankly at him.

"Such a crazy bastard," Price commented with a smirk. "Where the bloody hell did you get him?"

"Well…" Miho paused for a moment. "He's an ex-Ultranationalist."

Everyone then stares at her, including Bazarov. "What?"

"And you haven't told me about it!?" Yuri asked, who is an ex-Ultranationalist, in bitter fright.

"Surprise?" Miho asked back.

"We should keep moving now," Maho said to the team to interrupt their current conversation. "Kremlin's still sitting ducks out there."

"Sierra, be advised," Nikolai informed. "Friendly reinforcements coming in from your six. Japanese Police, JGSDF, and USFJ response units on site."

Maho nodded as the team saw the said reinforcements on their six. "Confirmed. We need all the hands we can get."

"Good, then let's go," Miho ordered, to which then the teams move out along with the reinforcements.

They are only moving in one direction to the north. The gunfire becomes louder as they come closer. There's a second story building ahead of them and a circling path to the right. Maho and the teams enter the building as the Rotten group circled the building. The reinforcement secures the back door and reinforces the structure. Maho and the teams found hostiles inside on the first and the second and dispatched them. But it was mostly Anchovy's work, as she somehow managed to shotgun most of them by surprise and unscathed.

Maho and Miho pretty sure didn't teach Anchovy about CQC on clearing the rooms. To see Anchovy did that just fine and quick is surprising.

From the windows, Maho and the teams quickly engage the enemies in front of them, who are busy pinning the Kremlin team on Maho's right. A lot of yelling occurred while in the shootout—especially Kremlin 4 and Kremlin 5, who kept yelling each other too loud in their Russian language.

Amid the shootout, as Maho shoots her SMG out the window. She caught a glimpse of a grenade landed at the door, where Kay is covering at.

"GRENADE!" Maho shouted as she turned at Kay.

"KAY, A GRENADE BY YOUR FOOT!"

"Wha-?" Kay looked down just in time to see the said grenade.

"Oh shi-!"

Kay kicks the grenade back quickly, and it flew back at the targets. The grenade is thankfully blown right in front of an Ultranationalist's face.

The hostiles are getting thinner by the second, but then she spotted an enemy is going to shoot at her with-

"RPG!"

*PWUUSHHH*

Yuri, who was right next to Maho, tackled her down just in time to dodge the rocket flew through her window.

"GET DOWN!"

*WUUUUSSHH-BLLLAAAAARRR*

Everyone in the building temporarily stunned from the explosion behind them, with Bazarov screamed. "SUKAAAAAA! Everyone's alive?"  
"What do you think, Bazarov?" Dioxide asked him sarcastically.

"Someone get the last bastard over there!" Miho ordered to anyone as Maho and Yuri stand up from the ground and shoot at the last bastard 20 meters behind a cover.

Of course, Yuri managed to get the job done before Maho could.

"Дaю ГП!"

(GL away!)

He sent a GL at the bastard and is killed by the blast.

"Ceasefire, cease fire!" Miho ordered aloud and to her radio. "All clear?"

"Clear!" - Vosbodich

"Secure!" – Rinnai

"Clear!" – random JGSDF

"Clear, boss!" – random USFJ

"No fascist on sight!" - Bazarov

"Bazarov shut the hell up!" – Price

Maho's team went over to Vosbodich outside while the rest stayed inside. Most of Kremlin squads are doing fine, but noticeably some of them are wounded.

"Status?" Miho asked him.

"I got two 300th on my team, Kremlin 5 got three wounded," Vosbodich replied. "Not very critical, but they need medical attention."

"Sanitater!" Maho yelled to everyone. "We need a medic!"

"One moment!" a USFJ medic shouted who came up to the wounded along with other medics from JGSDF.

"I never thought the bastard would make a daring move like this," Miho sourly commented. "He just sent a small army in the middle of the city by Transport Hinds."

"Well, we can't undo what has happened," Vosbodich responded with his head bowed. "We just need to get the job done for now."

"I hope we got enough forces to secure the other sectors," Price hopefully added. "The enemies are spreading throughout the whole area."

"Don't worry about that, Price," Nikolai responded on the radio. "You got a lot of reinforcement both from Japan and the US military into the area. They've been sending sitreps throughout the commands. Also, we've got good news."

"What is it?" Maho asked.

"The Little Bird and Black Hawk have arrived to provide armed overwatch and air support if needed," Nikolai replied. "We also managed to contact and divert some of the allied aircraft to your position in ETA 10 minutes."

"Glad to hear that," Miho replied with a nod. "Then, all that's left for us is only to take over the Sensha-Do control building."

"Da," Vosbodich replied, he then tilted his head to his right. "It's in the northwest."

"Alright, Rotten 2, secure this sector with the reinforcements and tend the wounded," Miho ordered. "The rest of you, on me."

"Copy, we're moving," Maho obeyed before they immediately moved out.

The control building that they mentioned was a third-story building that its purpose is overlooking the whole Sensha-do Match and the area around it. It took the teams for about 2 minutes to get there, and Anchovy was the first to notice that one of the second-floor windows is barricaded. Anchovy screamed everyone to take cover just in time to avoid an MG fire from that barricaded window. Maho was a bit lucky; an MG bullet scratched her right shoulder before she hid behind a car.

"Son of a-!" Maho nearly swore because Anchovy was right next to her. "How in the world are we going in there?"

"Sierra 1, this is Diamond 2-1," the radio responded, to which Maho and the teams saw a Black Hawk emerged from their six. "Looks like you need some help. Would you like a thousand rounds of bullets to be sent at the enemy?"

"Of course, Diamond 2-1," Miho replied, oddly playing along with Diamond's British-like conversation. "And don't forget to give them a spoonful of shrapnel."

"With Pleasure."

Then the chopper turns around kindly in front of the building.

*BRRRRRRRRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRT*

The Gatling gun rounds tore through the barricaded window like paper, and it rips the window open. But for the moment, Maho was lost on Diamond's and Miho's British-like conversation. A bit too late for decency such at this time.

Even Maho noticed Anchovy's blank eyes to hear such radio conversation.

After the barricaded window destroyed and the gunman is dead, Diamond 2-1 radioed. "MG emplacement destroyed. We'll keep an eye on the other floors while you storm the building."

"Copy that, thanks for the help," Miho radioed with a happy tone. "Bazarov, do your thing!"

"Working on it!"

*PWUUUSH-BUUUAAARMMM*

The 'thing' Miho meant was for Bazarov to open the damn front door with a rocket.

And everyone, except Miho, stares at him in disbelieve.

"What?"

"Since when did you get an AT4?!" Kay asked at him, aloud and in annoyance.

"Magic."

Maho mentally facepalmed to his response. Miho ever mentioned that Russians are magicians.

Wait.

"Hang on, why didn't you use the rocket on that MG emplacement?!" Maho asked him.

"I was about to ask the same thing," Diamond 2-1 stated in the radio in disbelieve.

All they got was a shrug from him instead of an answer.

"Sometimes, I wonder what's wrong with your men, Miho," Price commented in concern.

"I agree, my friend," Vosbodich added.

"Can we discuss this later?" Yuri asked with a sigh.

"I agree," Rinnai answered. "Let's go."

Maho and the teams move into the blown front door and stack up. Maho was next to the door and entered first. Maho and the teams checked the hallways before making theirs to the lobby. From there, they encountered resistance armed with rifles and PKP MGs. Maho had to give a hand to protect Anchovy and her mother from any harm because the only next thing that Maho had to worry about is not only for their safety. It's also to prevent Miho from enraging.

It was a bit hard to shoot the bastards if not for the cubicle present on that floor. Even Kay and Vosbodich had to do a blind shooting at the hostiles. Maho warned and threw a grenade to the enemies behind the turned table and vending machine, which killed two hostiles by the blast. Maho had also managed to kill a hostile by shooting through a cubicle 10 meters ahead of her. The last enemy was dealt with by Miho, who threw a knife she got from a kitchen they happened to pass by.

The FSB and Bazarov told Miho that they'd stay on the ground floor while Maho, Valkyrie, and her team secure the rest of the levels. Miho leads the way to the next floor with Maho and the rest on the tow. Miho, Price, and Yuri went to the right hallway from the stairs as Maho, Anchovy, Rinnai, and Kay take the left corridor. They have their weapons trained forward as they walked side by side. They reached a three-way intersection and cleared out the hallways from the there.

*DRTRTRTRTRTRTRT*

*DARDARDARDARDARDARDAR*

Four hostiles are down, and Miho, Price, and Yuri show up on the other end of the right hallway they just cleared out. Miho and the men cleared out all of each room in that hallway. Maho and the teams went to the left corridor and cleared out any place that hasn't been breached on that floor. Most of them are empty until they entered the last room on that floor. A hostile was holding a woman hostage with her head gun-pointed. Before the hostile could take any chances, Maho puts a bullet in his head, which startled the hostage but, at the same time, saved her from death.

"Kremlin 4-1, we found a hostage," Maho radioed. "We need someone to keep an eye on her."

"Copy, we're on our way."

They make there to the next floor. And surprisingly, it's devoid of any enemy activity. But Gatling gun sounds are heard, though. They took a turn around the corner and found a hallway full of dead hostiles littered around. Miho thanked Diamond 2-1 for their assistance, but also Diamond informed that the enemies locked themselves in with the hostages in the control room. Diamond needed to stay clear from the windows just in case the bastards are starting to do something stupid to their hostages.

The team stacks up at the two doors available to the control room. Frankly, Miho stated this reminds her of that time back in the Russian oil rig. Maho, Anchovy, Rinnai, and Kay stacks up the door on the right while the rest stacks up on the left.

"Maho, breach the door when ready," Miho radioed.

Maho looks at Kay, who replied. "I'm ready."

Maho lets her weapon hanging by her front shoulder for the moment to grab the knob charge. She then locks it around the knob and pulls the cord of the explosive. She stood back with her weapon trained back to the door. Maho and Kay stand by for the blow.

*BUUARRRM*-*BUUARRRM*

Maho and Kay immediately went in and began engaging hostiles inside as the others on the other side of the room did the same. Maho managed to kill 2 out of 7 enemies in the office of 10 hostages. Kay got one, and the other members got the last four hostiles. The room is clear in a blink of an eye, and none of the enemies managed to pull the trigger. Maho and the team are pretty sure the hostiles are dead, so they went over the hostages to calm them down.

Surprisingly, Katyusha, Nonna, and Klara were among them.

"W-what?" Katyusha paralyzed for a moment. "Maho, Kay, Miho?"

"Sestra!" Miho called gladly. "It's good to see you're okay."

"Miho," Nonna called her as Maho joins the conversation. "Can you tell me what the blin is going on now?"

"Terrorist attack," Miho responded.

"What do you mean 'terrorist attack'?" Klara asked her.

"We're dealing with Miho's old nemesis, apparently," Maho replied, much to their surprise.

"Wait, since when Miho had a nemesis?" Katyusha asked in surprise.

"Since Makarov stepped into our world," Kay responded, much to their shock.

The three Pravdas just stared in shock at Miho at the said name. "W-wait, isn't that the name that got you snapped months ago?" Klara asked Miho.

"Say that name again, please," Miho politely asked. "So, I could send a rocket to his terrorists."

The three Pravdas and the other civilians stood back with widening eyes; they didn't expect that response.

"Miho, calm down," Price told her. "I brought some tea if you want."

"Thanks, old man."

Maho could only stare at Price with disbelieve. Price merely shrugged at her for a response. Didn't think some tea could calm her down.

Before any of them could speak, Maho noticed Nonna glanced at Maho. To which much to her panic, Nonna pulled out her hidden Five-Seven and aimed it at Maho.

*DOR*

Everyone startled at the shot, and any of them nearly raised their weapons at Nonna. Maho just froze as she thought Nonna tried to kill her. But then, they heard a yelp. They all then turn around to behind Maho.

Apparently, one terrorist is already on his knees. And Nonna shot him in the head before he fell to the ground.

Everyone then slowly looks back at Nonna, Maho is noticeably empty faced at Nonna.

"Nonna…" Maho paused for a moment. "Never do that again."

Nonna lowers her pistol, then shrugs. "No choice."

"' Chovy, Ms. Chiyomi," Miho called. "Calm the hostages down and get them out."

"What about them?" Anchovy asked, mentioning the Pravdas.

"They can stay."

"Okay, Miho-chan."

As Anchovy and Rinnai control the hostages, Nikolai radioed in. "Sierra 1, have you secured the control building?"

"Da, Nikolai," Miho responded. "What if the other sectors?"

"The Delta, USFJ, and JGSDF have secured most of the sectors. The SAS Already extend the safe zone area with the Japanese PD and military assistance. Additional fast-response units are on-site. Be advised, we have captured several surrendered hostiles."

"Good to hear that," Yuri responded with a sigh. "What's the count of casualties?"

"Total of casualties are below our expectations," Nikolai responded, everyone, relieved to hear that.

"Thank you, Jesus," Kay commented with a smile.

"But Wolf team have suffered a casualty."

That shocked everyone except the Pravdas, who didn't have a radio. That's Erika's team.

"How many?" Maho asked concerningly.

"Only one, Geshiko, she's critical," Nikolai responded. "Erika said that a bullet went through her throat and came out her back."

Maho's face darkened to hear that; she's beyond shock. Maho only froze a moment, before she fell to her knees, SMG carelessly hanging from her shoulder. Maho can't believe what she just heard. It was enough to tell that everyone shocked to listen to that.

Kay, who is very concerned about Maho's well-being, felt the same pain as well to hear that. "Miho, I'll go check on Geshiko."

"Do it," Miho nodded.

Kay only gave the last look at Maho before leaving the control room. Maho could only straighten her back to look up at Miho. Miho only muttered "goddamn bastard" to what had happened. This is such a dark time for them. Even it was enough to keep the Pravdas to stay quiet.

"No one will be safe as long as that bastard is still walking," Price said as he and Miho look out the window.

Miho sighs to herself. "I knew he could come here one day. I never expect he'll do something like this."

"It won't be long until he executes another attack," Yuri added as he looked over Maho. "The longer this occurs, there will be another unnecessary and troubling war that would destroy the course of history. Your history, Miho."

Maho sighs to herself, before slowly lifting herself from the floor before walking over to Miho. "What do we do now?"

They all only stare out the window for what it feels like an eternity. Maho only enjoys the silence despite the faint gunfire they heard from a distance and below. Maho only looked over back to Miho, waiting for an answer to listen to. Miho trailed her eyes to Maho as her face never leave the window.

Then her sister's eyes returned to the window. "We hunt him down."

"And we'll destroy the element he uses to fight against us. We'll follow the shell, we'll strike them down, and we'll strike them deep."

"C нaми бoг."

(God is with us)


	67. Chapter 63 - Second Tear

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141

Miho: Erika, Kay, it's good to see you. How's Geshiko doing?"

Erika: She's alright, thankfully. She still needs some surgeries, but she's lucky.

Kay: One more inch, and it would hit her trachea and broke her voice box. Still, it'll leave a big scar on her and she'll have a bit trouble about breathing.

Maho: If only I were with Erika's team.

Anchovy: It's not your fault, Maho.

Price: If there's anything to be blamed about, that would be Makarov.

Ami: Both US and Russia are at each other's throat right now after what happened in Wakayama.

Yuri: Especially yelling about the Ultranationalists that we killed and captured when the attack happened.

Miho: That's a headache. I already asked Akashi and Royce to handle that. At least I don't have to deal with politics.

Nikolai: It might be a bit troublesome to know that 141's status is still PMC.

Miho: *Sigh* I agree about that. A Multi-National PMC working for a nation doesn't mean you can trust it yet.

Erika: I wish everything were a bit easier.

Kay: Not always, I'm afraid. Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.

Ghost: Lads, we've got some news.

Price: About Makarov?

Shiho: Much better. We just detected and traced a power surge in the Japanese electricity lines.

Yuri: What kind of power surge are we talking about?

Ghost: Enough to power the Tear.

Maho: What the… are we talking about the portal he made?

Shiho: Yes, we found its location.

 **Projecting Location…**

 **Coordinates marked**

Ghost: It's by the Teshio River. Outside of Nakagawa city in Hokkaido Prefecture.

Shiho: It's an abandoned, large factory complex. Responsible for producing metals and cable wirings.

Miho: How large is it?

Ghost: An army compound-size factory.

Miho: Shouldn't have asked that.

Anchovy: Is there other bad news?

Shiho: *Sigh* see for yourself.

 **Scanning the factory, standby…**

 **Defense status: Heavy**

 **AAA and SAM sites detected**

 **Snipers on-site**

 **Heavy MG and AT support**

 **Aircraft and armored units detected**

 **Minimal defense at the river**

Miho: Refrain from using 'abandoned' when you saw a heavily defended complex.

Ami: Do you think Makarov will be there?

Price: Unlikely, the last time we rescued President Vorshevsky, he wasn't there at all.

Nikolai: But if he's there. We'll make history about that.

Miho: Wait, what about the portals on the other side?

Ghost: Wallcroft said that Macmillan handles that one. He found the portal outside Kazakhstan and currently sending the boys to destroy it.

Erika: Do we have any support to assault the factory?

Maho: Aside from Miho's friends from the other side of the world… USFJ and JSDF are backing us up.

Ghost: Vicek managed to contact the CIA and get some of the Marines from Vietnam to join our fight.

Ami: We also contacted the Australian SASR, and they're willing to help.

Shiho: That's the only help we could get.

Miho: It's better than enough. Get everyone for briefing; I want everyone ready in two hours.

Anchovy: I'm coming with you, Miho.

Erika: Are you crazy? Do you know what we're up against?!

Maho: What of your mother, Anchovy?

Kay: You're going to scare her to death.

Miho: You can't come with me. You won't survive out there!

Anchovy: I don't care! What I care about is only you, Miho.

Miho: *Sigh* you know I can't let you come.

* * *

 **Second Tear**

 **15:05:45, two days after the Wakayama Incident**

 **Anchovy aka Chiyomi Anzai**

 **Task Force 141**

 **Teshio River, Outside Nakagawa, Hokkaido Prefecture**

"I can't believe you're coming too."

"Love knows no bound, Miho."

"Let's hope that's the case."

(Geneburn - Comprehend)

Someone would call Miho an idiot for letting Anchovy join the party. Why? Because Anchovy is a civilian, the only difference is Anchovy knows how to use a gun and kill someone. Now the only problem was that Anchovy insisted on joining the fight instead of the otherwise. Miho did inform Rinnai and had the same thought with Miho, but… When dealing with someone as stubborn as Anchovy, especially about the person she loves the most. How Miho and Rinnai could deal with that?

Currently, Anchovy's team is driving through the river. Her outfit comprised of Miho as the leader, Price, Yuri, Maho, Kay, Vicek and Erika, with Nikolai driving the boat. Frost and his Delta team, along with the Marines, are following behind them. Everyone in her boat armed with M4A1, except that Anchovy is using XM8, Erika uses her HK416, and Miho uses AK-103 w/ Red Dot.

"We're lucky they have the river in minimal defense," Miho replied as she cocked her AK. "We'll be doing a simultaneous attack on the factory. We'll be attacking hard from the river."

"What of FSB and SAS?" Kay asked curiously.

"FSB will be leading a ground attack with JGSDF and USFJ," Miho responded. "SAS will parachute down with the SASR to deal with the anti-air guns and snipers."

"Isn't that suicide for the SAS and SASR?" Kay asked in concern as she mans the minigun of the RHIB

"You won't believe how those SAS troopers survive that," Miho replied as she shook her head.

*BUMBUMBUMBUMBUMBUM*

AAA guns are heard in the distance. "There goes the paratrooper," Maho commented as she looked at the sky.

"Two minutes to target, Captain," Nikolai responded.

"Ready up, people," Yuri replied as everyone cocked their guns. "Kay, watch the outskirts of this river. They might be hiding in the woods."

"Got it."

"Anchovy, get ready," Miho reminded, to which Anchovy crouched in her seat and aimed her weapon to their surrounding. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"I will be fine, Miho," Anchovy assured her.

"Chovy," Miho is now more worried about her response. "Your mother is going to kill me. I made a vow to her to protect you."

"I think you should worry about yourself, Miho," Anchovy replied with a smile, she didn't want her lover to worry much.

Miho just chuckled faintly, before she frowned. "Soap said that before."

They all caught off-guard of the reply. Price and Yuri didn't faze, because they remembered that conversation. The whole team produced a frown as Anchovy to gaze at the upset Miho. They then continue to watch over the river ahead. They never said a word as the gunfire gets closer.

"30 seconds," Nikolai announced as Kay spins up the mini-gun.

As they get closer to target, they spotted an-

"RPG!"

*WWUUUUUSSHH*

In which Nikolai dodged it just in time. Barely.

"Where did that come from!?" Erika asked aloud.

"There!" Vicek pointed ahead. "Behind that log!"

*WHIIIIIIIRRRR-BRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRT*

Not only the RPG units were hiding in there. There were also technicals hiding in the woods ahead. Kay is very fortunate to send stray bullets around. But then, rounds of mini-guns are followed from behind. Because right now, her team and the others are under fire from hostiles around the river from all sides. Anchovy and her team provided suppressing fire in her port side, and she managed to kill four enemies along the river.

Honestly, Anchovy having a hard time to shoot hostiles around the river. The RHIB's swerving around for the sake of dodging gunfire. Eventually, one of the RPGs took out one of the Marine's boat behind along with the men.

"Shit, Victor 2 is down!" Victor 1 radioed.

"Stay with me," Frost radioed in. "10 seconds, get ready to dock."

"Roger that, Metal," Price radioed back in response.

"We're entering the hot zone now!" Vicek announced aloud as they returned fire.

Anchovy spotted something on the horizon. "There's the dock! On our left!"

"I see it," Nikolai responded.

The dock is in minimal defense. However, the technicals and troops of RPGs are enough to keep the allies at bay. But since the RHIBs, including the RHIBs borrowed by the Marines, are armed with mini-guns. Its rapid rate of fire and calibers are enough to destroy anything defending the dock. Five seconds before reaching the dock, Anchovy managed to kill 3 RPG troopers on their left flank as Kay destroy the remaining four technicals and other hostile infantries. Of course, Kay spent a chance to riddled the houses around the docks to exterminate whoever's controlling the dock.

When the bastards are thinning out, Nikolai gassed up the RHIB and flew off the river onto the platform. The rest surviving RHIBs did the same. An enemy gunship flies in front of them before Anchovy, and the team could get off the RHIB. Kay responded quickly by shooting it down a lot with the mini-gun, and it smoked the bird. Anchovy watched the smoked bird flies away uncontrollably and crashed to down to the river behind them.

Anchovy and the teams got off the RHIBs and went straight for any cover ahead. Anchovy covered behind a turned jeep with Erika. She peeked out and gazed at the chaos before her. AAAs on the roofs, enemy BTRs, and tanks are running back and forth around the factory. Miho and Nikolai even forgot to mention that the Marine's Bell UH-1, 141's Apaches, and MI-24 choppers are engaging enemy aircraft and buildings. The ground units have made their entrance on the front door, but they are far from where they are.

At that moment, she saw a BTR stopped in front of the teams and fire upon them. Anchovy ducked down just in time to avoid being spotted by the BTR. Anchovy saw her team, Delta, and the Marines are pinned down. The Marines began taking casualties from the BTR along with the enemy infantry. Anchovy tried her best to hold a tear from her eyes and looked away at the BTR.

"We're pinned down!" Yuri announced.

"We need to destroy that BTR!" Maho shouted as she returned fire.

"We're taking casualties!" a marine from Victor 3 replied.

"Does anyone have a rocket launcher?!" Miho asked aloud.

"Stand by," Frost radioed, Anchovy looked over to Metal team. "Android, you're up!"

"On it!"

Anchovy watched after returning fire. Android, the Delta soldier with the tac-headphone, takes the LAW rocket from behind him and unfold it.

"Cover me!" Android shouted.

"Covering fire!" Erika announced as she and Anchovy returned fire.

Anchovy managed to kill 2 of the bastards before taking cover and let the others help. Android peeked out from behind a crate and aim at the BTR.

"Rocket away!"

*PWUUSH-BUARRRM*

The exploded BTR killed an additional three hostiles near it. Anchovy is reloading at that moment as she ignores the explosion. She then peeks out from her cover and returned fire at the last two hostiles holding the dock.

"Clear!" Price radioed. "Advance."

Anchovy and the teams moved out quickly from the pier onto the courtyard. The courtyard is pretty open, and despite that, it was heavily infested with Ultranationalists. What is more annoying is the annoying sounds of AAA on the buildings, the damn aircrafts crashing down from skies, and tanks shooting from afar. Anchovy didn't pay that in mind, however, because they have a job to do.

"We need to cut through the courtyard!" Miho shouted. "Head for the northeast!"

"My team will control the courtyard with the ground force," Frost stated. "The Marines will secure the dock and assault on ten series building."

"Copy that, let's move," Nikolai replied, gestured his hand forward.

As they began to move, however…

*BAAM-WHIIZZ*

A bullet went past Anchovy; it was from a sniper.

"SNIPER!" Anchovy shouted as everyone jumped to cover. Anchovy did it by hopping to her side to cover, nearly rolling over herself.

"Anchovy!" Miho called, she turns her head to her lover. "You okay?"

"He missed me by an inch!" Anchovy responded before she received another sniper bullet into her cover.

"Bollocks, where are they!?" Miho was pissed by now, every time her lover is here.

"Up there, to our north!" Kay replied.

Anchovy looked up to their north. 4 snipers are on that building 150 meters away along with an AAA gun. Anchovy managed to shot one of the snipers in a 3-round burst, and he falls down and plummets to death. As she was about to get the other snipers, the SAS and SASR units are seen para-dropping behind the snipers and AAA. Anchovy felt glad to see the SAS(R)s troopers to stab them in the back and shoot the AAA operators.

"The SAS and SASR troopers are dropping in on the roof!" Erika announced. "They'll deal with the snipers and provide cover."

"All units, be advised to check your fire," Miho radioed. "We have friendlies controlling the rooftops."

"Copy that, Captain," Vosbodich radioed in. "Checking fire. Friendlies on rooftops."

"See?" Anchovy said to Miho, in her naïve tone. "I'm still fine."

"That doesn't mean I'm not worried about you," Miho replied, which earned Anchovy's chuckle.

"Valid point."

*WHIZ-WHIZ*

"Contact!"

Anchovy returned fire at the incoming enemy reinforcement. "That's a lot of them."

"Enemy covering behind that truck," Kay announced as she shoots them.

"Enemy on the right flank," Maho suppressed the right flank with Miho and Yuri "Northeast."

"Hostiles on the catwalk," Frost warned. "1 o'clock. Outside that building."

Anchovy eyes trained on the catwalk instead of the approaching enemies ahead. She aims her rifle from the side of the cover. Her left hand placed firmly on the crate's side while the other holds her gun by the trigger. She pulled the triggers in rhythm to shoot them in a burst. She managed to kill three as one of the enemies flipped over and fell off the catwalk.

"RPG!"

Anchovy quickly pulls her head in as the RPG flew past her cover. She peeks out again and saw Miho and Kay managed to shoot a couple of RPG units ahead of them. The infantries getting mowed down for every step of her team's advance. Anchovy moved out into the open and made a slow advance ahead. She side-stepped to her right as she shoots two hostiles firing from her left. Vicek managed to kill an enemy that was charging at Anchovy, and Anchovy is a bit frightened to see that coming.

She jumps into a cover of crates ahead with Erika and a marine, Wallcroft radioed in. "All units, this is Bravo 6. 20 series rooftop buildings are clear. Assaulting the building from the roof."

"Oscar 5-1," Morley radioed in. "Commencing assault on 30 series building."

"Ground units, Stockholm 2-1," a Bell Huey pilot radioed in. "We are under heavy from the AAAs. We need assistance on taking them down."

"To all ground units, engage all AAAs on sight," Miho radioed in. "We need their air superiority."

"Roger that, Sierra 1," Ami radioed in.

"Sierra 1 to Kremlin 4-1," Vosbodich radioed in. "We are under fire of enemy armor and BTRs. Be advised, a couple of T-90s are headed your way."

Anchovy felt pretty scared to hear that, although she's killing the infantry just fine. "I'm pretty sure we're screwed if they come up."

"We'll be fine, Anchovy," Miho radioed back as Anchovy reloaded her rifle. "Erika! In front of you, 20 meters!"

"Affirm," Erika proceeded to kill hostile hiding behind a small wall. "Kill confirmed."

"Marines!" Maho shouted. "Suppressive fire!"

"Roger, suppressive fire!" a marine confirmed, there are two marines kept pinning the bastards down with their M60s.

"Erika!" Anchovy called as they looked at each other. "See that gate on our left flank?"

Erika looks out to her left flank from cover; she saw the wide gate still guarded by the firing PKM units. "Got it, Frost, cover us!"

"Sierra 7, moving to the left flank to secure the gate, over!" Anchovy shouted as they moved to the left flank with a marine supporting them.

"Copy that," Miho responded. "Price! Yuri! Work it!"

"Работает!" (Working!) Yuri shouted, he and Price moved to the left flank and got in Anchovy's previous cover and open fire at the hostiles. "Secure the gate. We need to let our forces in!"

Anchovy ducks down to the sandbags with Erika and a marine. Anchovy's left side was taking fire, but then a pause from the enemy. She peeks out to the side while crouching and shot him in burst to the chest, killing him. Erika and the marine returned fire, but then *CLAKC* Erika quickly ducks down and checks her HK416. Apparently, her rifle is jammed.

"Scheisse, misfire! Misfire!" Erika announced, unjamming her bolt as the marine ducked down and pulled out his grenade. "Come on, you little scheisse!"

"Give me cover!" the Marine said to Anchovy.

"Covering!" Anchovy responded with a returning fire at the PKM units in front of her, thankfully ignoring the gunfire coming heavily from their right flank.

The marine then throws the grenade into the jeep the hostiles are covering at. "Fire in the hole!"

"BUAAARRM* "AAAAAARRHHH!"

The hostiles ahead killed and blown away to be crashed at a wall behind. The gate is now secure.

"Miho, we have control of the gate," Anchovy announced as they returned fire.

"Copy that, now we need to clear the courtyard."

*BUM-BUM-BLAR-BLAR*

Anchovy and her teammates ducked down from the explosions in front of them. Anchovy and Erika peek out again to see two T-90s with MGs are slowly advancing towards them with infantry support. The enemy firepower was so grandiose that it had nearly the entire unit in the courtyard pinned down. Anchovy and Erika tried their best to shoot the MG gunners on the tanks but to avail.

"Goddammit, we are under heavy fire!" a random Marine yelled from afar.

"Have faith, comrade!" Vicek assured the Marines.

"Just stay down!" Nikolai shouted as he returned fire.

"I need a clear shot of those tanks!" Android shouted, which continued by Frost. "We are pinned down here."

"Odin 4-1, it's Sierra 3," Kay radioed in. "we need armor support at the courtyard near 20 series building, what's your status?"

"Sierra 3, we're reaching the gate now," Odin 4-1 replied. "Standby, we got them on thermal."

"Make it fast," Price radioed as Anchovy managed to kill an MG gunner on a tank with a headshot by luck. "The bastards are tearing us to shreds."

"Got 'em. Firing."

*BUM-BUM-BLARRRM-BLLUUUUAAARRR*

The hostile tanks exploded, as the infantries nearby them killed by the blast. One of the destroyed tanks had its turret popped off from its body before it crushed the unfortunate hostiles next to it. Anchovy is surprised to know that Odin 4-1 and the other tank unit shot through the gate. Of course, she understood what thermal is. She, Erika, and the Marine provide suppressing fire at the hostiles as the friendly armor units drive through the holed-gate. Aside from the Abrams tank, Ami's tank was there as well.

"Enemy tanks neutralized," Odin 4-1 responded. "We're moving up."

"Miho, it's good to see you are getting shot at," Ami jokingly greeted on the radio.

"Oh sure, Captain Ami," Miho responded sarcastically. "Give me 5 seconds, and I'll come up to you."

"No, please, no," Ami radioed quickly in concern, much to the Marines' surprise.

"Having Cpt. Nishizumi shooting at you is refreshing, isn't it?" Odin 4-1 asked flatly, of course, the joke was literal.

"Shut up, 4-1," Ami annoyingly replied.

Despite Anchovy and the teams firing at the hostiles, the Marine next to her wondered. "Don't tell me she ever shot her."

"I'm afraid that's the case," Erika responded to the Marine.

"Hey!" Miho and Ami called on the radio in annoyance.

"Frost, move up!" Vicek ordered as the allies move in.

"We're moving."

"Advance with the tanks!" Miho ordered as Anchovy made her run to a cover of bricks next to her lover.

They heard explosions in the sky, and Anchovy saw it. "Look out; helicopters are falling down!"

Like what Anchovy stated, a downed Apache and an enemy hind spin uncontrollably and landed ahead of the armors and the teams without exploding. Thankfully, it caused significant casualties for enemies coming from that way. After bracing for the fallen helicopters, the tanks and the units began their advance to their target building. Of course, without Delta.

"We'll stay here and make sure this sector is secure," Frost radioed.

"Roger that," Miho responded in consent. "Sierra, let's go."

it was 400 meters away. Enemy infantries started flooding in along with their RPG troopers. The Deltas who stayed behind provide covering fire from the courtyard.

"Keep moving," Miho ordered as Anchovy covered behind Ami's tank and fired from there. "Our target is 400 meters away. We need to find the portal and destroy it. We'll burn this place to the ground if we have to."

"We will burn it, Miho," Maho growled in the radio as Anchovy killed two hostiles covering behind a wired fence. "They will pay for what happened to Geshiko."

Anchovy frowned to Maho's word as she moves up with Price next to her ahead of the tanks. "Don't worry, Maho. They are already feeling it right now," Erika assured Maho on the radio.

"Don't get cocky, sister," Vicek radioed as he threw a grenade ahead. "Make sure we don't miss any last of those Ultranationalists."

"Agreed," Kay replied as they held up at a three-way intersection.

"The target is straight ahead," Price reported as he gestured his arm straight. "10 series building is down to the left.

"Odin 4-1, take a left. Marines, go with Odin," Yuri ordered.

"Yes, sir!" The Marines obeyed. "OORAH!"

After Odin 4-1 and the Marines took the left path and began firing from there, Miho motioned to Ami's tank. "Ami, the road is yours."

"Roger that, my road."

"The rest of you, let's go."

They moved straight while under fire from the path ahead. Anchovy, Maho, and Miho have made their good marksmanship to make sure the RPG troopers didn't hit Ami's tank. Anchovy moved to Ami's tank's right side, with Maho holding her left shoulder from behind with her gun aimed at Anchovy's right. They made a face pace as they both walked ahead of the tank and shot the hostiles in front of them quickly. Anchovy then kills the enemies covering at the left side of the path as Maho suppressed their front.

The Type 10 tank sends in MG and cannon rounds straight forward. Ami's tank then stops as Anchovy along the team returned fire from their cover. In Anchovy's and Maho's case, they fired from next to the tank.

*BUM-SIIIIIIIIINGG*

Which they regretted that.

Anchovy and Maho ducked in their cover, clutching so hard to cover their own ears.

"Grrkh!" Anchovy stifled in pain until the ringing sound fades away. "That… was too loud."

"Not again…" Maho complained, to which they both quickly recovered and decided to move ahead of the tank.

Anchovy and Maho jumped into a cover of debris ahead, coincidentally next to Miho, who is hiding behind a rather slim wall on their right. Miho peeks out and returned fire at the bastards ahead. A stray bullet scratched Miho's hand, and she yelped. It frightened Anchovy by her yelp.

"Miho, you okay?" Anchovy asked in concern to Miho.

"I'm fine," Miho waved her wounded hand and peeked out her cover. "Ami, hostiles in the building, at the end of the road. Third floor. I think there's the sniper."

"Roger, firing."

*BUUM-BLAAARR*

The whole third floor at the end of the path blown up. Anchovy could see Miho grins in satisfaction. Maho only huffed to that as they returned fire. As Anchovy peeks out and about to return fire, she just saw Kay, who is on the left flank, threw a knife onto a poor sod's neck up close. They nearly made their advance when an enemy hind shows up on their path.

"AMI!" Nikolai shouted aloud.

"I'm on it!"

*BUM-BLAAAAR*

Ami's tank destroyed the hind just in time as it only twirls around on the spot before crashing down out of their sights. Anchovy moves up with Price and Yuri on tow before the rest soon followed. They crossed the road and turned left at the end of the road. They soon reached into an open area where there is a checkpoint ahead of them. They immediately met with gunfire soon after, and they didn't bother to find cover.

Anchovy shot two on her front with headshots. Price and Yuri killed 6+ hostiles as fast as lightning, even though they were aiming from left to right without any extra effort. Miho, Nikolai, Vicek, Maho, and Kay soon followed up behind. When Ami's tank just reached up to them, they saw FSB and mixed ground and armor units at the other of the road past the checkpoint. They got themselves in under heavy fire with another building to Sierra team's right. It seems to be the human resources office complex that the FSB and the mixed ground units dealing with. That complex is also firing at Anchovy's team, though.

"Sierra 1 to Kremlin 4-1," Vosbodich radioed in despite the loud gunfire of tanks and ground units. "We'll handle this one. Get to the target."

"Copy that," Miho replied with a nod. "Ami, let's go."

"Hang on," Ami radioed back as her tank shot the office's side building. "Turning hard right."

Ami's tank makes a head-start ahead of the team. Their target is the large facility ahead, 100 meters. Anchovy and the team follow the tank with Nikolai behind her. They walked to the tank's right to avoid gunfire from the office complex the ground units dealing with. When they passed the office complex, they then met up with a couple of BTRs blocking their path and dense concentration of enemy infantry. Before Ami could fire her cannon, the radio responded.

"Hito 1, Mosin 2-5," a hind pilot radioed. "We'll be sending a strafing run ahead of you, priyom."

"Roger that," Ami responded. "Burn them down."

A couple of friendly MI-28 hinds marked with 141's logo on the side flew over Ami's tank and began their sweeping run. They sent rounds of machine guns and rockets straight on the road. The infantries are blown away, and the BTRs destroyed as they jumped off the road. Thankfully, making way for Ami's tank to move forward. Anchovy and the team soon followed; besides, Anchovy didn't want to see the men they killed after the strafing run. Anchovy just can't stand to look at the killed hostiles for too long.

Anchovy and the team followed the same pace with the tank as they move forward to their destination. There were a lot of hostiles on their path as Anchovy quickly hunkered down to cover with Nikolai. Anchovy throws a grenade at the hostiles. Thankfully, she only has flashbangs to stun them. Due to Miho's concern of Anchovy's ability to handle lethal frag grenade.

It took no more than a few minutes that they reached their intended targets. But, of course, they met with other problems.

*BUM-BUM-BUM-BUM-BLAAR-BLAR-BLUAR-DUAR*

"Goddammit, we got a lot of tanks blocking the entrance!" Kay shouted as they almost stepped into the open, along with Ami's tank.

"I can't take them out like this," Ami radioed as her tank backs up to dodge incoming shells. "We need support."

"Anchovy!" Miho called her.

"Any aircraft unit, Sierra 7," Anchovy radioed as her team lay prone behind covers of small walls and nearby obstacles, while Ami's tank is hiding behind pillars. "We're pinned down in front of Tear Building. We have enemy armors blocking our path, requesting air support, over."

"Sierra 7, this is Omega 6-1," A Bell Huey pilot replied. "We hear you. Began strafing run in front of the target building. Be advised, danger close. I say again, danger close."

"Copy that, danger close," Anchovy responded. "Get down!"

*WHIIIIRRRR-PWHIZ-PWHIZ-PWHIZ-PWHIZ-PWHIZ-PWHIZ-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR-BUAR*

The rockets immediately destroyed all four tanks within the vicinity of the area. Anchovy and the team looked out from their cover and saw the tanks are burning and turned to scraps.

"Sierra 7, Omega 6-1," the Bell Huey Pilot radioed. "Enemy armors destroyed, you're clear to move up."

"Thanks for the support, out."

Anchovy and her team began to walk through the wreckage as Ami's tank stayed behind. Some USFJ units appeared from their right, and they set up the perimeter near the entrance.

"We'll stay out here, Sierra," Ami radioed. "We'll make sure no one else coming through the front door."

"Copy that, Hito 1," Price responded. "Stay safe."

No hostiles are met when they enter the entrance. They followed the open forward path to the right and moved upstairs. This is the factory, of course, so it is bound to be a large area. They passed a hallway full of doors lead to maintenance and offices until they a double door at the end of the corridor. They encountered a lot of hostiles running back and forth around the factory. Only half of the Ultranationalists forces in the factory noticed their presence. The rest of the enemy forces make their way to their exits, presumably to defend the factory from the other flank.

After the team walked down the catwalk, Anchovy jumped ahead, lay prone behind a conveyor with Vicek next to her. Price, Yuri, and Nikolai provide cover fire from her left flank. Miho, Erika, Kay, and Maho got ahead of Anchovy on her right flank, with Miho got into a melee fight with a nearby Ultranationalist. Anchovy managed to kill the hostile that Miho's fighting with under fire, and Miho quickly dump the bastard away and get to cover of crates ahead.

As Anchovy returned fire, Vicek throws a grenade. "Fire in the hole!"

"Grenade!" Price shouted as the team ducked down and wait for the blast.

"Граната!" (Grenade!)

*BUAR*

Five hostiles neutralized ahead of Anchovy and Vicek, two of them died from shrapnel.

"13 hostiles left!" Miho announced as they returned fire.

Anchovy peeks out again, sending suppressive fire to hostiles behind another conveyor and a pressing machine. Two of Anchovy's stray bullets managed to kill a hostile covering behind metal sheets. Kay got ahead of the team and flanked the hostiles from the right. Kay managed to kill five hostiles unaware of her attack before three of them manage to shoot at her. As they suppressed Kay Maho and Price managed to kill two of them behind cover, due to their heads exposed. Five hostiles are remaining.

Anchovy reloads her rifle before vaulting over the conveyor to advance on the hostiles. The team makes the advance, as well as the enemies, are pushed back. Anchovy managed to kill one in the back while he is falling back to other covers. Nikolai and Yuri together shot through an enemy cover of thin concrete that nearly spends half of their magazines. Maho managed to kill one by shooting the hostile's kneecap exposed from cover, he screamed in pain and got his head out of cover before he got shot in the head.

Erika used a similar tactic as Maho; the difference is that Erika switched to her pistol to shoot him. That was the last bullet she used in her rifle to shoot the enemy's kneecap. The last hostile who is about to run back away from the team. Anchovy managed to sprint forward to get a clear view of the last bastard, braked her speed, and quickly shot him down. His body dropped right in front of a double door he was falling back to.

"Clear," Maho announced as they stack up at the doors.

"Poor jerks," Kay sarcastically said. "The Tear must be nearby."

Miho enters the doors first, followed by Anchovy and the rest as she radios in. "All units, give me a sitrep, over."

"Oscar 5-1, 30 series building secure. The perimeter is set. Over."

"Bravo 6, 20 series building secure. We're securing chokepoints and providing sniper and anti-air support. Over."

"Odin 4-1, the marines have taken ten series building, and we're securing the road. Over."

"Stockholm 2-1, Southern side of the factory is cleared of AAAs. Moving up to the northwestern area. Over."

"Mosin 2-5 with Omega 6-1, engaging enemy aircraft on the northern and eastern side of the complex and Tear Building. Priyom."

"Kremlin 4-1, we are engaged under heavy fire west-southwest of the Tear Building. Ground units have set up the defensive line and occupy office complex. We encountered heavy RPG attacks. Priyom."

"Hito 1, receiving small arms and RPG fires at the entrance. Holding out great so far, over."

"Copy that. I need all units in the southern area to establish checkpoints near the hot zone and provide safe routes on the southern perimeter. I want the Apaches to guard outside of the complex to make sure we don't have any persona non grata," Miho radioed in. "By the time when we blow up the Tear, it's going to be a massive firework display we make in history."

As they nearly reached the end of the corridor, Morley radioed again. "How much energy does this one portal need, over?"

"Wallcroft?" Miho asked on the radio.

"Enough to level this entire complex," Wallcroft radioed. "About 1-2 kilotons, if I'm not wrong."

"Oh shit," Morley swore on the radio. "Good luck then, out."

"Scheisse," Erika swore in surprise as they stack up at the doorway. "We need a quick evac if we don't want to be ashes."

"Come on then," Miho replied before she kicked the doors open and went in.

*BRA-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT*

When the rest of the team finally entered the room, they found the room filled with five dead hostiles on the ground. Too quick for her lover to clear a room if Anchovy had to admit. It seems they have stumbled into an armory. Assault rifles and SMGs are laying about the room. Anchovy only shook to this.

"Looks they're ready for a war," Anchovy commented.

"I know," Miho replied with a nod. "There will be no war left for them when we deal with them."

"Agreed," Price nodded. "We need to keep moving. Grab any of those weapons if you want."

"I think we don't need any," Maho answered.

"Hang on," Yuri then walked over to an RPG left in the room and take it, along with some extra C4s. "We need these."

"Alright, then let's move."

They traverse another corridor and walk upstairs to a pair of doors ahead. They ended up on a catwalk and got a clear view of what large room they are in. Anchovy's eyes glimmered in shock to see there's the sizeable portal device below. But the whole crew is very shock to know that that bastard Makarov managed to not only build one, but he managed to build another two portals in the same room. The Ultranationalists are moving their troops through the portal.

"3 portals…" Kay commented lowly. "You're shitting me."

"And they're moving in fast," Nikolai added as they observe. "There's no way we could take them out."

"And even if we did take them out under fire," Vicek added as he crouched near the railings. "We won't have enough time to escape by the time this complex is blown to hell."

"Then we need to find an alternative to destroy them," Miho observed the area, but winced her eyes to the sight. "Hang on, where are the generators?"

The whole team caught up with what she said. It took them 2 seconds to notice that the portal devices are lacking generators. Not even one was found nearby them.

"That makes no sense," Yuri commented in concern. "No portal device can run without having enough energy the moment it activates. Even running three of them at the same time. It also need vessels if they don't want the portals to fry up."

"Unless…" Erika trailed off before everyone looked at each other.

Anchovy managed to continue Erika's sentence. "They build the generators underground."

"Ergh, then we need to find the map for this building first," Miho then moves out to the left catwalk. "Follow me."

The team followed her, with Anchovy behind her lover. Apparently, there's a control room right in front of them. They really didn't waste time stacking up, and instead, they breach into the room and shot two men inside. Was it loud? Yes, it is. But it didn't bother the fact that the enemies below didn't hear them because the portals made a loud sound as well and are frantic of the attack happening outside.

Yuri, Price, and Nikolai looked over to the table of the control room. Nikolai found the map.

"Is it this one?"

Price and Yuri looked over to what Nikolai found as Anchovy looked out the window.

"Yeah, this one."

The team walked over to the men and looked down the map. "Did they really put them underground?" Anchovy asked them.

They looked over to the bottom of the map, much to their annoyance. "Dammit, they really put them underground. Right below us," Erika commented as she didn't expect this.

"The only path to go down is to go to the next room and find the stairs there," Vicek added as he points on the map.

"What's our best exfil point?" Kay asked.

"Here," Maho points to the map. "Rooftop is our best bet. The stairway up to the roof is nearby thankfully."

"Then let's blow the generators," Miho replied as everyone looked at her. "But we need some of you to stay behind and cause trouble here so that they won't come for us."

"I figured the five of us would be enough to keep them at bay," Price replied as he looked out the windows for the moment. "According to 141's standard of insanity."

"Are you sure?" Erika asked them in doubt, continued by Anchovy. "It'll be heavy."

Price, Nikolai, Vicek, Yuri, and Miho looked at them. "Yes."

The girls are silent about their reply before Kay asked. "So who's going for the generators?"

"I'll go," Miho answered as she checked her current mag. "Anchovy, Vicek, you're with me."

"You know I don't handle explosives, right?" Anchovy asked with a poker face.

"Let us worry about that," Vicek replied as he shrugged at her. "You need to worry about Cpt. Nishizumi's well-being."

"If you say so, Vicek," Anchovy replied with a nod before looking back at Miho.

"Yuri, give me those C4s," Miho took the bombs off Yuri. "Got a detonator?"

"Here," Nikolai tossed the detonator to Anchovy, then she pockets it in one of the pouches on her vest. "Make sure it's not broken."

"Got it, let's go," Miho nodded before looking back to the rest of the team. "Ladies and gentlemen, go ahead and start some trouble."

"With pleasure, ma'am," Kay replied with a grin as she cocked her rifle. "Let's go."

"Right, make it quick," Price replied with a smirk. "Be careful out there, old girl,"

"Whatever you say, old man," Miho nodded back before five of them went out to the right exit of them. "Vicek, Anchovy, let's move."

"All units in this net, this is Sierra 7," Anchovy radioed. "We found the portals. We're about to plant the bomb on the generators. Be ready for immediate exfil."

"Sierra 7, Bravo 6, we copy that, out."

They took the exit on the left of the room that leads them to a catwalk before reaching a door at the corner ahead. By the time they walk through the door, gunfire is heard from that room they left. They encountered hostiles from below, which force them to engage from the catwalk. Anchovy threw another flashbang downstairs. *BANG* the five hostiles below are blind momentarily and shooting blindly at upstairs. Two operators and Anchovy killed them quickly before moving downstairs.

They looked around the large room they're in and found other broad stairs to go down. It was on the northwest corner of the large room. Vicek and Miho watched the stairs as Anchovy is the first to go downstairs. Anchovy reached the bottom of the stairs and watched the layout of the room. Assured it was clear, she announced the two operators to come down.

The basement is full of leftovers of what the factory used to be. A lot of old machines are dumped here. Of course, there's a noticeably amount of crate supplies scattered in the basement. They scoured half of the basement, and it was clear. Anchovy and the two operators headed for the particular door east of the current underground basement. Anchovy somehow felt something unnerving when heading for that door.

Anchovy isn't sure if that is her intuition bothering her or that she felt a weird aura in that basement. Adding with the fact that they spread for about 3 meters to scour through the basement filled with machines and supplies.

"Miho."

"Yes, Anchovy?"

"Something's not right," Anchovy said as they are 20 meters away from the door.

"What makes you say that?" Vicek asked.

"Dunno," Anchovy nervously replied. "I just felt it."

"I'm sure it was nothing," Miho assured her.

"If you say so, Miho."

Despite her assurance, she can't shake it off. Anchovy never leaves her aim at the door ahead of her, since she walks at the middle. She barely ignores it until when they reached 19 meters away from the door. That's when the situation changes drastically.

The door ahead of was kicked open from the inside. Anchovy and the operators halt immediately in their tracks. They aimed at the terrorist that just barged in through that door. However, they widen their eyes in shock and speechless.

The 'terrorist' in front of them is wearing heavy armor. Not just any armor. The bastard is wearing a goddamn Juggernaut armor. An EOD suit that has been modified with ballistic protection to withstand a large number of bullets and some fragmentation. It's a pain in the arse, in Miho's term.

There are good news and bad news. The good news is that the armor the bastard used is heavy and cumbersome, which limits his mobility and speed. He is also vulnerable to attacks from behind and little chance to attack in melee range due to his limited sight the armor and his helmet gives. The bad news is, he is armed with an IMI Negev machine gun. He doesn't have to reload his MG due to the ammo belt is attached to the large backpack with him, which is also full of 7.62x51mm calibers.

It equals they will suffer a bullet-storm.

"Oh, shite." - Miho

"Oh, crap." - Anchovy

"Oh, king's balls." – Vicek

The girls reflectively glare at Vicek, with overall disgust. "What?"

"That's blasphemy in Queen's name!" Miho shot back at him.

"Эй, личинки!" the terrorist yelled at them, cocking his MG. "Съешь это, ты дерьмо!"

(Hey, maggots! – Eat this, you shits!)

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

Those bullets were sent straight to Anchovy, and she reacted fast, sadly not fast enough. As she ran for cover on her side, she suffered three MG bullets hitting her stomach covered with her vest. It's excruciating that she stumbled down to cover and, in agony, crawled her back against the cover of the machine. She groaned and frantically sighed aloud as she checked her stomach. The vest did protect her; she could feel some faint wound on her stomach below the vest. Blood is noticeable under her vest.

"Aahh!" Anchovy groaned in pain as she ducked, and her teammates returned fire.

"Chovy, you alright!?" Miho worriedly asked she's scared for Anchovy's life.

"I got shot!" Anchovy yelled, she held her little wound for the moment. "The vest saved me, but I got blood on my stomach."

"Ты проклятый сын ублюдка!" Miho angrily yelled as she emptied a full mag at the juggernaut. "Вы покойник!"

(You damned son of a bastard! – You're a dead man!)

*DAR-DAR-DAR-DAR-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"Ooooh, shit!" Vicek swore loudly as he ducked after returning fire. "That's one tough son of a bitch."

"That armor's too thick," Miho replied as she returned fire and ducked. "We need to shoot him a lot to kill him."

"We're just wasting bullets then," *TWANG* Anchovy looked away after a stray bullet hits her cover. "We need an alternative."

"That thing's bulletproof and blast-proof," Vicek replied as he baits the bastard to shoot at him. "Frags aren't enough for that."

Anchovy peeked out to her side, and she could see the Juggernaut slowly moving towards her. But she noticed something. Ahead of the Juggernaut are the barrels of green, red & blue, and one of the barrels are marked with a flammable symbol. Anchovy widens her eyes in realization.

She looked at Miho. "Miho, he's not fireproof, right?"

Miho looked at her, confused for the moment until the gunfire breaks it up. "No, why?"

Anchovy peeks her eye out again, and this time she aims her rifle for the barrels. She knew those barrels are full of gasoline. She half-emptied her mag onto those barrels and cover for a moment. Then she waits for the bastard until he's next to the barrels. Because those barrels are leaking the gasoline out.

No, barrels of gasoline do not explode that quickly.

When the bastard nearly reaches the barrels, Anchovy pulls a Flashbang and throws it next to the leaking barrels where a puddle of gas is made. It's enough to ignite the gasoline, but blinding the bastard is unimportant. Right when the Juggernaut stepped over the pond of gasoline, the Flashbang explodes.

*BANG-BLUAAARRR* "AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHH!"

The explosion is enormous that it engulfed half of the Juggernaut's body in flames. That took Miho and Vicek off-guard as well. It's great that the Juggernaut is not fireproof. The Juggernaut's currently busy patting the fire off his body as Vicek returned fire at him while he's stunned.

"Awesome, Emerald!" Miho happily announced. "Let's take him down!"

"Shooting him!" Anchovy responded as she and Miho shot at the burning Juggernaut.

Anchovy and her teammates rained the Juggernaut for at least two mags each. Before they could fire at him again, the Juggernaut managed to dust the fire off him and began shooting back at them, this time at Vicek first.

"Shit!" Vicek then motioned at Anchovy. "Flank right, right!"

"Merda!" Anchovy ran off to the next cover and reached Miho. "Good to be next to you again."

"Likewise," Miho replied with a nod, before peeking out to see the firing Juggernaut. "Let's blow him up again."

"Yeah," Anchovy returned fire to distract the Juggernaut off Vicek. "Is there any gas barrels on your end?"

Miho peeked out to their right flank before looking back at Anchovy. "5 barrels, I think, 3 of them a bit afar from the others."

"That's all we need," *TWANG-TWANG* Anchovy changed the cover to the right flank with her lover. "Shifting cover."

"Engaging," Miho returned fire at the Juggernaut, giving Vicek enough time to fall back. "Anchovy, poke some holes on those barrels."

"On it."

Anchovy ran towards the barrels with her knife out. While Miho distracts/baits the Juggernaut, Anchovy pokes as many holes as she can onto those barrels. At least there are enough holes to create a huge puddle of gas between the barrels. Anchovy retreats from the barrels as Miho retreats and runs past the barrels. Miho managed to bait him to them because they're receiving MG fire rounds to their cover of old pressing machines.

"Vicek," Miho called through the radio. "It's our chance, push the bastard to the barrels!"

"Hang on," Vicek responded as the Juggernaut gets closer without realizing their plan. "ой, сволочь!" (Oi, bastard!)

The Juggernaut quickly turns to behind him. Before he managed to aim his MG, the Juggernaut is thrown backward from Vicek's flying kick and laid upon the puddle of gasoline. Anchovy pulled her last flashbang out and threw it next to the Juggernaut. Anchovy and her teammates ducked down and hid behind covers.

*BANG-BLLUUUUUAAAAAAAARRRRMMMMM* "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKHHH!"

The high-pitched screams of the Juggernaut are heard. The team slowly peeks out from their cover to see that the Juggernaut is fully engulfed in flames. His body is shaking like a madman as he burned within his heavy ballistic suit. Anchovy was pretty horrified to watch this, but at least she managed to kill the heavy bastard.

His pitching screams slowly become groans as they waited for merely 10 seconds. He burned until he shook no more and become cooked flesh inside. As they watched the dead Juggernaut's body still burning, Vicek came to their side. Miho muttered a word to the dead bastard.

"Спокойной ночи, ублюдок."

(Nighty-night, ye' bastard)

The two girls then looked up to Vicek, who motioned his head towards the open door. "Let's go."

Vicek heads off first with Miho and Anchovy following behind. Anchovy took a last look at the dead juggernaut before leaving the area. They make a quick skip to reach the door and enter it. What they found beyond that door is like nothing they ever see. There were about 15 generators in the room, and it's tremendous for about 10 meters to the ceiling in height. From what she heard from Miho, the last time she used the portal, there were about three generators. Why there are many generators for three portals, they don't know, unless it took more energy to run them all together.

They looked around for a moment as Vicek grinned. "Jackpot. The generators."

"Let's strap some explosives then," Miho then looked at Anchovy. "Anchovy, got the detonator?"

"It's right-" Anchovy paused in surprise as her hand is in her pouch of her vest. "Here…"

Anchovy looks down to her vest, to a part that she didn't realize to get shot at. Her eyes quickly darken to discovered that the pouch where she stored the detonator had a hole in it. She slowly pulls out the detonator and looks over it. All the while, her teammates are preparing the explosives, she slowly shows the horror on the detonator.

The detonator was shot from a 7.62 bullet, in the middle of the device.

Anchovy looks back to her teammates while the detonator she held in the air. "We have a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Vicek asked her, still preparing the explosives.

"A detonating problem."

Miho and Vicek both stop at what they are doing at immediately look back at Anchovy. Vicek and Miho then immediately walk over to Anchovy. Anchovy gave the detonator to Miho to give a quick look. Miho actually turned sour to see it.

"Bollocks, this is a problem," Miho then turns to Vicek. "And we didn't bring any time bomb."

"Did we bring any extra detonator?" Anchovy asked.

"No, we didn't," Vicek then reached his radio. "Price, it's Vicek. Do any of you have a detonator?"

"What?" Price responded in surprise. "No, we don't. I thought you have the detonator."

"The detonator's busted," Miho replied, as she dumped the broken device into her pocket. "Got hit by a bullet."

"Damn it," Price swore as he was heard receiving gunfire on his end. "And we didn't bring any time bomb. That means…"

Anchovy sees that Vicek and Miho are staring at each other at that moment. Anchovy doesn't like that much.

"That means what?" Anchovy's question is left unanswered but began to aware of her teammates' dreadful expression.

They are silent for the past 10 seconds before Anchovy asked again. "That means what, Miho?!"

Miho and Vicek stare straight at Anchovy, their eyes remained dark.

Miho dared to answer it.

"That means one of us needs to stay behind."

…

…

…

One needs to be left behind.

Anchovy slowly opens her mouth in shock. "A-are you serious?"

Instead of answering the question, Miho and Vicek return to stare at each other again. The kind of look that made Anchovy unnerved. As if they're playing rock, paper, and scissor with their life as the bet.

Vicek looked up to Miho with a stern face. "I'll do it."

"What!?" Anchovy and Miho are shocked by his answer.

"The bloody hell you're talking about?!" Miho asked him worriedly. "We're not leaving you here!"

"Someone needs to finish this job," Vicek responded. "Just give me the order."

"That's not happening, Vicek," Miho quickly replied. "Let me do it."

"And let you kill yourself while blowing up this complex?" Vicek retorted back. "You're our commanding officer, and I can't let you do something that is out of your line at this moment."

"And you are my bloody man!" Miho retorted back. "I'm not going to let you do this!"

"Are sure this is what you want!?" Vicek asked her back. "You blow yourself up here, so your family can grieve you and miss your chance to kill Makarov!?"

Both Miho and Anchovy deadpanned at him. Never one of her men ever asks that question directed at her. But, there's some logic in his question. Anchovy never wanted to lose her lover due to this crisis. Second, Miho swore vengeance, swore to kill Makarov by her own hands. For this moment, not everyone can get out of this. Anchovy never said a word in this conversation, afraid of it only worsens the conversation.

"You gave me something to believe in, Captain," Vicek assured her. "You gave us hope back when the war waged over nations. When we were disavowed by the nations, you didn't stop and keep struggling to create peace, end the bastard's atrocity, show the truth of our history, and end the war altogether. If it wasn't for you and your friends, my loyalist brothers would still be hiding in the dark, hunted down by their own nation and their people. You gave us freedom, peace, and order when you had to do the dirty work that anyone thought was impossible. But I know this; you didn't ask for this to happen to you, you didn't want this. But you got through. You still have a long way to go now, because you have discovered life. A life that you found aside from the wars you fought. I don't want you to take your life away after you found the life you need, and you still don't know the full meaning of it. All I need from you is an order."

Anchovy looks at Miho; she could feel Miho doubted this moment because she cares about Vicek and Anchovy altogether. Miho conflicted to chose her life or his. A single soul mattered for her, just like the others. But she sighed in defeat, as she looked up to him through his eyes.

"Alright, you won."

Miho gives the broken detonator to Vicek, reluctantly.

"Arm the explosives. Make sure you didn't miss any of them."

Vicek gives a small smile and a quick nod.

"Да, капитан. Я буду работать над этим."

(Yes, Captain. I'll work on it.)

They both nodded at each other before Vicek adds again. "You got 5 minutes."

"Understood," Miho nodded again. "Godspeed, comrade."

Vicek pounds his chest twice with his right hand. "Godspeed, Captain."

Vicek then headed off for the explosives. Miho and Anchovy watched his leave for a moment before looking at each other and began to leave the area. It's such a short time, but enough for them to leave. Now, Anchovy and her team need to be quick to get off the area.

"All units on this net," Miho radioed in. "Sierra 6 is about to detonate the generators; it will create a chain reaction throughout the complex. Evacuate the area immediately. We have 5 minutes to bug out. I say again, Evacuate the area immediately. We have 5 minutes until detonation."

"Copy that, 5 minutes until detonation," Kremlin 4-1 replied. "We're exfiltrating from the area now, out."

"Mosin 2-5," Miho called on the radio. "Do you read?"

"We read you, Sierra 1," Mosin 2-5 replied. "What do you need, priyom?"

"2-5, we are heading for the roof of Tear Building," Miho radioed in. "Requesting armed extraction off the building, priyom."

"Roger, Sierra 1," Mosin 2-5 radioed back. "Be quick before the detonation starts."

"Copy that," Miho then changes the channel. "Price, fall back. We're bugging out from here."

"Affirmative, we're on our way!" Price radioed back. "Kay, Yuri! Suppress and fall back!"

"Ok, Cap!" Kay heard on the radio. "Come on; you dick nuggets!"

"What did you just say, Kay?!" Erika heard on the radio with disgust.

"Nothing!"

Miho and Anchovy made their way out of the basement and went upstairs. They then climb themselves up the catwalk. They followed the catwalk and met up with the rest of the team, who is currently suppressing the door they just went through. Nikolai suppressed through door blindly for the moment before Maho announced and threw a grenade in. Price and Yuri quickly shut the metal door and bar it up.

*BUARM*

Kay looks up to Anchovy and Miho. "Vicek's staying?"

"I'm afraid so," Anchovy sorrowfully replied with a nod, the rest frowned of the answer.

"Chyort, I really like him," Nikolai sourly commented.

"I wish we had another choice," Price added with a frown. "But if that's what he wanted, I have no room to argue for that."

Maho nodded in consent before looking back at the barred door. "I wish him alright, but now, we need to go."

"Let's go then," Miho nodded to them before they left for the catwalk on the left from the door.

They left the catwalk after entering a door that leads them to blocks of wiring workshop. The girls take the opening ahead while the men take the path to the right. They move with haste, understand that they have less than 5 minutes to leave the premises. They have two levels left to reach the rooftop, and time is the essence. They move through each of the workshops; they encountered resistance when they almost reach the door ahead.

Anchovy and the girls had no problem to deal hostiles on their side. Kay, Maho, and Miho do the suppressing fire that caught some of the bastards killed from bullets going through the cover. Anchovy and Erika scored direct shots on three hostiles that have their heads and chest exposed. They a grenade blast coming from the men on their right flank, the men got out unscathed.

They enter the door and run upstairs. One level left for them to reach the rooftop. Less than three minutes before the detonation. They are entering an empty hallway, save for the overturned desks that are left dusted. Hostiles are encountered there as well. But they were immediately mowed down since they came in a while running while the team already aimed at them. The team is also moving and make sure that they stick to the walls to avoid getting shot in the middle of the corridor. They paced fast, and none of them even stumbled.

Less than two minutes left.

They make it to the end of the corridor and enter the door ahead as Price and Yuri guard the corridor on the left. Anchovy and the team climb up the stairs once more, and they meet with the last door. Maho shoots the hinges off and kicks it open. Kay and Maho exited first before Anchovy and the rest. Now, they are on the rooftops, decorated with air vents, exhaust fans, and generators. To make things better, they face hostiles on the roofs.

Anchovy and Miho took cover behind a generator as the team returned fire from their perspective covers. While the shootout ensues, Mosin 2-5 happened to fly over the roof.

"Sierra 1 to Mosin 2-5," Mosin replied. "We see you; the LZ is still hot. We need you to take them out first. We'll provide air cover."

True to 2-5's word, the friendly hind send MG fire to the hostiles suppressing Anchovy's team extraction. Although an RPG flew past the hind. Anchovy targets the RPG unit first before dealing with the infantry. One minute left, and the roof is almost transparent.

Mosin 2-5 managed to clear out nearly the rest of them with the MG. Miho and Nikolai got the last bastards shooting on the far side of the roof. To see that the area is clear, they proceed to the LZ beyond the generators and the like.

"LZ is clear, landing now," Mosin 2-5 replied as the hind slowly descent to the roof.

When the hind touched down, Miho opens its side door, and the team began to enter the hind. Anchovy was the last to board the hind, and instead, she sits on the floor of the chopper since she wanted to inspect her wound. The team, except Miho, didn't notice that until she sits on the floor.

"Yuri, help me," Miho said as she and he come over to Anchovy and check the wound under Anchovy's vest.

"How is it?" Anchovy asked as she felt the pain in her stomach, albeit from all the fight.

"A bit bad, I guess," Yuri replied as he sees the wound. "But, you'll be fine from this wound."

"Here's the band-aid," Miho gave the band-aid to Yuri and began to tend Anchovy's wound.

The hind is now flying afar from the hostile complex. Allied ground and air forces are seen from afar, and they are away in the safe zone. Now their eyes are trained on the hostile complex from the side door. Anchovy, of course, frowned that Vicek stayed behind to blow the complex.

"All units, this is Sierra 6. Detonating the explosives in 5."

Everyone stayed still as their eyes trained on the complex.

"4. 3. 2. 1…"

"See you on the other side."

*BUUUUUUUUUAAAAAARRRRRRRRR*

Anchovy shields her eyes from the blast. The explosion is enormous that it nearly resembles the bomb back in the Middle East. Except that this explosion wasn't from a nuclear bomb. The team is in the safe zone, so their extraction won't be affected. But, oh boy, how massive the explosion was.

The blast caught the whole factory complex in its flames and leveled the whole place to the ground. Noticeably, the complex was blown hard, its buildings sunk into the earth along with bits of the mountain with it. The bright blast lasted for about 10 seconds before the bright light dissipates. The only thing they see now is only a massive crater in the distance.

Vicek died in that blast, and it saddened Anchovy and the team.

Anchovy looks up to Miho, who kept her eyes at the large crater. Blank, broken eyes as if she just lost a part of her life. She didn't even mutter a word. Anchovy swears that Miho is actually crying right now.

But Miho never let her see no tears.


	68. Chapter 64 - Dust To Dust

Mission Briefing

Task Force 141

 **TV NEWS symbol is shown**

American News Reporter: We cross now to the Rose Garden, where the President is holding a press conference with Russian Premier, Vorshevsky, to formally announce an end to the hostilities.

 **Showing images of the New York's damage Harbor.**

 **Sunken ships and Liberty Statue are visible.**

U.S. President: On this historic day, the representatives of two great nations stand before you united...

 **Showing aftermath images of Hamburg and Berlin after the Russian invasion.**

Price: There's a simplicity to war. Attacking is the only secret. Dare, and the world yields.

U.S. President: ...a new chapter in which we pursue peace...

 **Target statuses (Images):**

 **Volk: Neutralized. arrested in US government custody**

 **Waraabe: KIA. Assassinated by 141.**

 **Makarov: Alive. Armed and dangerous. Not found.**

Price: How quickly they forget that all it takes to change the course of history – is the will of a single man.

U.S. President: ...our very existence...

 **News received from MI6:**

 **Ultranationalists' portals on the other side successfully destroyed.**

 **Blueprints of the portal have been confiscated and dated for its' destruction.**

1960 Japanese Broadcast: …as the tense between US and Russia government is rising, they have yet to investigate whether the "Russian Threat" in Wakayama, Japan is whether a declaration of war from the Russian government or ideological fanaticism committed by Russian extremists. And not even help with the fact to wonder of what ties these "Russians" have with the so-called 141. The Japanese government, along with Russia and NATO nations, have not given any testament related to this threat, as every Japanese citizen and international officials are anxious about what result will occur from this incident. In other news, the police raise a question on whoever left notes full apologies on the deceased Russian threats…

 **Locations/operations where Makarov was involved but not found, or escaped from:**

 **India, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Prague, Siberia, and 1960 Japan.**

 **Makarov's captured/surrendered men have been interrogated.**

 **Makarov has escaped.**

 **He had retreated before the 141 could destroy the portal. He has escaped from Miho's world.**

 **His plans for his terrorist cell remains in motion.**

 **Incoming audio call…**

 ***Brrrrrrrrt***

 **Call received…**

Makarov: Who is this?

Price: Prisoner 6-2-7. I'm coming for you, Makarov.

Makarov: Haven't you heard, Price? They say the war is over.

Price: My war ends with you.

 **Soap's belongings are pinned next to the Siberia part of the map with a picture of Alena.**

Makarov: Like it ended for Captain MacTavish? Tell me, Price. How long did it take him to die?

 **New info from an interrogation…**

 **Target located**

 **Makarov's location:**

 **Hotel Oasis, Arabian Peninsula**

Makarov: Even with the portals destroyed, you accomplished all for naught. We will not stop. I've destroyed your world piece by piece. It's only a matter of time until I find you.

Price: You won't have to look far...

Miho: Because we already found you.

* * *

"Step out of the vehicle!"

"You sure this armor will protect them?"

"It'll buy us time. Nikolai, are you patch into their system?"

"We're going to open fire!"

"Working on it, my Arabic's a little rusty. How are you doing on your end, Ghost?"

"It's like I'm reading vomited words than accessing their system."

 **Dust to Dust**

 **May 7** **th,** **2017 – 22:14:53**

 **Captain Miho "Banshee" Nishizumi**

 **Task Force 141**

 **Outside Hotel Oasis, Arabian Peninsula**

"Fire!"

Bullets are coming from the other side of the door of their truck. Their shots are concentrated in the middle of the holed door. Despite the unwelcoming greeting, they found the hiding bastard at last. It's time for her vengeance to come true.

But, not only Price and Yuri are with her. Her whole family is here too. Her sister and her mother, along with Kay, are present in the truck. Shiho is wearing Juggernaut suit, and Miho is also wearing one too. And they're sitting close to the door because those two have armor to avoid anyone else inside getting shot. The other girls wear plate carriers while the men wear chest rigs.

Why her family got involved in this as well? Well, because Makarov is dealing with Miho, that means an issue for the family.

Now putting that aside, the door is rained with bullets at the moment. The team who are not wearing the Juggernaut duck their heads down next to Miho and Shiho. Shiho seems pretty calm despite that she's not in her helmet yet. Only a bit surprised by the enemy greeting.

And yet, they picked a strategic spot to start an assault. One long road in the middle of two large ponds belonging to the Hotel Oasis. Which means they got their six covered, and they only need to worry about enemies coming from their front.

"Looks like they know we're here," Yuri remarked.

"No shit, Yuri," Kay responded with a sigh. "Load up."

"I can't believe all of you are coming along," Miho stated, still in disbelieve.

"Because your problem has become ours now," Maho replied as she cocked her gun. "That's what family are for, Miho."

"That doesn't mean I want you to go face-to-face to Makarov with me."

"Someone needs to look after you, Miho," Shiho added in agreement. "The last thing I expect is to see Anchovy worrying too much about you."

"Well…" Miho gave a quick sigh. "You got me there."

"So…" Price paused, ignoring the bullets flying through their door. "What you're going to do with Anchovy once this is all over?"

"Take a trip to London, maybe," Miho shrugged, not bothered by the barraging bullets. "Or to Novosibirsk like what Klara suggested. Or just continue dating her."

"Sounds good enough for me," Yuri nodded, then he loads a GL to his M4A1.

"Nikolai, are you in?" Maho asked on the radio.

"I've tapped into the security feed," the feed shows on Miho's helmet, and there she sees it, Makarov is in the atrium looking around to escape. "Makarov's in the atrium of the top floor."

"And be advised, you got around 5+ hostiles outside the truck," Ghost added.

"Copy that, Ghost," Shiho replied before she grabbed her MK48, and then her helmet and put it on her lap.

Miho looked at Price with a nod. "This is it, Makarov doesn't leave here alive."

Everyone began to load up despite the gunfire. Miho lazily grabs her MG4 German-made MG and pulls the bolt to cock it. Kay and Maho prepped their ACRs and M9 Beretta pistols. Yuri loads his PKP MG, and Price loads his M4A1. Shiho simply wears her helmet and knocks it to make sure it's okay.

"Get ready," Price announced.

Miho has her MG4 in her hands then looked up to Kay. "This is for the people in Wakayama."

Maho adds. "For our friends and our family."

"For the people of London," Miho then looked at her mother.

Shiho adds in. "For Vicek," they all then glance at Price.

Once the bullet barrage stopped Price answers. "For Soap."

Five seconds of silence occurred before Price looked up to Miho. "For Soap."

(Arabian Endgame)

They all stood up, face at the door. At in cue, Shiho jumps through the door as the rest followed.

*BUAM*

Oh, how surprised the bastards are.

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

The underdress security-bribed mercenaries returned fire desperately as the team, especially those in Juggernauts, mowed them down in less than 5 seconds. Miho finishes off the last two hostiles on the far end of the cars. She heard Kay and Maho managed to kill one hiding behind the engine block. Miho, Shiho, and the team began to advance as they walk into the left clearing of the road. The way to the hotel is long on this single road, but they slowly make progress.

"We've got their attention. The second wave of responders will be coming any moment," Price stated as they about to pass the first empty SUV.

"A loud attention," Miho then noticed on her right, hiding behind the SUV next to Shiho. "Mother, your right."

Shiho took her daughter's word and looked to her right. Hostile security was about to spring out behind the SUV. Shiho quickly swings and hits his chest by the stock of her MG; she then riddled him with bullets. They continue onwards.

"Thanks for the heads up," Shiho gladly said.

"You're welcome," Miho responded.

"That's a big hotel…" Maho commented in her astonished tone, looking at the tall and large hotel ahead and beyond.

"Can't say they accept collateral damage," Yuri added on the radio.

"I agree with Yuri," Kay added in consent. "I hope we don't have to pay for the damages."

"Two hostile SUVs inbound to your position," Ghost radioed, as in cue, the said SUVs with sirens on are coming toward them from the front.

"Here they come right on schedule," Price said as the team stood behind each armored woman in a column and have their weapons aimed at the braking SUVs while advancing slowly. "Shoot the cars!"

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

Miho's and Shiho's MG fires suppressed the team's weapons' sounds. The first SUV is quickly riddled with bullets as the hostile guards inside either killed or barely escaped the riddled car. It didn't take too long for them to set the car on fire and eventually to blow it up, which killed the surviving hostile near it. Miho and the team then move around it only to receive gunfire from the second SUV.

"Alright, dumbass, who's next!?" Kay taunted, unconsciously pissed.

"We're not there yet, Kay," Shiho responded calmly to her retort.

"Makarov's got a small army in there," Nikolai radioed, a tone of surprise is heard.

"It won't help him," Price assured while firing. "Take control of the lifts so he can't escape."

"I'm on it."

"He won't get away," Miho grunted angrily. "Not this time."

Miho and Shiho are the only people who took most of the gunfire while their teammates remain unscathed. Miho grunted after what she received at least more than a dozen rounds of a bullet before she returned fire. Miho, Maho, and Priced stayed stationary on the left flank to give suppression as Shiho and the other advance from the right flank. They immediately mowed down four hostiles who're shooting outside the second SUV. Miho reloads her MG4 as she noticed they barely set the second SUV on fire.

Upon finishing her reload on the MG4, a bullet scratched her helmet and caught her off-guard.

"Oh, boll-," Miho found out that was from hostiles shooting on the far end of this road-bridge, around the fountain in the intersection. "Oh, trying to shoot my head off?"

"Nearly took mine," Maho added, unamusingly as Miho receiving small arms fire to her armor. "Returning fire."

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

"Miho, be advised. Two additional hostile SUVs are coming up to you," Ghost radioed in. "Left and right of the road."

"Copy," Miho began to advance after Shiho and the teammates halt next to the SUV. "Maho, Yuri, ready the grenades."

"GL ready." – Yuri

"Ja." – Maho

Once Miho and her teammates reached where Shiho and the others stopped at, one SUV's each pops out from left and right. Eventually braking and blocking the left and right roads. Miho and Shiho quickly riddled the occupied SUVs with MG bullets, killing two each as the team suppressed hostiles around the fountain from behind.

"Don't let up!" Price stated as they returned fire, Maho ready with her grenade.

"Alright, hit the SUVs!" Miho loudly ordered as she grunts from the bullets she received.

"Throwing!" – Maho

"GL away!" – Yuri

Grenades are thrown and shot through the glasses of the SUVs.

*BLAR-BLUAR*

Those who covered behind the SUVs are caught off-guard and blown away by the exploded cars. Miho, Shiho, and the team slowly advance with no trouble. Before they reached the fountain, they found another simple problem.

"RPGs! Second floor!" Yuri warned on the radio, as they barely avoided the RPGs by ducking.

"RPGs?! In a good looking hotel!?" Kay irritatingly asked. "What kind of security guards to invest their weaponry with rockets!?"

"Sounds like former OPFOR," Ghost radioed in, remembered that they're in Arab after its conflict. "Cheeky bastards."

"Don't worry, lads," Price assured them. "They don't know how to use them quickly properly."

"And the rockets can't even fly straight," Shiho added to Price's assurance, the grunted from incoming bullets. "Grkh, oh you-"

"Oh, they can shoot straight," Maho added again under fire. "Just not straight at us."

"Can't be more ironic than that," Yuri agreed.

Once reaching the fountain, Miho, Price, and Maho split off from the rest to walk around the fountain. They mostly ignore the RPGs on the second floor and focus on the hostiles covering behind the cars. Her MG4 bullets didn't tear through cars, due to the fact it's the 5.56 calibers she is using. But it's enough to freak the hostiles out of cover to eventually killing them or giving the shot for her teammates. The hostiles on the ground are all but wiped out; the RPG units retreated from the second-floor windows.

"Ground floor clear!" Shiho announced.

"RPG units have fallen back!" Maho announced.

"That's a good sign," Miho sighed as they move up.

When they nearly reached the hotel front door, a lot of people come out from there in fear and panic as Yuri warned them. "Civilians coming out. Watch your fire."

"Nikolai, where's Makarov?" Price radioed as the crowd is clearing off from the hotel entrance.

"Still in the atrium, but he's on the move!" a video feed is shown on Miho's helmet, Makarov is seen moving from the atrium, armed with AK47.

"Don't lose him! We're almost there!"

They entered the entrance that leads them to a reception room—one escalator each at the desk's both sides. Shiho, Yuri, and Kay take the left escalator as Miho, and the rest take a right. They then quickly receive gunfire.

"Hostiles by the escalator!" Yuri radioed as Miho took for about 13 more rounds to her armor.

"Gdh!" Miho grunted as she returns fire at hostiles running down her side of the escalator, they, unfortunately, mowed to death before reaching the bottom. "Good to see we're not the only ones who are overdressed."

"They packed a lot of firepower for a small army," Kay commented, strained by gunfire. "Wonder how we managed so far as six people against all of them."

"Shiho, Miho, up the escalators!" Price ordered as he and the teammates are firing from the reception desk. "We'll cover from here."

"On it, Price," Shiho responded, Miho and her mother began their climb as they received gunfire from the second floor.

"Hostiles shooting near the escalators, second floor!" Maho shouted as Kay managed to kill one in the head.

"Got him!"

Miho managed to riddled two hostiles, on at the top of the escalator, and another on Shiho's escalator. "Got you covered."

Yuri suppressed the hostiles near the plant pots, ended up killing the last two of them between the top escalators, one of them fell over the concrete fence and dropped down the fountain display. "Alright, it's clear, moving up."

"Nikolai, we need controls of those lifts!" Price stated is Miho and Shiho reached the top.

"I've almost got it!" Nikolai radioed. "Ghost, talk to me!"

"Accessing internal control systems now."

"Good," Price radioed. "Push forward."

Shiho and Miho walked off the escalators and carefully open fire upfront. Some civilians are running away from the security guards just in time before both of them opened fire. After killing two guards near the gateway, a civilian comes out next to the gateway to escape. But she was caught in the crossfire was shot in the thigh. Thankfully, the civilian is still alive, but she screams in agony.

"You monster!" Shiho screamed as she quickly walked forward and stood in front of the injured civilian.

Miho stopped next to Shiho and assisted her to suppress the gateway and to clear her right flank. "Price, we got a civilian caught in the crossfire. We need help!"

"I got her!" Maho shows up in time, along with the members. "Moving the civilian to safety!"

"Suppressing fire!" Kay announced, killing two hostiles beyond the gateway. "Damn, immoral guards!"

"They're pinned down!" Yuri responded, then looked at Maho and the civilian near the left pillar. "She's good?"

"The civilian's safe!" Maho then cocks her ACR. "Move up!"

"Work it, Miho!" Yuri said as he fired next to Miho's Hip.

"Working!" Miho and Shiho take the lead as the team members advance behind the armored women.

"Got it," Ghost radioed in. "Nikolai."

"Okay, we've got control of the elevators. Sending them down to your floor."

"Good job, comrade," Miho praised him, grinning under her heavy helmet.

They able to breakthrough the gateway and reached the main exhibition room via 'Pirate Ship' formation. Pretty much effective using Juggernaut armor. The last four desperate hostile guards are shooting with what they have near the elevators. They poured in a lot of bullets that hit two guards on each corner walls. And they managed to kill the last two covering behind a thin turned-over table.

"Clear!" Shiho loudly announced. "To the elevators."

A blinking sound is heard upon almost reaching the elevator. Four civilians run off the elevator and immediately duck down to the corners of the room. They are panic at first to see Miho and her team armed, but slowly calm down to know that they're covering the civilians.

"The lift's up ahead," Price stated to Miho. "It's your stop."

Shiho enters the elevator while watching her six, but Miho halts for a moment. "Are you sure about this?"

"Don't worry," Yuri assured her from his cover of a gateway. "We got this."

"We'll catch up after we secured this floor along with rest," Kay added with a nod.

"Just make sure he won't live to see another day," Maho then shrugged her rifle. "We'll make sure to clear them off your backs."

"Alright then," Miho nodded back. "Good luck, lads."

Everyone nodded back with a smile before Miho enters the elevator. Her mother gave a quick nod at Miho before she hits the button to the top floor with the stock of her MG. Apparently, the lift is having technical issues for the moment as it is jammed. They turned around and saw the scenery of the ocean and the small from the elevator. The walls of the elevator are fitted with glass, which means they need to avoid falling off the lift.

After 3 seconds of scenery, they both then dump their nearly empty MG mag and load it with a fresh one.

"Mother," Miho called as they lazily reload their MGs. "How are you holding up there?"

"To be honest?" Shiho replied, looking at her for a moment. "I'm too old for this. You?"

Miho smirked while reloading. "I'm too young for this."

Shiho chuckled as she finishes reloading. "Says the girl who joined the military earlier."

"And that's coming from a mother who kicked her daughter out for disinheritance because she did a good deed," Miho shot back flatly.

They looked at each other for a moment. Their eyes met each other for a moment. But then they chuckled together. They then looked away toward the scenery.

"And yet, here we are," Shiho shrugged and shook her head. "Making our own history together."

"And it's a good one," Miho finishes her reloading as well. "For our family."

Shiho smiled at her. "For our loved ones."

They then looked straight forward as the elevator prepare its ascend to the top floor.

"Makarov's moved to the restaurant, same floor!" Nikolai radioed as the feed showed in their helmets. "He's got a large security detail with him!"

"How many are we talking about?" Shiho asked in the radio; the lift began to ascend slowly.

"40 plus foot mobiles! SMGs and Assault rifles."

"Huh," Miho only shrugged. "We'll be fine."

Shiho shook her head. "Sometimes, your optimism worries me."

"Nikolai, we got aircraft inbound," Ghost radioed in, much to the ladies' annoyance.

"Enemy choppers closing in your position," Nikolai radioed as they both saw two little birds coming out from their left.

They looked at the two incoming choppers, to which the choppers split up.

"One's heading for the roof," Miho stated. "It must be Makarov's evac."

And the other chopper is facing straight at Shiho and Miho. And that chopper is bear to arms.

The chopper sends to rockets at them, which it misses to their left. "Bastard, shoot it down!" Miho ordered.

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

*DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA*

Shiho and Miho didn't stop firing at the chopper. Most of their shots hit the chopper. It's surprising to see it still in the air. The chopper flies down and up to dodge their bullets. As it try to return fire from its minigun.

"Don't stop shooting!" Miho screamed as they kept firing their MGs non-stop.

They have spent more than half of their mag to shoot the chopper down. The enemy chopper then stays afloat in front of the moving elevator and returns fire. But the chopper's blade rotor is beginning to burn as the shooting ensues. Miho aims down the sight and keeps focusing on shooting the bloody chopper.

*BAM*

The chopper's engine blown, and it circles in the air on the spot.

"Nice job!" Shiho compliments as they both stopped firing.

But that praise was short-lived when the burning chopper's circling on the spot and immediately flying straight at their lift.

Miho's eyes went wide. "WATCH OUT!"

"Oh ku-!"

*BLAAR*

The chopper explodes upon impact to their elevator. Resulting in the elevator to be destroyed and burned as well. Miho and Shiho, on the other hand, thrown away by the impact and had their backs against the elevator doors. Miho falls to the floor nearly unconscious as both of their armors burned from the explosion. Shiho managed to stand, but she immediately groaned in pain from her burning armor.

The bloody impact felt like that time back in Prague's church tower.

Shiho quickly forced her helmet open and strapped off her front armor, which burns the most. She was lucky to be quick, or else she is cooked in that armor. Shiho quickly walks over to her daughter and releases her helmet off. Miho is currently trying to stay awake from that explosion. Her head is swimming harder than it should.

"Our armor shredded!" Shiho radioed, as she throws away Miho's helmet and then undone her shredded armor. "Kuso!"

"What happened?" Ghost radioed in.

"The chopper crashed our lift!" Shiho responded as she is immediately undone her daughter's shredded armor with little difficulty.

Miho blinks again and sees that Shiho managed to get rid of the last part of her shredded armor off from Miho. Miho took a couple of deep breathes for a moment before looking up to her mother.

"Miho, you okay?" Shiho worriedly asked, holding her daughter's cheeks.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Miho replied in her dry tone before Shiho lifts her to her feet.

"Good," Shiho nodded with a smile before reaching her earpiece, the other hand holding her M240. "Nikolai, we need another lift."

"Copy, on its way."

*CREAAAK-DUANG*

They both stumbled but managed to stay still as the broken lift shook violently. The lift they're in is about to snap and fall. Both of them feel the adrenaline rushing in their veins. They looked to their left to see another intact lift arrived just in time.

"This won't hold much longer," Shiho then shoots the glass on the next elevator, and they run at it. "JUMP!"

They jumped off just in time, barely escaped the previous elevator that already snapped, and fell off to the very ground below. Shiho cracked through the glass and managed to land inside on her feet. Miho, on the other hand, holds on the very edge of the lift. Shiho quickly helps her to climb up inside and get her on her feet.

"Woah, that was close," Shiho commented in relief.

"I know," Miho looked down from that side. "Can't believe I lost my MG4 there."

"Do you have a backup gun?" Shiho asked as she covers next to the lift's door.

Miho then grabs a gun from her back, and she has a folded stock UMP 45 in her hands. "I do."

Miho then takes cover across her mother's side. With the Juggernaut armors shredded, Shiho is in her Light Assault Vest, whereas Miho is wearing her MOLLE Tactical Vest. Shiho still has her M240 and P226 pistol, while Miho has her UMP 45 and Glock 18 pistol. The only armor they still have after their suits shredded is the armor on their arms and legs.

As the lift ascends, Nikolai contacts them. "Makarov's chopper just touched down! He's heading there now!"

"He's not getting away!" Miho responded flatly.

"Be careful; they're setting up barricades."

Shiho lets her MG hanging and grabs one of her frags. The elevator began to slow its ascend as it almost reached the top. Their eyes both met as the adrenaline in their veins starting to rush in.

"You ready?" Miho asked wearily.

Shiho only nods. "Let's do this."

The lift finally reached the top and stopped its ascend. Both of the ladies readied themselves, one with her UMP and one with her frag. Shiho reacted first when the doors began to open.

"Grenade out!"

They both stay covered for a moment.

*DUAR*

The frag killed two hostiles behind a turned-table. Shiho quickly rushes in and shoots while vaulting over the table. Miho followed quickly behind.

"Watch yourself, mother! Your armor is gone!" Miho warned as to make sure her mother didn't go reckless in Blitzkrieg mode.

As they chased and shot down the retreating Ultranationalists, Nikolai radioed in. "Multiple threats to your right."

They both covered behind a barricade of sofas and wooden furniture, as Miho replied. "Let's push in. We almost got him!"

"Contacts down this corridor!" Shiho warned. "Suppressing fire!"

"Bollocks!" Miho responded as she received gunfire through the barricade on her right. "Hostiles across us, on our right!"

The floor they're in is a triangular penthouse, since there is a triangular hole in the middle of this floor that reached to the ground floor. The fastest way through is following the path around the triangular hole, if they're willing to get flanked and shot from across the hole. The other is through the rooms, starting from the poker room on their progressive left. Shiho suppressed forward as Miho shoots over the barricade on their right to shoot the hostiles across the hole.

"Mother!" Miho called as she covered. "I'm heading to the room on our left; keep it covered!"

"Got it," Shiho nodded, before returning. "Go, I'll follow."

Miho ran to the poker room and dodged the bullets as she heard Shiho yells. "Frag out!"

Miho accidentally stumbles down behind the poker table and manages to hold her fire because civilians are running from the next room forward. "Oh, for Queen's sake."

*BUAR*

Miho was about to get up when two hostiles appeared behind the gateway pillars in the next room. She returned fire as the table covered her, killing one by his torso. She ducked down and quickly reloaded her SMG before returning fire at the other one. He got shot on his foot before getting shot to his shoulder and then his back of the head. Miho gets up to her feet as her mother entered the room from behind. They then advanced toward the next room, when they barely avoid gunfire coming from the gateway on their right before the next room. Shiho covered the right path by the gateway pillar.

"I got this!" Shiho fires her M240, suppressing the main waiting area next to the triangular hole. "Flank them!"

"Working on it!" Miho immediately runs to the next room, checking the left corner and right. "Come on! We won't let him escape!"

She shot a bastard on her right by shooting his back. She advanced to the next doorway ahead and covered behind a pillar. Shiho follows up from behind and covered at the doorway next to Miho's. Shiho covered the hallway and the targets across the hole while Miho suppressed the main waiting room, before throwing a grenade into that room.

"Grenade!"

They both covered behind the pillars.

*DUAR*

Miho reloads and returns fire at the waiting room. "Hostiles behind the sofas, across of us."

Shiho shifted position to Miho's doorway and suppressed. "I see them."

"You're almost at the restaurant," Nikolai radioed to their relief.

"Affirmative," Miho looked at her mother. "Keep pushing. Give me a cover."

"Copy," Shiho responded with a nod, before peeking out. "Covering fire."

"Moving," Miho advanced and walked through the left opening as she returns fire from sofa to sofa.

Shiho's suppression managed to keep the hostiles crouching down behind the sofas. Miho's walk-and-gun managed to kill three hostiles behind the sofa before targeting those behind the doorway of the next room. Miho barely avoids and ignores bullets coming from the hallway next to that room, thanks to Shiho's suppression. Miho pinned an Ultranationalist in the right corner of the next room, before finally shooting his back. Miho followed her instinct; she swings her SMG to her left at that doorway, which hits an incoming hostile by his waist. Then she emptied her mag to him before quickly retracting to cover herself and reload her SMG.

They both able to move up and head straight for two different doorways. Shiho suppressed one facing the path next to the hole while Miho suppressed the diner area. Miho managed to kill two hostiles in the open near the table. She covers again, right when a grenade lands next to her feet.

"Shite!" Miho quickly snatched it and threw it back into the diner without looking. "Grenade!"

"Granata!"

*DUAR*

"Sod off ye' bastard!" Miho taunted as she reloads and returned fire at the hostiles.

Apparently, the grenade neutralized hostile hiding behind the counter table, which leaves two hostiles left behind the sofa in front of her and behind a 4-chaired table on her front left. When the enemy behind the sofa pops up, she sent three bullets to his chest before changing the target to the last one. She got the last one by the headshot.

"My side's clear!" Shiho announced before shifting to Miho.

"Bar's clear!" Miho sprints forward as Shiho followed behind. "Come on! Restaurant's this way!"

"He's still there!" Nikolai gladly radioed in. "You almost got him!"

They both traverse down the hallway to a side of the restaurant. They then receive gunfire from there through the hallway's glasses. The remaining Ultranationalists are retreating as they were seen shooting behind the counter and a small fence below the counter. Both of the ladies sprayed with what they have to the bastards before running through the restaurant's lobby.

Miho caught a glimpse of her target escaping.

"MAKAROV!" Miho angrily called and, therefore, sprayed her bullets forward without acknowledging she is under fire.

They marched forward, at which then Makarov's chopper shows up outside the floor they're in.

Miho watched the chopper changing the position to in front of them. "Watch out for the chopper!"

Before they could march on, Shiho was too late to warn her. "ROCKETS!"

*PWUSH-BUARM*

Rockets landed in front of her, and she's thrown back by the blast. But luckily, she didn't suffer any shrapnel. But the chopper continues to shoot its rockets that mostly level a part of the restaurant's floor. As that part of the floor is destroyed and burned, the chopper flew to the sides and kept sending rockets. Until one of the rockets destroyed a pillar closest to where Miho is, Miho shields her face to avoid the debris of the pillar at her.

The chopper then shifts position next to the floor as the floor she's lying on collapsed and tilted downwards to her left. It was at the degree where it was enough for her to slip down off the floor. Miho caught a glimpse of an Ultranationalist falling off from her right, rolling down the collapsed floor. Miho was quickly beginning to slip as she desperate to cling onto anything she can hang on to.

She slides, and as she was about to reach the edge of the floor, she quickly clings to the bent rebar at the broken window. One hand is enough to hang onto it. Her head looked down as her heart beats fast. She saw the Ultranationalist falling off to his death, along with her SMG and Shiho's M240 falling to the ground floor. Not one person could fall from the 27th floor and survived. She looks up to the rebar, let her other hand hang on it, before lifting herself to the floor.

She manages to climb back onto the floor and takes a deep breath. Note that the chopper has already made its way to its LZ. But then she heard a groan, a painful one. Miho quickly looks around her and saw it's coming from her left. What she saw would horrify her.

Her mother is thankfully lying on this collapsed floor alive. But she had suffered a fatal wound. Long rebar struck through her stomach, and she is bleeding bad. Shiho gasps for breath as she holds onto the bloodied rebar. Her body is in such frantic and hysteria, that could mean that she's in a state of panic. Shiho screamed in agony as she holds her fatal wound.

"Mother! MOTHER!" Miho unconsciously ran over to her and sat down beside her.

"Miho, go," Shiho weakly replied with a wave, as Miho panicked and frantically holding her wound. "Just… erg… go!"

"Mother…" Miho is at a loss of words, mortified of her wound. "I'll get you out of he-"

"Listen to me, Miho, listen to me," Shiho holds her cheek with her left hand as she gasps to hold the pain. "I'll be fine, Miho. I'll be fine… Y-you already come this far. You need to go. Don't let that monster escape… *gasp* Just… go…"

Miho only looks up at where he went, before looking down to her beloved mother's eyes—holding her soft hand that rubs her cheek. She nodded and gave a weak reply. "I love you."

Miho slowly stands up from her mother. All that's left for herself is only the rage in her heart.

Miho began to run forward as Nikolai radioed in. "Nikolai's heading for the roof!"

She ran around the corner and didn't worry about the ledge next to her. She vaulted over the collapsed vent and kept running forward.

"He's dead ahead! Keep running!"

She quickly climbs the stairs and makes a hard right turn towards the open door. She stops for one second to see where the bastard is. She saw the chopper, and Makarov is getting inside of it.

"He's going for the chopper! Run!"

Miho sprints towards the chopper as it began to take off. Makarov managed to get in and shut the door to his seat. The chopper takes off sideways towards the edge of the roof as Miho is getting close. Miho didn't fear to lose him; all she cared about Is getting her revenge. She only kept running as she reached the edge of the roof/helipad.

To reach the chopper, she climbs up the helipad's fence, and with all her might, flung herself at the escaping chopper. It is a matter of inches as her hands reached for the chopper. She didn't mind about dying. She only minds for killing the bastard. Her heart skips once, whether she reaches it or not.

She succeeded.

She uses both hands to hold onto the landing skids. She caught a glimpse of a towing hook underneath the chopper. She swings her legs forward before lifts herself up to the skid. Her left foot managed to get on the skid as her hands were still holding to it. She then looks up to the cockpit.

She climbed toward the cockpit when one of the two pilots looked at her way. He tries to kick her away, but Miho reflectively blocks his kick with her left arm. Miho quickly lifts herself steadily on the skid, on her feet, and countered him by a left jab to his face. His nose's bleeding and stunned by the counter. Before he got the time to recover, Miho grabbed his collar and threw him out of the chopper as she screams.  
"Bastard."

She turns her attention at the last pilot inside, who happened to look back at her with shock. She quickly climbs in when the pilot grabs for a weapon to his right side. When the pilot is about to aim a pistol at her, Miho reflectively blocks his arm with her left hand and forces it down to the dashboard. The trigger accidentally pulled and caused internal damage on the dashboard. Miho quickly pulls out her small tactical knife from her MOLLE vest and stabbed-side him in the throat. As the hostile pilot's agonized from the wound, Miho pushed him out of the cockpit to his plummeted death.

"GET! OUT!"

She quickly turns her attention to the dashboard, to which she realized it's already burning from that shot. She grabs the control stick and tries to control the chopper with all effort she had. Though it was all for naught while the chopper is spinning uncontrollably with the whole cockpit is about to burn. The spinning became faster, faster, faster, and faster, as she tried to pull the chopper up. The only she sees from inside the burning cockpit is that she's going to crash to the roof.

Real close.

The chopper makes its fall towards the roof. And Miho gives the last scream upon impact.

"GOD-BLOODY DAMMIIIII-!"

*BLLAAAAARR*

The next thing she knew, she blacked out.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

 _*DAG-DUG**DAG-DUG**DAG-DUG**DAG_ -DUG**DAG-DUG**DAG-DUG*

Miho gasps, her eyes open wide like the curtains have been roughly opened. She didn't know how she could wake herself up, aside from hearing her own warm, paced heartbeat. She found herself lying flat on the roof, to be specific, the glass ceiling of the roof. She weakly lifted her upper body and looked down through the glass ceiling. She saw the reflection of herself.

She saw herself panting for breath as she looked at her own brown eyes. Her beautiful face wounded on her left forehead above her scarred eye, and it's bleeding and drops blood upon her reflection. She had a tiring, but struggling expression, and noticed a small scar on her left cheek. And beyond that, glass was the path towards her deathbed, due to seeing the ground floor far below. She ignored the cracks she made on the glass for the moment and assured herself that she wouldn't fall, and the glass won't shatter.

Miho is still in such a daze and lost all of her energy and is wounded from the crash. But she manages to lift her head forward. In front of her was a Desert Eagle pistol, five feet away from her. And there is the crashed, burning chopper for another 7 feet from the pistol. Seeing the burning wreckage, she hoped that the bastard, Makarov, burned to death in there.

She was wrong.

Makarov had suddenly shown himself from behind the wreckage, alive and survived. Like Miho, he was in such a disseminating state and wounded from the crash. His left-hand pressures his stomach to hold his injury. What makes it different is that Miho is still lying on the floor, but Makarov managed to stay on his feet despite the dazing effect he had. They both looked at each other, through the eyes, one with rage and one with desperation and will of evil. They both then look back to the gun.

He's going for it.

The pair began their crawl toward the only weapon in front of them. Miho drags herself towards the gun, whereas Makarov only walks wearily at it. After two steps, Makarov kneeled to due to his stomach injury. Miho tries to hasten herself to reach the gun. But then Makarov stood up again and made his way towards the pistol. Miho was the first to reach the gun and held onto it. But before Miho could lift the Desert Eagle, Makarov stomps on her hand. Miho painfully recoiled, and as a result, the pistol dropped off from her hand, and Makarov takes the gun away from her. Miho becomes desperate of her defeat, as she unwillingly watched Makarov took the gun away.

And he aims it at her. Her eyes gazed with his, a sharp one. Makarov gives a small, vicious grin at her while Miho could only grit her teeth of her loss. He utters these words.

"Goodbye, Captain Nishizumi."

*DAR* "AAKH!"

Both of them caught off-guard, Makarov suddenly got shot on his back of the left shoulder. Makarov kneeled in pain as Miho tilts her body away to look to her right. To her shock, her mother came in just in time to shoot him as she held her wounded stomach with her left hand. But, Shiho steps closer to Makarov as she shoots him, but three of her shots missed narrowly. Makarov quickly recovers, and somehow, managed to gain a foot holding and shoot back at Shiho with his hasten one hand.

Miho's eyes went wide.

Makarov shot her mother, accurate even in his wounded state.

*DAR*

His first shot hits Shiho's right shoulder, the knockback of the Deagle completely disarm the mother's only pistol.

*DAR*

His second shot hits her in the stomach, which hits her previous wound from the rebar.

*DAR*

And the last shot hits her in the chest. It was right in the middle of her chest. Miho suddenly froze as Shiho gave her last look. Her eyes are sincere, a speck of fear shown on her open lips, and her soft cheeks wrinkled a bit from the pain.

As if it was her time.

Shiho fell on her back as Makarov watched her defeat. Her resolve has been worsened by her mother's defeat. She's been defeated by the same monster who killed the people of London, who killed Soap, and now… her mother. He stood and watch, making sure the mother didn't move. And he didn't realize what he caused to Miho.

The Banshee's eyes are burning of black.

She carefully lifts herself a little and prepares the only muscles she had in her limbs. Makarov turns his head and saw Miho is going for it. He could aim at her, but he didn't have the time to pull the trigger because Miho has tackled him, the bastard, down by hitting away his sidearm before forcing him down to the glass ceiling by his throat.

It's her chance.

She then punches his face, her knuckles hardened.

*BAK *BUK* *BAK*

Blood spewed from his mouth due to her jabs. Miho quickly noticed there's the steel cord with a tow hook on its end right above his head. That hook is attached to the downed burning chopper. She uses it as an advantage and quickly ties it around his neck. Once she's done, she dropped the hook for the moment, bang his head against the glass, and began to choke him very hard.

"AKH-AAKH-RAAAAAGKH-AAAKH!"

After his groans of agonizing strangulation, she holds the tow hook again that tied around his neck. She then lifts him and bashes him to the glass as hard as she can. She did this twice. She then lifts him once more, and this time she locks the tow hook within its rope.

She did this once in Tottori City. She's doing it again. And to the person that actually deserves it.

She lifts him up fully and then puts both hands on his shoulders. And she preached to him.

"Во имя Бога превыше всего, тебя отправят… в ад."

(In the name of God Above All, thy shall be sent… to hell.)

She pushed him down. Breaks through the glass ceiling.

And they screamed together.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK-HEGHUEK-!"

The bastard immediately hanged in the air, whereas Miho safely landed on the previous floor, and her legs sit through the broken fence of glass. Her back aches from the fall, and her head stunned from the impact. But she manages to regain consciousness and looked up. The hanging Makarov is still swinging about as his body twitches until the very last. She didn't smile, but she's glad that he is finally dead.

She crawls herself back from the fence, didn't mind the glittering glass all around her. She stopped, and finally comforts herself to sit with her legs retracted. Her arms rested on her knees as she looks up at the bastard she hanged. He twitches no more, and his corpse is slowly circling in the air.

Her mission…. Accomplished.

With him gone, all the burden she felt, all the hardships, and all her fear are gone. She won and finally made history for the world she knew. A history that the world will remember forever, for it holds hope, peace, and tranquility. She then looked down at the floor, with a sad expression on her face. She wished that she could've killed him sooner.

Her mind becomes empty after his death. And now she struggles to think of something she may have missed because she felt the ache in her heart. The ache became to grow painful as she struggled to remember what she missed. And she finally realized what it was, as her eyes widen in shock. Remembered the one she loved.

"Mother."

She turns over and slowly stands up with what's left of her stamina. And began her rush to the roof—adrenaline rushing and coursing through her veins and her head.

A fear she wished it's just a feeling.

* * *

*DAG-DUG*-*DAG-DUG*-*DAG-DUG*-*DAG-DUG*

The only sound she heard, which resonates throughout her ears, is only her own heartbeat. All of her adrenaline disappeared, along with her physical stamina. Pain courses throughout her body, as the bullet wounds were too much to take it made her numb. Either arms or legs didn't move, for she is tired to keep fighting. Her strained, raspy, agonizing breath acts as her lifeline. She stays awake; struggling was an understatement for her condition.

Her eyes softly gaze upon the dark night. Stars dwell the dark sky and shine their lights. More than a hundred, more than a thousand, clinging to each other up there. She swore, one of the constellation stars barely looked like her husband's face. It may have been just her imagination or might be her calling. The moon she barely sees, as it was on her peripheral vision.

She coughs, coughs of red blood. Blood keeps bleeding out from her mouth due to the wounds. Her vest soaked with dark blood, but the blood barely makes it to the ground. She weakly groans, her limbs went numb, and it's too numb for her to lift her head even if she wanted to. Her wounds are the only thing she felt, the foreboding pain.

It's been a long time for her to feel the fear. This fear of… dying. Her eyes are still staring at the sky and slowly blinks. Her eyes slowly filled with tears, and a tear of it climbs down her cheek. She opens her eyes again, gasped as she is weakly crying. She thought of nothing.

She slowly closed her eyes, unprepared for what's coming for her.

 _"Mother."_

A voice calls out for her.

 _"Mother!"_

Shiho slowly lifts open her eyes again, to focus her hearing.

"Mother!"

She recognized the voice.

"MOTHER!"

Her view suddenly obstructed. It's now replaced with a view of her own youngest daughter's face, despite the facial wound she had from the crashed chopper.

"Mother, do you hear me?" Miho looked over her mother's wound in haste. "Do you hear me?"

"Mi-Miho..?" Shiho's weak reply as Miho does her best to cover the wounds. "Is… that you..?"

"It's me, it's me," Miho assured her softly, before putting pressure on her wounds. "I got you."

"Did-" Shiho draw a strained breath. "Did you get him?"

"I got him," Miho holds her soft cheeks, looks at her with a nod. "I got the bastard. He's dead."

Shiho could barely chuckle and smile if not for her condition. But she could tell, she is about to faint. Miho caught up with that after noticing Shiho was about to close her eyes.

"No, no, no, stay with me, stay with me!" Miho holds the mother's cheeks, causing her to lift her eyes open again and looked straight to her daughter's. Miho sheds a tear. "Everything's going to be alright. You'll be alright. Please…"

"Miho…" Shiho trails for a moment, her breath is rough, shaken, and she cries weakly. "I'm… I'm scared..."

"It's alright," Miho softly assured her, her eyes glimmered as her small tears visibly climb down her cheek. "It's alright to be scared. I'm here…"

"I'm scared… of dying…" Shiho spoke again, traumatized. That made Miho to lifts her up and hug her close carefully.

"I know," Miho sniffed. She kissed her mother's forehead. "Don't worry; I'm here. Just hang in there.."

"Miho, Miho!" a voice called out from behind them.

Miho turns her head and saw her sister and the other three operators coming out from the door. But they are shocked by what they saw. And it induced horror for her eldest sister.

"Mother?!" Maho comes running, throwing away her weapon in the process. She reached them, circled, and kneel down to see the state of their mother. "M-my God… no…"

"My children…" Shiho stuttered, her body is visibly shaken from the pain. "I'm… sorry…"

"Please, don't…" Maho is nearly in tears; she puts the pressure on her covered wounds.

The rest ran over to them; Price is saddened by sight. "No…"

"Shiho-sama…" Kay left speechless to the bloodied mother.

Yuri kneels down next to them. "May God help us… Kay!"

"Nikolai, Ghost," Kay immediately radioed in the sadness in her tone. "Do you copy?"

"We hear you, over."

"Shiho-sama is down. I say again, Shiho-sama is down. She suffered a fatal injury, looks like she's about to faint. We need an immediate MEDEVAC on the roof!"

"Oh no," Ghost radioed in horror. "Copy, MEDEVAC is on the way. In less than three mikes."

"Make it quick! She doesn't have much time left!"

Miho and Maho gave a hopeful looked at Kay, before looking back to their wounded mother.

"I'm.. sorry," Shiho apologized weakly. "I…"

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay," Miho softly replied, holding her head softly as she kissed her forehead. "Say no more. We got you. Just stay with me."

Maho parted her lips, sorrowful of her mother, and she held her mother's hand and clenched tightly. "Everything will be fine, mother. I promise."

Shiho only looks up slowly to Miho faintly. "I… I love you."

"We know," Maho replied with a nod, holds the mother's soft hand with both hands. "We know. We love you too."

They only waited on the roof of the hotel. Ignoring the sound of police sirens in the distance below. Miho and Maho try their best to keep their mother awake while Price and Yuri try to tend Shiho's wound with what they got. Miho began to chant her prayer of "Hail Mary," as her mother listened for her comfort. Asking God for the help He could give.

Kay only stood there, concern, sorrowful, and anxious about Shiho's fate. Kay only turns her head to the horizon in front of her, a remarkable city of light filled the dark sky before the hotel. Kay sighed, then lifts her head to the sky, hoping for a star falling through the night sky. Never uttered a word along the process.

As they waited, only sounds of sirens and fire break the peace.

But the eternal flame of the wreckage grants its light and fills high in the dark sky within in this fateful day.


End file.
